Most restaurants already text guests, often by accident. The waitlist tablet sends "your table is ready," the reservation platform sends a confirmation, and someone on staff texts a regular about Friday's special from their personal phone. That works until you want a real promo list, until a carrier starts filtering your messages, or until a guest who only gave you their number for the waitlist starts getting happy hour offers.
This post covers how to choose a texting setup that handles three jobs: waitlist, reservations and promotions. It includes templates you can copy, the registration you need before you send, and the per-text math so you can budget.
The three jobs a restaurant texting system has to do
Each type of restaurant text has different rules and a different budget, so treat them separately.
- Waitlist texts. These are one-to-one and triggered by the guest. Someone puts their name down, and you text them when the table is ready. Guests expect these and act on them right away.
- Reservation texts. Confirmations, day-of reminders and "running late?" check-ins. These are transactional and tied to a booking the guest made.
- Promotional texts. Specials, events, new menu launches and slow-night offers. These are marketing. They need explicit marketing consent and carry the most compliance risk.
Most problems happen when the consent for one job gets reused for another. A guest who typed their number into a waitlist kiosk agreed to hear about their table. They did not agree to join your text club. Keep two lists: an operational list and a marketing list. Only add someone to the marketing list after they opt in to it specifically.
Picking a system: what's actually fine
You may not need a new tool for every job. Here is a straight comparison:
| Setup | Good at | Weak at |
|---|---|---|
| Waitlist app with built-in texting | Table-ready alerts, no setup | Promos, list ownership, two-way chat |
| Reservation platform texts | Confirmations and reminders tied to bookings | Anything outside the booking flow |
| General SMS platform (like Ready) | Promo campaigns, two-way inbox, your own registered number, opt-out handling | Seating logic, floor management |
| Staff personal phones | Nothing you should rely on | Compliance, records, continuity |
If your reservation platform already sends good confirmations, keep using it. An SMS platform earns its place once you want a marketing list you own, replies from guests that land in one shared inbox, and campaigns sent from your restaurant's own registered number. That's the gap we built Ready to fill. You get bulk campaigns, an Inbox, templates, automatic STOP handling and in-app registration in one place. If you're on GoHighLevel, Ready installs natively and syncs messages both ways. Plenty of restaurants simply use the Ready app on its own.
For a broader strategy view, see our guide to SMS marketing for restaurants.
Registration: what you need before the first campaign
US carriers require business texting from a regular 10-digit number to be registered under A2P 10DLC. Unregistered traffic gets filtered, which means your "20% off tonight" text may never arrive.
On Ready, registration happens in the app:
- Brand registration: $10/mo
- Campaign registration: $20/mo
- Each number: $2/mo
- At submit: $25, which covers the first month. There is no setup fee.
Most approvals take 2 to 7 days. Before you pay for registration, you can send up to 500 texts a month at the normal per-text rate. Your first 20 texts are free, but they must be one-to-one sends (campaigns are paid from the first text), and the free texts end once you pay for registration. Use them to test before you register. To send, you add a card and get a number, which is $2 a month with the first month charged when you get it.
Pick the right use case
Restaurants usually send both transactional texts (waitlist, reservations) and marketing texts (promos). Your registered campaign should describe what you actually send. If you register reminders only and then send promos, or register promos and send mostly reminders, you invite filtering. Our use-case picking guide explains how to match the two.
Watch the alcohol content
Carriers screen content in the "SHAFT" categories, and the A stands for alcohol. Happy hour, wine nights and drink specials draw extra scrutiny and can require age-gating. If drinks are central to your promos, account for that in registration and in your sample messages. If your registration has already been rejected over this, here's how to rewrite and resubmit. The simplest approach is to lead promos with food and events.
Templates you can copy
Keep messages under 160 plain characters where you can, which is one segment. Each template below identifies the restaurant, and every marketing message includes opt-out language.
Waitlist
[Restaurant]: Hi Dana, your table for 4 is ready! Please check in at the host stand within 10 min. Reply C to cancel.
[Restaurant]: You're #3 on the list, about 15 min. We'll text when your table's ready.
Reservations
[Restaurant]: Confirmed: table for 2, Sat 7:30 PM. Reply C to cancel or call (555) 010-2200 to change.
[Restaurant]: See you tonight at 7:30 PM! Running late? Just reply here and we'll hold your table 15 min.
For more reminder patterns, see appointment reminder SMS templates. The same timing logic applies to reservations.
Opt-in confirmation (marketing list)
[Restaurant]: You're in! Expect 2-4 texts/mo with specials and events. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to opt out.
Promotions
[Restaurant]: Tuesday only: 2 entrees + 1 appetizer for $45. Dine in or pickup. Show this text. Reply STOP to opt out.
[Restaurant]: New fall menu drops Thursday. First 50 guests get a free dessert. Book: [link] Reply STOP to opt out.
[Restaurant]: Slow night = your night. 15% off all orders until 8 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.
Feedback (after a visit)
[Restaurant]: Thanks for dining with us tonight! How did we do? Reply 1-5. Your answer goes straight to our manager.
Consent: who keeps what
Promotional texts need prior express written consent. In practice that means a sign-up form, QR code table tent or keyword opt-in with clear wording about what the guest will receive. Our opt-in wording and keyword examples give you language you can use.
Be clear about what each side records. When you send a bulk or API message on Ready, we record your opt-in attestation: who sent it, to how many people and when. That gives you an audit trail of your sends. It is not a per-contact consent record. Your restaurant needs to keep each guest's opt-in time, the wording they agreed to and where they signed up. A keyword reply alone doesn't create that record in Ready, so store it in your sign-up form tool or POS.
Ready's compliance features reduce risk, but they don't make you immune to claims:
- STOP handling. Opt-outs are honored automatically and apply across every campaign.
- Quiet hours. Sends outside permitted local hours are held and go out later. If you schedule a late-night promo by mistake, it won't go out at midnight. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations wait up to 24 hours for the window; a one-to-one or API text is held only if the window opens within 6 hours, otherwise it is refused and must be resent; a one-to-one reply to someone who texted you in the last 24 hours goes out at any hour.
- Litigator and DNC scrubbing. This is optional, at $0.003 extra per segment when switched on. It's off by default.
Compliance is ultimately your responsibility as the sender. Cold texting is a bad idea: reach new guests by phone, mail or in person, and text the people who opted in.
What it actually costs: a worked example
Ready's Standard rate is $0.0075 per segment plus a $0.0045 carrier fee per segment. That all-in figure excludes the optional compliance surcharge. Replies from guests are billed the same way as sent texts.
Example assumptions: a restaurant with 2,000 opted-in contacts sends 4 promos a month. Each promo is plain text under 160 characters, so it's 1 segment.
- Segment charges: 2,000 × 4 × $0.0075 = $60
- Carrier fees: 8,000 segments × $0.0045
- Registration: $25/mo for registration and $2/mo per number
The emoji trap: adding one 🍕 limits each segment to 70 characters. A 120-character promo with an emoji becomes 2 segments, which doubles that line, plus carrier fees. On Ready, curly quotes and long dashes are converted automatically, so those won't change your count. Emojis will, though, so decide whether they're worth the cost.
Waitlist texts are small by comparison. At around 100 parties a night, with one 1-segment "table ready" text each, that's about 3,000 segments a month plus carrier fees, before any replies.
Ready doesn't have the lowest per-segment price. Twilio and LeadConnector charge less per message. What you get with Ready is self-serve registration and the full platform included: inbox, campaigns, automations and opt-out handling. See pricing for the current rate card.
The practical takeaway
Separate the three jobs. Let your waitlist and reservation tools keep doing what they do well. Build a marketing list only from explicit opt-ins, and keep those consent records yourself. Register before you run campaigns, describe your actual mix of texts honestly, and go easy on alcohol-heavy copy. Keep promos to one segment and budget with the math above.
If you want to try it, sign up, use your free one-to-one texts to test your templates on staff phones, then submit your registration and launch your first promo once you're approved.