No-show cost calculator
What are no-shows costing you?
A booked table that never turns up costs you the whole bill: the food you prepped, the staff you rostered and the walk-in you turned away. Put in your covers and your no-show rate to see the year, then how much a deposit would win back. Mosey takes no fee on reservation deposits.
Your numbers
Count a month of bookings against who arrived. Even a small share adds up.
Set 0 to see the cost with no deposit.
What it comes to
- Empty seats a year
- 520
- Sales lost to no-shows
- €20,800
- Kept from deposits
- €5,200
- Still lost after deposits
- €15,600
That is €1,733 a month.
Every Mosey rate on this page is read from the same code that charges it, so it is always current. Your figures stay in your browser: nothing is sent or saved.
How the sums work
Empty seats are your booked covers a week, times 52, times your no-show rate. Lost sales are those seats times your average spend per head.
A deposit is kept when a guest does not turn up, so it recovers that much of each empty seat. It can never recover more than the spend it protects, so the calculator caps it there.
This is lost SALES, not lost profit. Some of the food is saved if you prep to bookings, but the staff, the rent and the turned-away walk-in are not, so the real cost sits close to the figure.
Mosey takes no fee on reservation deposits. Stripe's card fee is passed to you at cost, the same as on any card payment.
Questions owners ask
How do I work out my restaurant's no-show rate?
Take a month of bookings and count the covers that never arrived, then divide by the covers booked. Leave out cancellations made in good time, because those tables could be rebooked.
Do deposits put customers off booking?
A fair deposit, taken off the bill on the night, rarely puts off people who mean to come. Many businesses take one only for larger groups or busy nights, which is where no-shows hurt most.
How much should a restaurant deposit be?
Enough that a guest thinks twice about not turning up, and small enough that it feels fair. Many businesses set it per head, and only for groups or Friday and Saturday nights.
What does Mosey charge on deposits?
Nothing. Mosey takes no fee on reservation deposits. Stripe's card fee is passed to you at cost.
What else cuts no-shows besides deposits?
Reminders before the booking, an easy way to cancel or hand a table to a friend, and a waitlist that fills a freed table fast. Mosey does all three as part of reservations.
Is this lost profit or lost sales?
Lost sales. The real cost sits close to it, because staff, rent and the walk-in you turned away are spent either way, and only some of the food is saved.
Go deeper
More calculators
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See what delivery app commission costs you a year, and what you would keep on Mosey.
- Card payment fee calculator
See what Mosey's in-store fee comes to each month, and the point where it stops growing.
- Menu price calculator
Turn the cost of a plate into a menu price that hits your food cost target.
Keep more of every euro you earn
Mosey is free to list, with no set-up fee and no contract. You pay a small published commission when you sell, and every rate is on one page.