Zenchef is a serious system. And priced for bigger than you.
First the honest part: Zenchef is not a bad product. It runs in roughly 25,000 restaurants, the Reserve with Google integration works, and the 24/7 phone assist is a real relief for some large brasseries. If you run a three-venue chain with a fixed team doing a hundred covers every evening, Zenchef is probably a good fit, especially if you have a marketing manager who can actually feed the CRM.
But Zenchef is built for bigger than you. For most cafés, brasseries and one-owner venues in Belgium it is too heavy. No price on the website, a mandatory demo, and an annual contract with auto-renew that keeps surfacing in Trustpilot reviews. The top "Grow" tier — where multi-venue and the marketing modules actually live — only starts to pay off for a chain.
What Zenchef actually costs to run
On zenchef.com/plans you see three tiers side by side: Reserve, Manage, Grow. What is missing: a euro figure. Third-party estimates put Reserve around €49 per month, Manage near €109 per month, and Grow noticeably higher. On top of that there is usually a setup fee folded into the quote and an annual contract that keeps rolling until you cancel three months ahead in writing.
At SuperShift the reservation widget is free up to 20 staff, €15 per month for Pro up to 100 staff, €29 per month for Ultra with multi-venue. No quote, no onboarding fee, monthly cancellable. No full CRM module and no 24/7 phone desk — that is true — but the price sits on the page.
What SuperShift deliberately leaves out
No full CRM with segmentation the way Zenchef has it. No SMS confirmations — email only. No consumer-facing guest discovery app. No 24/7 phone support. No marketing automation with birthday-trigger flows. No pay-at-table inside the tool. For a fine-dining address doing 200 covers a service those gaps matter.
What you do get: an embeddable widget on your own domain, branded confirmation emails from your own from-address, double opt-in, simple table management, party-size configuration and manager notifications. For 80% of Belgian venues that just want a working reservation button on their site, that covers what they actually use every evening.
Pricing comparison, no asterisks
Pricing pulled straight from their public pricing page (verified May 2026).
| What you get | Zenchef | SuperShift |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | On request | €0 (up to 20 staff) · Pro €15/mo · Ultra €29/mo |
| Free tier | ||
| Setup fee | Unknown | None |
| Contract | Annual contract | Monthly or annual |
| Demo required for pricing | ||
| Online reservations | ||
| Table map / management | ||
| Waitlist | ||
| SMS confirmations | ||
| Branded confirmation emails | ||
| Guest CRM | ||
| Multi-venue | Centralised multi-venue sits in the top "Grow" tier only. | |
| Pay at the table | ||
| Embeddable widget |
Questions we get a lot
Can I move my Zenchef data into SuperShift?
You export your guest file from Zenchef as CSV and import it into SuperShift. We do not move historical reservations across — they stop being useful after a few months anyway. Start clean from the week you switch and keep your old Zenchef account in read-only for a month as a reference.
How does the Zenchef annual contract work?
Read your contract carefully: most Zenchef contracts auto-renew unless you cancel three months in advance in writing. Trustpilot reviews surface this regularly as a surprise. SuperShift is monthly. No registered letter, no notice period, no next fiscal year you still owe.
Does SuperShift send SMS confirmations?
No. Only email confirmations from your own from-address with double opt-in. SMS is deliberately out: it costs per message, it does not work for tourists on foreign numbers, and email solves the problem fine for normal café volume. If SMS is critical for you, Zenchef is genuinely stronger there.
Same time as a Zenchef demo: 30 minutes. Difference: no sales rep, no quote afterwards, no annual contract. Make an account, paste the widget on your site, take your first online booking this week. Decide afterwards whether you need an upgrade.
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