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Comparison · UK 2026

Keep the marketplace. Ditch the booking fee.

Sugarvine’s directory genuinely sends you covers — keep it. But the booking engine bolted on top is where the margin leaks. Unbundle it: keep the listing, move bookings to Covered at a flat £49 a month.

Get started — £49/monthSee pricing

How it works after you switch

This isn’t a rip-and-replace. It’s an unbundle — keep the bit of Sugarvine that brings you covers, stop paying for the bit that charges you to take them.

1

Marketplace stays

Sugarvine's directory still sends you traffic. Don't change a thing — your listing, reviews and find-a-restaurant placement keep working exactly as they do today.

2

Covered takes over bookings

Embed the Covered widget on your own site and point any 'Book now' buttons at it. No per-cover fees, no marketplace tax, no contract.

3

You keep the margin

Whatever you were paying in per-cover booking fees goes back into your margin instead of someone else's platform economics.

You’ll pay two providers — Sugarvine for the directory, Covered for bookings — and still almost always come out ahead. The calculator below shows why.

Side by side

Sugarvine wins where Sugarvine wins — we’ve marked that honestly. Everywhere else, unbundling with Covered is cheaper, more flexible, and keeps your data in your control.

Feature
Sugarvine
Covered
Consumer directory presence
Yes — that’s their core product
No — we’re booking infrastructure, not a marketplace
Booking engine
Bundled in, priced per cover
£49 flat, included
Per-cover fees
Varies by contract
£0 — not how we charge
Custom widget on your own site
Typically routes through Sugarvine
Native embed on your domain
Floor plan, pacing, pre-orders, deposits
Limited depth
Full operator stack — included in £49
Data portability
Guest data sits with the platform
Full CSV / JSON export anytime
UK data hosting & GDPR
Not publicly documented
UK-hosted, GDPR by design
Modern mobile ops (iPad, WhatsApp chasers)
Not a core focus
WhatsApp automation + iPad-first UI (our USP)

One tick for Sugarvine on directory presence — we don’t pretend to replace a consumer marketplace. The rest of the ticks show why operators are unbundling the booking engine anyway.

What would you recover?

A rough estimate of the per-cover booking fees you stop paying when you move bookings to Covered — while keeping the Sugarvine directory.

Your estimates

Drag the sliders. Numbers update live. Treat the output as a guide, not a quote.

100 covers

Lunch or dinner — whatever your typical service looks like.

14 services

E.g. 6 days × 2 services (lunch + dinner) = 12.

£0.80 / cover

Typical booking-engine rates sit between £0.25 and £1.50 per cover; your contract will say.

Your annual fee recovery
£57,652
back in your margin, not the booking engine
Sugarvine per-cover fees£4,853/mo
Covered£49/mo
Monthly recovery£4,804

Assumes you keep Sugarvine for its directory. Per-cover booking fees only — any separate directory / listing cost stays with Sugarvine because you’re still using that side of them.

Common questions about unbundling

The objections operators raise when we suggest keeping Sugarvine for the directory and moving bookings to Covered — and what actually happens in practice.

Will I lose my Sugarvine directory listing if I switch?

No. The whole point of this page is that you don't switch wholesale. You keep paying for (or keeping free) your Sugarvine directory presence, and you move only the booking engine to Covered. Your find-a-restaurant listing is untouched.

Can I embed Covered on my Sugarvine profile?

Not directly — Sugarvine owns that profile page and typically routes its 'Book now' button through their own booking engine. What you can do is update every other touchpoint you control (your own website, Google Business Profile, Instagram link, emails, QR codes) to book through Covered. In practice this is where the majority of UK indie covers actually come from.

Will I pay two providers?

Yes — and that's the honest trade. You'll keep whatever you pay Sugarvine for the directory (often free or very low for a basic listing) and you'll pay Covered £49 flat for the booking engine and ops stack. Almost every operator we've modelled this with comes out significantly ahead on total spend because the per-cover fees on bundled booking engines add up fast.

What about bookings already in the Sugarvine pipeline?

Run them to completion on Sugarvine — you don't need to migrate live bookings. Switch the 'Book now' destination on your own channels to Covered from day one, and let the old pipeline drain naturally over the next week or two. Most teams are fully on Covered within a fortnight without a single lost reservation.

Does customer data stay in Sugarvine too?

Only the guests who booked through their engine before you switched. From the day you move bookings to Covered, new guest data (names, contacts, notes, preferences, dietary requirements) lives in Covered — UK-hosted, yours to export any time. Under UK GDPR you can also request a copy of historical guest data held by Sugarvine.

Do I need a new website to use Covered?

No. Covered is a single-line embed — paste the widget snippet onto any existing page (WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify, bespoke) and you're taking bookings. If you don't currently send traffic to your own site, consider pointing your Google Business Profile 'Reserve' link at Covered too; that alone usually captures a meaningful share of covers.

Is there a contract or minimum term?

No. Covered is £49 monthly, cancel anytime. If unbundling Sugarvine doesn't work for you, turn Covered off and roll back — there's nothing to unwind and no exit fee.

Two tools. Less money. More of it yours.

Keep Sugarvine’s directory. Take bookings on Covered. Flat £49 a month, cancel anytime.

Get started — £49/monthSee the widget in action