Comparison · UK 2026

Modern tools. Honest price.

Realtime floor plan. WhatsApp pre-order chasers. Native card-on-file. £49 a month, no contract.

Side by side

SimpleERB’s strength is long-term reliability and an established UK customer base — we’re not arguing with either. What we offer is a modern core wrapped around the same flows.

Feature
SimpleERB
Covered
Monthly platform cost
Typical UK indie tiers: £69–£199
£49 flat
Minimum contract
Varies by plan
Monthly — cancel anytime
Per-cover fees
None
None
Realtime floor plan
Limited — tables update on refresh
Live sync across every device in the room
WhatsApp pre-order automation
Not offered
Native chasers for pre-orders & deposits
Mobile-first iPad ops
Desktop-first UI; iPad is a mirror
Built for the pass on iPad
Native Stripe card-on-file
Card capture via add-ons
Stripe-native, first-class
Guest-recognition CRM surfaces
CRM available
Guest history & notes surfaced at the booking
UK data hosting & GDPR
UK-based
UK-hosted, GDPR by design
Time-to-go-live
Guided onboarding (days–weeks)
Self-serve — live in an afternoon
Data portability
Export available on request
Full CSV / JSON export anytime

Ticks indicate where Covered’s modern stack changes the workflow, not just the label. Ties stay neutral.

What’s the difference worth?

SimpleERB and Covered both charge flat monthly — so this isn’t a headline-savings story. Drag the sliders to see where your tier actually lands.

Your estimates

Drag the sliders. Numbers update live. SimpleERB’s seat tiers vary — use your last invoice if you have it.

100 covers

Lunch or dinner — whatever your typical service looks like.

14 services

E.g. 7 days × 2 services (lunch + dinner) = 14.

£99/mo

UK indie tiers typically sit between £69 and £199 a month depending on seats and modules.

Annual price difference
£600
less per year with Covered
SimpleERB£99/mo
Covered£49/mo
Monthly difference£50
Scale reference~6,067 covers/mo

Honest note: SimpleERB’s seat tiers vary and modules can be added or removed. Covered is a flat £49 with everything in — so your real cost is whichever side of the equation scales with you, not a headline number.

How switching actually works

Self-serve CSV import for SimpleERB exports, plus a human option if you’d rather have us run it for you.

1

Export

Ask SimpleERB for a CSV of bookings, guests and notes — they're obliged to provide one under UK GDPR. If it's slow coming, we'll help you phrase the request.

2

Map

Drop the CSV into the in-app importer (Settings → Migrate). It auto-detects SimpleERB's export shape and maps bookings, guests, preferences, deposits and pre-orders for you. A human can still run the import for you if you'd rather not click through it yourself.

3

Launch

Embed the widget, point your Google Reserve link at Covered, hand the team an iPad. Most restaurants switch over between one Monday service and the next.

Prefer to talk it through first?

Book a 15-min migration call

Common objections, answered honestly

The things SimpleERB operators push back on — and what we actually say.

SimpleERB just works for us. Why would we change?

Reliable is fine. Updated is better — and you don't have to give up reliability to get updated. SimpleERB earned its UK customer base by being dependable; that's real. Covered gives you the same dependable core plus realtime floor plan, WhatsApp pre-order chasers, native Stripe card-on-file and an iPad-first UI that feels built for the pass. If nothing in that list matters to your service, stay. If one or two do, it's worth a look.

Does Covered handle all the same flows?

Yes — bookings, walk-ins, floor plan, pacing, CRM, pre-orders, deposits, waitlist, Google Reserve, table notes, guest tags. Everything a SimpleERB user runs a service with, Covered runs too. What's different is how it's built: realtime-first, mobile-first, with WhatsApp and Stripe as native pieces rather than bolt-ons.

What's involved in migrating?

Three steps. (1) Request a CSV export from SimpleERB — UK GDPR entitles you to one. (2) Drop it into the in-app importer at Settings → Migrate; it auto-detects SimpleERB’s export shape and maps bookings, guests, notes and future reservations for you. (3) Embed the Covered widget on your site and point your Google Reserve link at us. Most switches take a week end-to-end, including a staging link so you can test before flipping over.

Will my team need retraining?

Less than you'd think. Anyone who's used a phone in the last five years is at home in Covered in an afternoon — the mental model (floor plan, booking drawer, guest card) is the same as SimpleERB, but the gestures are modern. We'll sit in on your first service remotely if it helps, no fee.

Do you support UK payment processors?

We're built on Stripe, which is the standard for UK card-on-file and deposits. Stripe accepts every major UK card, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and settles to a UK bank account with full Strong Customer Authentication. If you already use Stripe for your till or ecom, Covered connects to the same account — no separate merchant setup.

The workhorse runs. Covered runs modern.

Flat £49 a month. Monthly billing. Cancel anytime.