Guide: set up your first online reservation in 10 minutes

From signup to a widget in production taking bookings, step by step. Includes key configuration decisions, common mistakes, and what to leave for later.

Tutorials often lie about time. “Set up X in 10 minutes” rarely accounts for the real time: deciding what to put in each field, understanding the concepts, backtracking when something doesn’t fit.

This one does fit in 10 minutes, with two conditions: you have your restaurant info handy (capacity, hours, zones), and you accept a few “default-for-now” decisions you can change later. The goal isn’t perfection — it’s that 10 minutes from now you’re actually taking online reservations.

What to have on hand

Before you start:

Trade name and your email.
Approximate total capacity of the dining room.
Hours of at least one service (e.g. dinner 8 pm – 11:30 pm, Thu–Sat).
URL or CMS of your site (WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, custom).

Optional but useful: logo as PNG or SVG, primary brand colour (hex).

Five minutes if you have them; if not, gather these before starting the clock.

Minute 1–2: account and restaurant profile

Create the Reserver account with email and password. No card required.

The first wizard step asks for the basics:

Trade name (shown in guest confirmations).
Address and phone.
Timezone (auto-detected but reviewable).
Default language for the widget.

Don’t get stuck choosing the “final” name: you can change it later without affecting anything.

Minute 3: define a zone and its capacity

The single most important concept — and the one most people over-complicate. To start, create a single zone called “Main room” with your total capacity. If you seat 40, enter 40.

Subdivisions (terrace, indoor, private) come later, once you’re live. The widget works perfectly with a single zone for day one.

Common mistake: trying to model your exact floor plan from minute one. Ignore individual tables for now — on the Free plan, only total zone capacity matters.

Minute 4–5: configure a service

A “service” is a shift: lunch, dinner, brunch. For this guide, create one:

Name: “Dinner”.
Hours: e.g. 20:00 – 23:00.
Default reservation duration: 90 minutes (adjustable).
Active days: Thu, Fri, Sat (or yours).
Service capacity: same as the zone (40).

If you run more shifts, add them later. One or two is enough to validate the flow.

Common mistake: setting the default duration too short. 60 minutes is tight for dinner; 90–120 is more realistic and avoids stacking reservations without room.

Minute 6: cancellation policy (minimum viable)

Open the “Policy” section and set:

Minimum hours ahead to cancel without penalty: 3.
Public message: “Cancellations with less than 3 hours’ notice may count as a no-show.”

Don’t activate Stripe pre-auth yet — that requires connecting Stripe and configuring per-service policies. Save it for week two.

Open “Web settings”. Three cosmetic changes so the widget doesn’t feel generic:

Primary colour: paste your brand hex (e.g. #0B1B2B).
Logo: upload your PNG/SVG if you have one.
Confirmation message: “Thanks for booking at [restaurant]. See you soon.”

Spend an hour another day making it pretty. The visitor’s first four minutes are what matter now.

Copy the script from the “Install” section. Paste it into the HTML of the page where you want the reserve button to appear.

Depending on your CMS:

WordPress: custom HTML block on the homepage or a dedicated “Reserve” section.
Wix / Squarespace: “Embed code” widget.
Custom site: your developer pastes it in 2 minutes.
No control of the site: use the public Reserver URL (/reservations/your-restaurant) and link a simple button to it.

Publish and open the site in an incognito window. The button must appear and work.

Minute 9: make a test booking

Book from the widget yourself, as if you were a guest. Complete the full flow:

Pick a future date.
Choose a time inside the configured service.
Enter a real name, email, phone.
Confirm.

You get the confirmation email. Verify it lands in the inbox (if not, check spam — SPF/DKIM tuning comes later).

In the dashboard, you’ll see the booking with state “Confirmed by email”. All good.

Minute 10: turn on reminders

In “Notifications”, make sure these are active:

Email reminder 24 h before.
Immediate email confirmation.
Post-visit email 24 h after the booking (optional, recommended).

SMS requires loading a bundle (from €9). Add them next week, together with Stripe if you want to request payment.

What to leave for later

With the above, you’re now accepting online reservations from your site, in your brand, with no per-booking commission. What you do NOT need to configure today:

Stripe and pre-auth: only useful if you have a real no-show problem. See our dedicated guide.
Individual-table auto-assignment: relevant once you model the floor in detail.
Marketing campaigns: no point until you have 30–50 reservations in the CRM.
Reserve with Google: requires an active Google Business Profile and takes 24–72 h to approve.
AI assistant: wait until you know the product before shaping its responses.

All of that goes in during weeks two and three, with room to breathe.

Common mistakes in the first 30 days

Underestimating default duration

Setting 60 minutes for dinner makes the system think it can fit two consecutive reservations at the same table. 90–120 minutes respects real service time and avoids overbookings.

Not looping in the team

Staff keeps taking phone bookings “from memory” and forgets to enter them into the system. During the first two weeks, put up a physical reminder: “Every phone booking goes into Reserver immediately.”

Tweaking the cancellation policy every week

Leave the policy alone for two months before changing it. You need enough data to know what works. Analytics gives you that.

Forgetting to update the yearly calendar

Holiday weeks, local holidays, long weekends. If you don’t block them on the yearly calendar, you accept bookings for closed days. Spend 10 minutes in week one blocking the next 12 months.

Frequently asked

Can multiple operators use the dashboard?

Yes. Free: 1 operator. Pro: up to 5. Plus: unlimited. Each with their own credentials.

Does it work without a website?

Yes. Reserver generates a public URL (reserver.es/en/reservations/your-restaurant) that you can share on WhatsApp, social, or email. Eventually it’s worth embedding on your site, but not required.

What about phone bookings?

Your operator types them into the dashboard manually in 15 seconds. They feed the CRM the same as widget ones.

What if someone books twice?

Reserver detects duplicates by email and phone and flags them. In the CRM, both bookings point to the same guest.

Can I undo everything and start over?

Yes. From “Settings” you can reset the entire restaurant (with confirmation). Useful if during initial setup you did something you don’t want to keep.

If this guide takes you more than 10 minutes, write to support@reserver.es with a screenshot of where you got stuck. We reply within 2 business hours.