What Per-Seat Licensing Means
Per-seat licensing is a pricing model where you pay a monthly fee for each person who needs access to the software. If your restaurant has three managers who use the waitlist dashboard, you pay for three seats. If you hire a fourth, you add a seat. If someone leaves, you remove it.
This is different from flat-rate pricing, where every business pays the same regardless of size. It is also different from per-location pricing, where you pay per physical site regardless of how many staff use the system.
The per-seat model aligns cost with actual usage. A small business with a lean team pays less than a large operation with dozens of staff. As you grow, your cost scales linearly and predictably — there are no surprise tier jumps or overage fees.
How Seats Work in Practice
A seat represents one person's access to one application. In a multi-app platform, each application has its own seats. A manager might have a Queue seat and a Reservations seat, while a host might only need Queue.
Seats are not the same as user accounts. A person has one account across the platform, but they occupy seats in specific applications. This distinction matters because it means you only pay for the apps each person actually uses.
Assigning and unassigning seats typically takes a few clicks. When an employee changes roles or leaves, an administrator unassigns their seat, making it available for someone else. The billing adjusts automatically at the next invoice.
Cost Predictability
One of the strongest advantages of per-seat pricing is predictability. Your monthly cost is simple arithmetic: number of seats multiplied by the per-seat price. If Queue costs nine dollars per seat per month and you have five seats, your Queue bill is forty-five dollars.
There are no tiers to fall off, no usage limits that trigger overage charges, and no annual commitments required. If you need to scale down for a slow season, you reduce seats. If you ramp up for summer, you add them.
This predictability extends to budgeting and planning. A finance team can model the cost of adding a new location or department by simply counting the staff who will need access.
What to Watch For
Not all per-seat models are created equal. Some vendors define a seat as anyone who logs in during a billing period, which can lead to unexpected costs if seasonal staff or contractors access the system briefly.
Look for explicit seat assignment, where an administrator decides who occupies each seat. This gives you control over costs and prevents surprise charges from casual logins.
Also check whether unused seats roll over or expire. In a well-designed system, you purchase a number of seats and assign them as needed. An unassigned seat is available but not wasted — it is simply waiting for the next hire.
Finally, confirm that the vendor supports seat changes mid-billing-cycle with prorated adjustments. Adding a seat on the fifteenth of the month should cost half the monthly rate, not the full amount.
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