A free restaurant waitlist app that stays free
A full waitlist, free. Guests join by QR code, get a text when their table is ready, and your host stand runs on whatever phone is already in the apron.
- Every party, no monthly cap
- Guests join by QR code or link
- $0/mo forever, no end date
- No credit card to start
- Runs in any browser, no hardware
bavoli takes the opposite bet. The waitlist is full and uncapped: add every party, quote waits, seat from the floor plan, and guests get a text the moment their table is ready. It costs $0 a month with no end date and no credit card, and it comes with the rest of a real front-of-house system: unlimited reservations, floor plans, guest profiles, and staff accounts.
How it works
Add a party
Name, party size, contact. Two taps on the host phone.
Table's ready
One tap sends a text or an email. The guest knows instantly.
Seat and repeat
The floor plan shows what's open. Tap to seat, and the next party moves up.
Every free waitlist app, compared honestly
These are the real free offers as of July 2026, verified from each vendor's public pages. Caps and prices change, so check theirs before you commit.
The pattern to watch is the unit each one meters: texts, parties, or visits. Whatever the unit, the cap is set so that one good weekend pushes you into paying.
| App | What's free | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| bavoli | Full waitlist, every party, text and email notifications when the table's ready, and a QR/link join page so guests add themselves, plus unlimited reservations, floor plans, and guest profiles. $0 forever, no card. | None on the waitlist. bavoli's only charges are per-order fees on online ordering, 50c per pickup order, $1 per delivery order, and 0.5% on dine-in QR orders, if you turn ordering on. |
| Waitlist Me | Add parties only; the free plan cannot send notifications | Notifying guests starts at $34.99/mo, and texts are metered: 1,000 included, $0.02 each after. |
| TablesReady | 150 texts and 100 parties a month | Roughly two busy nights, then paid plans from $39/mo billed annually. |
| NextMe | Free tier with a low notification cap, reported in the low hundreds per month | We could not confirm current paid pricing on a first-party page, so check theirs directly before comparing. |
| Waitwhile | 50 visits a month, a one-time $2 message credit, and 5 emails per visit | The 50-visit cap is the binding limit for a restaurant, and paid plans start at $31/mo. |
What you get, free
QR self-serve join
Guests scan a code at the door, add themselves, and see their live place in line. No app to download.
Floor plan and waitlist together
See open tables and the queue in one view. Seat from the list into the plan without switching screens.
Wait time quotes that stick
Quote by party size, save the number with the guest, and re-quote when the room slows down. No more memory-based guesses at 8pm.
Reservations included
Unlimited, free. The waitlist and the book live in the same system.
The honest part: how bavoli makes money
Every other app on this page leads with text alerts, so here is the straight answer about ours: bavoli texts the guest when the table is ready, from a real number, with no per-text fee, and the host stand sees the status change instantly. If a guest gave an email instead of a mobile number, the notice goes by email.
The difference from everyone else in the table is how texting is priced: it is included in the price rather than sold back to you two cents at a time or as credit packs. Nothing about your waitlist is ever metered per party, and the same $0 includes reservations, floor plans, and a guest list that other vendors sell as separate tiers. bavoli earns 50c when a guest orders pickup, a dollar on delivery from your ordering page, and half a percent on a dine-in QR order, and nothing else. If per-message pricing is the thing you are escaping, this is the escape.
What bavoli charges for, and what it does not
Nothing on the host stand costs money. The waitlist, reservations, floor plans, guest profiles, staff accounts, and text notifications are all included, with no monthly fee and no per-cover fee. The "Powered by bavoli" badge on your booking page can be switched off whenever you like.
bavoli's only charges are on online ordering, if you turn it on: 50c per pickup order, $1 per delivery order, and 0.5% of the subtotal on dine-in QR orders. By default your guest covers that at checkout, and you can choose to cover it yourself. Either way there is no card on file for the software, so nothing can charge you on its own.
When a free waitlist app is not the right fit
There are rooms this is wrong for, and it is cheaper to say so here than after you sign up. If you want a consumer app that sends you diners who have never heard of you, a waitlist tool is the wrong purchase, and bavoli does not do that. If you are a group trying to run four rooms in four buildings off one list, bavoli is built for a single restaurant.
And if the door never backs up, you do not have a waitlist problem: a 30-seat room with no line needs a booking page instead of a queue, and there is a page on this site about the free version of that.
Where it does fit is narrow and common: an independent restaurant whose door jams on the weekend, a host with a phone in their apron, and no appetite for a monthly fee for the privilege of writing names down.
Running your waitlist: a practical guide
Frequently asked questions
Keep reading
More honest comparisons and pricing breakdowns for independent restaurants.
- The free reservation system this waitlist comes with
- How the waitlist works, in detail
- What bavoli costs: nothing, except per-order fees on online ordering
- Online reservations, included free
- The floor plan your waitlist seats into
- Cheap restaurant reservation software with no per-cover fees
- The best OpenTable alternatives for 2026, ranked