No-show cost calculator · 100% free · no signup
Restaurant No-Show Cost & Deposit Calculator
Every empty seat at a booked time slot already cost you food prep, FOH coverage, and a denied booking. This calculator runs the annualized math, models deposit recapture, and gives you the break-even no-show rate where a deposit program actually pencils. Most operators see one empty seat. They never multiply it by 52.
Why this matters
A no-show is not an empty seat. It is a denied booking.
The empty seat is what the operator sees on Saturday at 7:15pm. The denied booking is the one the host turned away at 4pm because the table was held. The kitchen prepped for it. FOH was scheduled around it. Somebody else got told no. The actual cost of a no-show is two or three times the average ticket, and most operators only count one of them.
Deposits work because of skin in the game. A reservation made with $20 attached is a different psychological commitment than a click and a phone number. OpenTable and Resy report no-show drops in the 50–80% range after deposit programs go live. The deposit is not the point. The deposit is the friction that filters out the casual booking before it ever blocks a table.
A reservation without a deposit is a wish. A reservation with a deposit is a commitment. The math gets fixed when the booking psychology gets fixed.
Operators worry about pushback. The pushback is real and it filters in the right direction. The guest who refuses a $20 hold for a Saturday night is, statistically, the same guest most likely to no-show. Losing them is not a cost. It is the policy working. I know an operator who spent two years calling no-shows "the cost of doing business" while losing roughly $58K a year on a 14% rate. He runs $20-per-cover deposits on weekends now. The first month his no-show rate came back at 5%, he sat with the report for ten minutes before he believed it.
Every fine dining concept in every major market runs deposits in 2026. Guests adapted. The market adapted. The operators still eating the no-show cost are the ones who have not run the annualized math — usually because the empty seat in front of them does not look like $58,000 yet.
No-show benchmarks by concept type
No-show rates vary by concept, daypart, and party size. Walk-in concepts barely have the problem. Group bookings and weekend brunch are the two worst categories. Use these as a sanity check, not a hard rule.
Real scenarios
Three operators, three deposit decisions
The fix is not always a deposit. The fix is sometimes a smarter deposit. Same metric, different lever depending on which segment is bleeding.
The bottomless brunch with a 40-deep waitlist
280 weekend reservations, 14% no-show, $42 average ticket. Bottomless mimosa concept. The waitlist on Saturday at noon was 40 parties deep.
Annualized loss came to roughly $58K. The owner had been calling it "cost of doing business" for 18 months. The math is unforgiving once you write it down: 14% of a 280-rez week at $42 a cover, multiplied by 52, is a number nobody wants to read.
$20 per cover deposit through Tock for weekend bookings only. 24-hour cancellation window. Weekday and walk-in untouched.
No-show rate dropped to 5% in 90 days. About $39K/year recovered. Booking volume held flat. The friction filtered out the casual reservations — which was always the point.
The fine dining 4-tops blocking the waitlist
4-tops holding prime Friday slots while 8 parties sat on the waitlist. $90 average ticket. Owner resistant to deposits, worried about pushback.
Ran the break-even. $25 deposit on $90 ticket = 28% break-even rate. Actual no-show was 6%. The deposit was never going to recover ticket revenue at that level. But the table-turn loss on a Friday at 8pm was real money the math was missing.
$50 per cover deposit on parties of 4+, weekends only. 48-hour cancellation window. Inside-window cancels forfeit the full amount.
Booking volume held. Waitlist parties got moved into prime slots. Same-day cancels on the targeted segment dropped from 12% to 3%. The deposit was never about the deposit revenue. It was about the booking psychology.
The $3.33-per-cover deposit that did nothing
6-tops no-showing at 22%. Standard policy was $20 deposit per booking — not per cover. $35 average ticket. $4,200 in lost tickets per month on group bookings alone.
$20 deposit on a 6-top is $3.33 a head. Forfeiting twenty bucks to skip a $210 reservation is rational behavior, not bad behavior. The deposit was not material at scale. The policy looked active and was operationally invisible.
$20 per cover deposit on parties of 6+. A 6-top now has $120 on the line. Standard 24-hour cancellation. Smaller parties kept the no-deposit policy.
No-show on large parties fell from 22% to 8% in 60 days. About $2,800/month recaptured. The lesson was not that deposits work. It was that per-cover scaling matters more than the dollar amount.
FAQ
Common questions
01 What is a no-show?
A booked reservation that never arrives and never cancels. The table sat reserved. The kitchen prepped for it. FOH was scheduled around it. Nobody came. Late cancels under 24 hours are the same problem operationally — the table cannot be re-sold in time.
02 What is a typical no-show rate?
Industry-wide 5–15% depending on concept and daypart (OpenTable, Resy reporting). Walk-in heavy concepts run 0–3%. Casual dining 5–10%. Fine dining 3–7% with reservation discipline. Weekend brunch and holiday spike to 15–25%. Parties of 8+ are the worst category at 12–20%.
03 How do I calculate the cost?
Reservations × party size × no-show rate × average ticket = revenue lost. A 200-cover restaurant booking 280 reservations weekly, 3-top average, 8% no-show, $35 ticket loses about $2,350/week — roughly $122,000 a year. Most operators see the empty seat. They never run the annualized math.
04 Should I charge a deposit?
Deposits make sense above roughly 6% no-show, on parties of 6+, on weekend prime-time, and on holiday or special-event bookings. Below those thresholds, the friction of asking for a card costs more in lost reservations than it recaptures. Run the break-even number before you change policy.
05 How much?
$20–$50 per cover scales to average ticket. Fine dining $50–$100 per cover or a full credit card hold. Casual caps at $20–$25 per cover. Material enough that forfeiting stings. Not so high that it kills booking volume on its own.
06 Are deposits legal?
Yes, in all 50 states. Deposits and cancellation fees are standard contract law if the policy is disclosed at booking and the amount is reasonable (not punitive). OpenTable, Resy, Tock, and SevenRooms handle disclosure and authorization automatically. Always state the policy at booking and on the confirmation email.
07 What about same-day cancels?
Same problem as no-shows operationally. Most policies treat under 24 hours as forfeitable, 48 hours for parties of 6+. Tighter cutoffs (12 hours, 6 hours) work for high-demand concepts where the waitlist fills the slot fast.
08 How do OpenTable and Resy handle this?
OpenTable Experiences and Resy both support card holds and pre-paid deposits at booking. OpenTable charges per-cover on top of the subscription. Resy is included in standard. Tock is built around deposits and pre-payment as the default and is preferred by fine dining and tasting-menu concepts.
09 What is the break-even no-show rate?
The rate at which forfeited deposits cover lost ticket revenue. Deposit ÷ average ticket × 100. A $25 deposit on a $35 ticket breaks even at 71%. A $25 deposit on a $90 ticket breaks even at 28%. Lower ratio means the deposit needs to be more aggressive — or the policy is doing risk-control work, not revenue-replacement work.
10 Does this calculator save my data?
No. Nothing is stored, transmitted, or tracked. Math runs in your browser and disappears the moment you close the tab. No signup, no email, no account.
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