Description
Restaurant reservations. Your brand, not ours.
Alex Reservations is a restaurant reservation system that runs on your own WordPress website. Guests book on your site, under your name, and every reservation and guest record is stored in your own database. No booking marketplace in between, no per-cover fees, no third-party branding in front of your guests.
It works for one restaurant or hundreds: independent restaurants, restaurant groups and agencies that want to run a reservation platform for their clients under their own brand.
Why restaurants choose Alex Reservations
- 0% commission. A flat price per restaurant, however many tables you fill.
- Your guests, your data. Bookings and customer data live in your WordPress database. Export them any time.
- Your brand everywhere. Booking widget, confirmation emails, SMS and WhatsApp messages carry your restaurant’s name and look.
- Fewer no-shows. Automatic reminders, guest re-confirmation, deposits and card guarantees for big parties.
- Live in minutes. A setup wizard creates your first restaurant in under 5 minutes; the widget goes on any page with a shortcode.
For restaurant groups
Manage every location from one central dashboard while each restaurant keeps its own settings, tables, shifts and team. User roles control who sees what. One installation, one login page, your group’s brand across all locations (PLUS).
For agencies: your own white-label reservation platform
Turn a single WordPress installation on your own server into a reservation SaaS for your restaurant clients (PLUS):
- Complete white label: your logo, colours, custom CSS, your domain, your name on every email and notification.
- Multi-tenant: hundreds of restaurants on one installation, each one isolated and seeing only its own bookings, tables and guests.
- Custom login page so your clients never see the WordPress admin.
- You set your own price to your clients and keep the margin.
Learn more at alexreservations.com/white-label.
Features in the Free version
- Up to 30 bookings per month for 1 restaurant.
- Bookings list view. Create, update and filter the daily list by customer, tag or status.
- Monthly and weekly views. Add or update reservations directly from the calendar.
- Customers list. A simple CRM: filter guests by tags, last visit or number of reservations.
- Custom tags for bookings and customers: VIPs, allergies, wine preferences.
- Shifts. Breakfast, lunch and dinner with their own availability.
- Email templates. Customise the notifications your guests receive.
- Booking widget. Multi-language, mobile friendly, with your colours and the fields you choose.
Features in the PLUS version
- Unlimited bookings across all your restaurants.
- Multiple restaurants with a centralised dashboard and a separate dashboard per restaurant.
- User roles and multiple users with granular permissions per restaurant.
- White label and custom login page for groups and agencies.
- Floor plan view with drag-and-drop tables, reservations and waiting list.
- Floor plan builder to design your rooms, plus printable floor plans per shift.
- 360° panorama reservations so guests pick their table from an immersive view.
- Timeline views: horizontal, vertical and global with assigned tables.
- Area and table selection by the guest, shared tables, closed days and slots.
- Email and SMS reminders, automatic re-confirmation and branded email layouts.
- Guest reviews. Automatic review requests after the visit, with redirection to Google Reviews for high ratings.
- Payments. Deposits or full payments with Stripe, PayPal, Redsys, Mercado Pago, Mollie, Square and Xendit. Charge no-shows.
- Events. Mother’s Day, Christmas, wine tastings and themed nights with their own availability.
- Multiple widgets for different pages, campaigns or restaurants.
- Reports and exports. Bookings, customers and reviews; CSV and PDF export.
- Google Tag Manager events and webhooks for campaign attribution and integrations.
- Bot API to create reservations and check availability from chatbots and assistants.
- 23 languages out of the box, with every text editable.
- Dark mode.
Premium modules
Optional add-ons for PLUS: WhatsApp Reservations (confirmations, reminders and bookings by WhatsApp), Missed Call Booking (a missed call gets an automatic SMS or WhatsApp with a booking link), Premium Tables (custom prices per table) and Booking Offers (menus and offers during the reservation).
Getting started
Use the built-in setup wizard to create your first restaurant in under 5 minutes, then embed the reservation widget on any page with the shortcode [rr_form id='__' button='Book now'].
Who it is for
- Independent restaurants, cafés and bistros that want direct bookings without commissions.
- Restaurant groups and chains that need one platform for every location.
- Web and marketing agencies, hospitality consultants and resellers that want a reservation platform under their own brand.
Full documentation, pricing and the agency program at alexreservations.com.
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the plugin files to the
/wp-content/plugins/alex-reservationsdirectory, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugins screen directly. - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in WordPress.
Manual installation
- Upload the entire
/alex-reservationsdirectory to the/wp-content/plugins/directory. - Activate Alex Reservations through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
After installing
- You’ll see a new item on the left-hand menu called ‘Reservations’. Click it to get started.
- The setup wizard walks you through the basic settings and your first restaurant.
- From the restaurant dashboard go to Settings -> Widget -> Form and copy the shortcode.
- Paste the
[rr_form id='__' button='Reserve']shortcode on any post or page to show the reservation form. Use the ID of your widget.
For more details, see the documentation.
FAQ
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Do you charge commissions per booking?
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No. You pay a flat price per restaurant and take as many bookings as you like. There are no per-cover fees and no marketplace between you and your guests.
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Is it white label? Will my guests see the Alex Reservations name?
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With the PLUS version the booking widget, emails, SMS and WhatsApp messages carry your restaurant’s brand, and groups and agencies get their own logo, colours, domain and login page. Your guests only see your brand.
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Who owns the reservation and customer data?
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You do. Everything is stored in your own WordPress database, on your own server, and can be exported at any time.
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What is the limit of the free version?
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The free version manages 1 restaurant with up to 30 bookings per month. The PLUS version removes the limits and adds multi-restaurant, floor plan, payments, reminders and the rest of the features listed above.
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How do I show the reservation form?
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Paste the widget shortcode on any WordPress page or post. You can copy it from Settings > Widget > Form.
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Can I manage multiple restaurants?
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Yes, with the PLUS version. Each restaurant has its own dashboard with all the views, and you manage all of them from a central dashboard.
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I’m an agency. Can I resell it to my clients under my brand?
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Yes. One installation on your own server can host hundreds of restaurants, each one isolated from the others. You brand the platform, set your own price to your clients and keep the margin. See alexreservations.com/white-label.
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Do I need a WordPress multisite?
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No. Each restaurant has its own dashboard and its team never needs the WordPress admin. Use a single site if your restaurants live on regular pages (myrestaurants.com/madrid, /london, /chicago). Use a WordPress multisite only if you want subdomains with their own pages (madrid.myrestaurants.com, london.myrestaurants.com).
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How are bookings assigned?
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The scheduler manages availability per shift in four ways: total seats, seats per slot, from all available seats, or from specific tables.
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Can I manage events?
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Yes. Apart from the regular shifts you can schedule specific events with their own availability.
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Can I define different roles for the restaurant?
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Yes. Three roles with different permissions: Super-manager, Manager and Sub-manager.
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Does it send WhatsApp messages?
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Yes, with the WhatsApp Reservations module: confirmations, reminders and re-confirmations by WhatsApp, and guests can book from a WhatsApp conversation.
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Where can I read the documentation?
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The full documentation is available at alexreservations.com/docs.
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“Alex Reservations – Restaurant Reservations, Tables & White-Label Booking System” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
2.4.4
- Improved shift calculations to make it faster
- Bot API: reservations can now be created in a specific area, validated against the area’s capacity
- Bot API: the selected area is now returned in the reservation data
- Bot API: availability now shows the free seats per area for each time slot
- DB Check now detects tables that lost their PRIMARY KEY or AUTO_INCREMENT
- Fixed an issue where the session was not fully closed when logging out
- Fixed slow logout when a security plugin with a custom login URL is active
- Fixed an issue with the calculation of the duration for events when creating a new reservation
2.4.3
- Added new email tag {menu} for showing the menu selected by the guest
- Added button to show details of the selected menu in the reservation form
- Added new endpoints to the API BOT module
- Added new filter to the monthly view to select shift to display
- Added new option to filter columns that will be used when exporting/printing reservations
- Fixed issue deleting booking when user takes too long to confirm reservation
- Fixed an issue where bookings with the “Finished” status were still considered to occupy a table
2.4.2
- Fixed some issue with the Kitchen Prep view
2.4.1
- Menus & Offers: guests can select their menu after the reservation, in several steps (save and finish later).
- Menus & Offers: the admin receives an email when the guest has finished selecting their menu.
- Menus & Offers: the dashboard shows when a menu selection has not been completed.
- New APIs added
2.4.0
- Module Menus: can now select the menu for guests after the reservation is confirmed.
- Module Menus: can select the menu for guests during the reservation.
- Module Menus: can accept payment based on the cost of the menu.
- Booking/Customer Tags can be re-ordered.
- Areas for the floor plan can be re-ordered.
2.3.9
- Added support for specifying the number of children during online reservations
- Added a new module for menu selection during the online reservation process
- Added a new API module for integrating AI-powered reservation bots
- Added new fields to customer list exports
- Added a new permission to control access to the 360° panorama view
- Fixed an issue where an area was incorrectly required when using 360° panoramas
- Fixed an issue where bookings could be deleted if customers took too long to complete an online reservation
2.3.8
- Timeline views: highlight top and left bars on reservation hover
- Timeline (horizontal view): added a fixed top timeline bar and a new option to reduce row height
- Timeline views: added table swap when dragging one booking onto another
- Added client’s booking link to the booking popup window
- Added new options to enqueue Google Tag and Facebook Pixel scripts on the reservation form page
- Saving a reservation from the popup will also trigger the WhatsApp message
- Enhanced the popup to send status change notifications across all channels (email, SMS, WhatsApp)
- Added widget to detect Twilio balance
- Added CSV export functionality to the UTM tracking page
- Fixed issue with the Total of Bookings in the Monthly View
- Fixed issue when submitting reservation notes with emoticons
2.3.7
- Added new options to limit the number of reservations per slot
- Added custom messages for Whatsapp
- Updated the review notification in the dashboard to take up less space
- Added custom fields displayed in the sidebar of the floorplan
- Added a notes button to each day cell in the monthly view
- Added option to enable visible scrollbars in some views
- Tables are now ordered by name in timeline views
- New API for checking the status of a reservation
- New API for cancelling a reservation created using the API
- Added a new hook to handle redirect after logout
2.3.6
- Introduced advanced modules with a new modules management view
- Improved date selector in list view to include weekdays
- Fixed an issue in the floor plan when the time slider is set manually
- Fixed an issue in the floor plan after midnight that caused bookings from the next day to be displayed
- Fixed an issue with the warning message in the floor view
- Fixed an issue with arsource and UTM tracking
2.3.4
- Added API to create bookings from other platforms
2.3.3
- Fixed issue with email automation
2.3.2
- Added no-show statistics
- Added customer tags field when creating a new booking
- Added 2 new languages: Catalan and Slovak
- Added new tag {day} for emails and sms templates
- Added new field Birthday to the reservation form
- Fixed an issue with the receipt link in the email template
- Fixed an issue with the payment method label translation in the reservation form
- Fixed issue in customer reports
2.3.1
- Added new Google Tag Manager event: reserve_visit, reserve_init, reserve_complete
- Added Facebook Pixel event tracking
- Added CSV export option in the Bookings report
- Added translations for Booking Tags
2.3.0
- Added new tables options to the floor plan editor
- Added drag and drop to the floor plan editor to change the shape of the table
- Added option to set a date in the calendar as FULL instead of closed
- Added new scheduling options for automatic feedback emails: 15, 30, and 45 minutes
- Added new currencies
- Fixed issue when showing the tag ‘Day closed’ in the reservation editor
- Fixed issue with Upayments gateway integration
- Fixed issue with iframe when embedding form in other websites
- Fixed issue with editing Table Tags
Older versions: see the full changelog.