Impressive or is it just hype?
SevenRooms says their booking allocation process does this to “to find the best seat for every guest.”
It sounds impressive? Absolutely! Who wouldn’t want something that tirelessly reviews 10,000 combinations per second and available 24/7 for the best outcome for their restaurant!
But here’s the question nobody asks:
How does that number actually help your restaurant when a new booking request is received?
In simple terms, it doesn’t. That’s the part most booking platforms avoid talking about.
SevenRooms can show you how many bookings came in. It can show trends, reports, and totals. But when a real guest clicks “Book Now” at 7:42 pm on a busy Friday, that number does nothing to help your restaurant make a smarter decision.
At that exact moment, SevenRooms does not optimise or maximise the booking.
This is where WizButler works differently.
WizButler is not built to simply count bookings. It is designed to think at the moment a booking request is received. Instead of passively accepting reservations, WizButler actively evaluates them in real time, using data, patterns, and availability logic to decide what actually benefits the restaurant.
Problem #1: It’s Done Against a Fixed Floor Plan
Those 10,000 combinations are applied against a fixed table arrangement. Your tables and table combinations are locked in place. For example if Table 5 is a 4-top and Table 8 is a 2-top – That does not change.
The system checks combinations based on this rigid predetermined and fixed layout. It cannot consider moving tables, adjusting spaces between tables, or reconfiguring tables to ensure that it accepts the new booking request and does not reject it.
So when a party of 6 wants to book and you have two 3-tops sitting empty that are not next to each other, meaning they are not one of the normal table combinations added into the system, SevenRooms does not know how to rearrange tables to accept the party of 6, so it rejects the new booking request without even letting you know.
The so-called review of 10,000 combinations in this example, just failed you! and you lost the new booking request for 6 people and their associated revenue.
Problem #2: Previous Bookings Are Fixed
Not only is the floor plan fixed — all previous bookings are also fixed.
When SevenRooms runs its 10,000 combinations, it’s working around previously allocated bookings and those bookings cannot move.
Think about what that means when you get to about 60% full. The review of the 10,000 only comprises the consideration of the unused tables. In this case you do not need a review of 10,000 combinations, it may only be a handful of available combinations and just like Tetris it can still easily reject the new booking request.
Its like trying to optimize something when you are in a straitjacket.
Problem #3: Not Looking at Real Solutions
This is where the math gets interesting.
SevenRooms 10,000 combinations per second has limited application because it’s not looking at real solutions and options but subset solutions and taking shortcuts.
Real optimization would require the re-evaluating the reallocation of previous bookings — that is the only way you can ensure that you can take the maximum number of bookings.
But here’s the mathematical reality: if SevenRooms were to consider real solutions that include reallocating previous bookings, the number of possible combinations explodes.
In maths the table combination optimization problem is defined as an MP-Hard. To dynamically optimise bookings in real-time for a busy dinner service in a 150-seat restaurant, Chat GPT says it would take a computer about 4,000 years to consider all potential combinations at 10,000 per second.
That’s not a typo. Four thousand years!
So what does SevenRooms actually do? It takes shortcuts. It only checks combinations using fixed tables and fixed booking allocations and bases its decision on what’s left after fixing everything in place. Fast? Yes. Optimal? Not even close!
Problem #4: It Only looks impressive when it is not considering a new booking request
Here’s the thing that really matters: SevenRooms with its 10,000 combinations claim only looks impressive when it is not considering a new booking request. Which is after new booking requests have potentially been rejected!
That’s correct, the reality is that:
SevenRooms only checks to see if a new booking request can be added to a fixed floor plan with fixed bookings. Like Tetris, no perfect match? New booking rejected.
SevenRooms plays Tetris with your bookings after new bookings have crashed and been rejected. The game is over. Your customer was advised their was “no availability” on your widget and booked somewhere else. You’ll never see them.
It’s like using the 10,000 combinations to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic its not going to help you get more bookings!
You Know This Is True
You know this is true because your staff have to manually monitor your bookings and manually rearrange your bookings for optimization.
If SevenRooms could really optimize seating automatically, why is your floor manager still shuffling reservations around during service?
Simply, SevenRooms can’t do this. Clearly considering 10,000 combinations per second does not solve the booking allocation problem for you, as you are still required to perform constant manual intervention.
With each new allocation, the optimization becomes less efficient. The 10,000 combinations per second become even more meaningless..
The Real Cost: Rejections at 60-65% Capacity
This isn’t just a technical debate. It hits your revenue directly.
Restaurants using static allocation systems — including SevenRooms — typically start rejecting bookings when they’re only 60-65% full using their static table and fixed booking allocation processes.
Your dining room has space. Your widget says “no availability.”
Based on what we see, your booking system can easily be rejecting at least 10-15 bookings per week. That’s $7,000-$10,000 in lost revenue every single week.
And the worst part? You never see these customers. They tried to book, got rejected, and went somewhere else. No phone call. No walk-in. No second chance.
What Real Optimization Actually Looks Like
Real optimization doesn’t wait for rejection. It happens the moment a new booking request is received.
When you have full information about what’s being requested, that’s when you optimize — not after.
WizButler rearranges previous bookings and table layouts in real time, autonomously, the moment a booking request is received.
The system evaluates whether moving existing bookings and existing tables to create space for the new request.
No fixed floor plans. No locked bookings. No shortcuts. Completely dynamic.
The result: WizButler takes the booking instead of rejecting it.
The Difference in Practice
SevenRooms approach:
- New booking request received
- Check against fixed floor plan and fixed bookings
- No perfect fit? Rejects the booking
- 10,000 combinations do not help
- Customer books another venue
WizButler approach:
- New booking request received
- Evaluates moving tables and previous bookings to accommodate the new request
- Rearrangement occurs in real-time
- New booking accepted
- Customer booking confirmed
Same restaurant. Same tables. Different outcome.
No Manual Rearrangements. No Risk of Overbooking.
When your system handles optimization autonomously, your staff aren’t spending service time shuffling reservations. They’re focused on guests.
And because WizButler knows exactly what’s happening across your entire floor in real time, there’s no risk of overbooking. Every table is accounted for. Every booking has a place.
Just great customer experiences — and maximum revenue from every service.
The Bottom Line
10,000 combinations per second sounds impressive in marketing materials – that all.
From a revenue perspective and from an operational perspective SevenRooms can easily reject new booking requests when your restaurant is only 60% to 65% full.
That can easily be $7,000-$10,000 for a small restaurant walking out the door every week. Customers you will never see. How does that help you, your business and your customers.
If you want to stop losing bookings and actually maximize your revenue, the solution isn’t marketing hype, it is a real solution for a real-world problem.
If We’re Wrong, Please Advise
We’ve laid out the technical limitations based on how SevenRooms’ system operates. If SevenRooms believes we’ve misrepresented their technology, we welcome clarification.
In the meantime, if you’d like to see how easily your current booking system is rejecting bookings, we can show you exactly what you’re missing.
Book a Demo — See how your booking system is costing you Revenue
