The booking system for UK Indian restaurants.
Direct online bookings on your own website. No per-cover fees, no marketplace cut, and a smooth switch now that Quandoo has closed.
Around a 5-minute read.
Why Indian restaurants need direct bookings
Family meals, celebration dinners, group bookings of eight or more — these are the bookings Indian restaurants take most. They are also the bookings per-cover platforms tax most aggressively, because the per-head charge scales with every seat.
In the cities and towns we've visited so far, Quandoo kept coming up as the booking platform for Indian restaurants. Quandoo took its last new bookings on 30 September 2026, so every restaurant that relied on it needs a replacement.
For restaurants without any online booking, the alternative is not a competitor platform — it is the phone. Older diners still prefer to call. Younger diners increasingly do not, and a website without a booking widget loses them to the next restaurant on Google.
Built for the way Indian restaurants run
- 01. White-label widget on your own site. The booking flow stays on your domain, in your brand colours, with your restaurant name. No Quandoo or TheFork logo, no redirect to a marketplace.*
- 02. Group and private dining management on the Business tier (£129/month). Take larger parties through a dedicated flow with their own capacity and rules — handy for family celebrations and event hire.
- 03. Customer profiles with notes and preferences from the Professional tier (£89/month). Record dietary preferences, allergies, or regular orders against each customer so the front-of-house team has the context before the table even arrives.
- 04. Text reminders included on every tier — 200 on Starter, 400 on Professional, 1,200 on Business (pooled across all sites). Cuts no-shows on large group bookings without bolting on a third-party reminder service.
- 05. UK GDPR compliant, booking database in London. The restaurant owns its customer records, and export and erasure are one-click operations from the admin dashboard.
Seatly vs Quandoo vs phone-only
Quandoo has withdrawn its UK partner pricing pages, so its figures here are last-published rather than current — taken from the 21 January 2026 archive snapshot , the last capture before its closure announcement. Per-cover fees applied only to bookings made through Quandoo's marketplace; bookings via your own widget, Google, or social integrations were commission-free. Quandoo's separate terms also listed a £29 Basic tier and a £299 cancellation penalty that never appeared on the pricing page, and stated no VAT basis. Seatly's own figures are current.
| Seatly | Quandoo Pro | Phone only | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly subscription | £59 to £129 flat | £39 | £0 |
| Per-cover fee | £0 at every tier | £3.90 per Quandoo network cover | n/a |
| Setup fee | £0 | £249 | £0 |
| Contract | Monthly rolling, cancel anytime | Per individual agreement | n/a |
| Widget branding | Your brand by default | Quandoo-branded | n/a |
| Booking flow | Stays on your website | Redirects to Quandoo | n/a |
| Double-booking prevention | Atomic, slot-locked | Managed by Quandoo | Staff-dependent |
| Platform status | Still here | Closed: last new bookings 30 September 2026 | n/a |
The maths on a 100-cover Indian restaurant
An independent Indian restaurant that was on Quandoo Pro, taking 100 covers a month through Quandoo's network. Here is what that cost each month at Quandoo's last published rates, against Seatly Starter.
Quandoo Pro
£429
per month
Subscription: £39
100 network covers × £3.90: £390
Seatly Starter
£59
per month
Subscription: £59
Per-cover fees: £0
Annual difference at 100 covers
£4,440
A year at Quandoo's last published rates, against Seatly Starter.
Figures use Quandoo's last-published UK partner pricing (Pro tier), from the 21 January 2026 archive snapshot linked above — its live pricing pages are gone. Quandoo also charged a one-off £249 setup fee on Pro and £749 on Premium, plus a £299 cancellation penalty in its terms, none of which are included in the figures above. The 100-cover figure is illustrative; the more covers came through Quandoo's network, the wider the gap.
Comparing what to move to? The TCO calculator on the homepage prices the platforms still trading on your own cover numbers; Quandoo is not in it, as it has closed.
What you keep when you switch
- 01. Your customers. Every diner who books becomes a record in your database, not Quandoo's. Names, contact details, dietary preferences, booking history — yours to keep, export, or delete.
- 02. Your brand. The booking widget shows your colours and your restaurant name. No marketplace branding in the flow.*
- 03. Your traffic. The booking flow stays on your website. No redirect to a marketplace that lists three other Indian restaurants on the same page.
- 04. Your margins. Per-cover fees stop. Group bookings stop carrying a per-head tax. The savings compound every month.
When a marketplace platform is still the right choice
We are not trying to talk every Indian restaurant out of marketplace platforms. There are situations where the per-cover fee genuinely is marketing spend, not a tax:
- • City-centre lunch trade driven by app discovery — if you can prove a meaningful share of your weekday covers originate from a marketplace app rather than your own Google listing, the per-cover fee is acquiring customers you would otherwise miss.
- • Multi-site brands with central marketing where the marketplace funnels diners between sister venues. Independent venues rarely benefit from this.
For most UK independent Indian restaurants — especially the ones whose Quandoo bookings came mostly from people who Googled the restaurant name first — the maths does not work, and Quandoo has closed regardless.
Switching from Quandoo after the shutdown
- 01. Export your customer and booking history from Quandoo. If you have not already, request a full export from Quandoo support as soon as you can — Quandoo scheduled its website, app, and infrastructure for removal by 31 December 2026 — and keep it as a CSV for your own records.
- 02. Paste one line of code into your website. It goes in as a script tag on WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace (Core plan or higher) and custom-built sites, and as our hosted iframe on Wix.
- 03. Point your booking links at Seatly. Quandoo no longer takes new bookings, so replace any Google Business Profile, social or website link that pointed at it. Bookings made before 30 September with dining dates afterwards remain valid, and Quandoo has said it will forward their details to you directly.
We're onboarding our first cohort of UK independents one at a time. If you were on Quandoo and want help with the switch, get in touch and we will walk through it personally.
Common questions
- Does Seatly handle large family group bookings?
- Yes. The Business tier (£129/month) includes group and private dining management, which lets you take and manage larger party bookings with their own rules and capacity. Smaller groups are supported on every tier through the standard booking flow.
- Can we record customer dietary preferences and allergies?
- Yes. From the Professional tier (£89/month) upwards, every customer record has a notes and preferences field where staff can record dietary preferences, allergies, regular orders, or any other detail.
- Does the widget support multi-language menus?
- The widget is English-only. If a multi-language booking flow is essential, Seatly may not be the right fit today.
- How quickly can we be live now that Quandoo has closed?
- Embedding the widget on your existing website is a one-line script tag, usually done in under ten minutes. It goes in as a script tag on WordPress, Shopify, Squarespace (Core plan or higher) and custom-built sites, and as our hosted iframe on Wix. The longer step is getting your customer and booking history out of Quandoo, so ask its support team for an export as soon as you can.
- What happens to my Quandoo customer data?
- If you have not already, ask Quandoo's support team for a full customer and booking export as soon as you can. Quandoo stopped taking new bookings on 30 September 2026 and scheduled its website, app, and infrastructure for removal by 31 December 2026. Keep the export for your own records: Seatly does not import past bookings or customer lists, so your Seatly customer database starts from your first booking.
Looking at the wider market? The full Seatly vs Quandoo comparison covers the shutdown timeline, pricing maths, and migration plan in more detail.
Not an Indian restaurant? See our page for Mediterranean and Turkish restaurants or the page for independent UK restaurants . Our buyer's guide compares ten platforms against the same six criteria.
Ready to replace Quandoo?
We are onboarding UK independents into the first cohort now. Tell us about your venue and we will walk you through the move from Quandoo end-to-end.
* A note on Seatly branding. Seatly branding is optional and entirely your choice. A single toggle in your admin Settings controls whether a small "Powered by Seatly" line appears on your booking widget AND in confirmation, reminder, and cancellation emails. It is OFF by default on every tier, including Starter — nothing carries Seatly branding unless you switch it on. When you do, you receive a tier-matched discount on your subscription (£5/month on Starter, £10/month on Professional, £15/month on Business). You can turn it on at any time; switching it back off ends the discount at your next invoice and locks the toggle for 30 days, so the discount cannot be claimed and immediately reversed.
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