# OpenTable APIs vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)

> Square Appointments scores 68.1 (B) to OpenTable's 38.6 (E) for booking availability. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-square-appointments
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- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.
- Updated: 2026-10-15

Square Appointments (Bookings API) scores 68.1 (B) on agent readiness against OpenTable APIs's 38.6 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do booking availability.

- OpenTable APIs: grade E, 38.6/100, rank #1010 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/opentable.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/opentable.json
- Square Appointments (Bookings API): grade B, 68.1/100, rank #245 of 1094. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/square-appointments.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/square-appointments.json
- Best restaurant reservation and local appointment APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/local-bookings/index.md
- All 36 bookings comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/local-bookings/index.md

## Which one, for what

### OpenTable APIs (E)

Good for: Approved affiliates, restaurant groups and voice AI vendors that need to book into OpenTable restaurants.

Watch for: Access needs an application, review by the partnerships team and an agreement, with no self-serve credentials

### Square Appointments (Bookings API) (B)

Good for: Venue-side appointment booking for salons, clinics and other service businesses already on Square.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 55 against 35
- Schema & documentation, 89 against 61
- Agent ergonomics, 80 against 69
- Security & auth, 70 against 33
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 5
- Maintenance & community, 71 against 5
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 42

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Seller-level create, update and cancel fail with 403 unless the seller pays for Plus ($49) or Premium ($149) per location


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | OpenTable APIs | Square Appointments (Bookings API) | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 55 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 89 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +28 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 69 | 80 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 33 | 70 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +37 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 5 | 40 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +35 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 5 | 71 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +66 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 42 | 70 | Square Appointments (Bookings API) +28 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **38.6 · E** | **68.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | OpenTable APIs | Square Appointments (Bookings API) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | OpenTable | Block, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://platform.opentable.com` | `https://connect.squareup.com/v2/bookings` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Your plan | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under each partner's agreement with OpenTable and the Platform Policy published in the API documentation | Proprietary service under the Square Developer Terms of Service. The OpenAPI specification and MCP server are Apache 2.0 |
| Tools exposed | none | 3 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-16 |
| Terms last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-10 |
| Privacy policy last updated | couldn't be read | 2026-09-15 |
| Customer content may train models | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | couldn't be read | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | couldn't be read | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | couldn't be read | yes |

## Verdicts

**OpenTable APIs.** The public documentation covers diner-side and venue-side booking in detail, with slot locks, policy endpoints, error tables and an X-Request-Id header for safe retries. Access needs partner approval and a contract, rate limits and prices are not published, and the status page and main website could not be read.

**Square Appointments (Bookings API).** The Bookings API lets an agent working for a Square seller search availability and create, change and cancel appointments, with a public OpenAPI spec, appointment OAuth scopes and idempotency keys. It acts for the venue. Seller-level writes need Plus or Premium, services with a no-show fee can't be booked through it, and it hasn't changed since September 2024.

## Before you call either

### OpenTable APIs

1. Lock the slot before calling Make Reservation, since the lock and its reservation_token expire within 5 minutes
2. Send a unique X-Request-Id on every POST, PUT and PATCH so a retried booking is not duplicated
3. Fetch booking and cancellation policies before booking and show any deposit, hold or service fee to the diner
4. Use the Consumer API for diner bookings and the In-House Booking API only for a restaurant's own voice or phone channel
5. Ask the OpenTable representative for the rate limit of each endpoint before going live

### Square Appointments (Bookings API)

1. Act for the seller. This API books into one Square seller's calendar, not across businesses
2. Call RetrieveBusinessBookingProfile and check `support_seller_level_writes` before trying to create or cancel a seller-level booking
3. Call SearchAvailability first, then CreateBooking with the service variation ID and version, team member, location and customer
4. Send a fresh `idempotency_key` on each create, update or cancel, and pass `booking_version` when cancelling
5. Check `no_show_fee` on the service. A service with a non-zero fee must be booked by the customer elsewhere

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, OpenTable APIs or Square Appointments (Bookings API)?

Square Appointments (Bookings API) scores 68.1 (B) on agent readiness against OpenTable APIs's 38.6 (E), and leads in every scored category.

### Do OpenTable APIs and Square Appointments (Bookings API) need an API key?

OpenTable APIs uses an OAuth sign-in. Square Appointments (Bookings API) takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call OpenTable APIs and Square Appointments (Bookings API) without installing anything?

Yes. OpenTable APIs has a hosted endpoint at https://platform.opentable.com and Square Appointments (Bookings API) at https://connect.squareup.com/v2/bookings.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-square-appointments.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/opentable-vs-square-appointments.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "opentable", "b": "square-appointments"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare opentable square-appointments`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/opentable.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/square-appointments.json

## Other comparisons with OpenTable APIs or Square Appointments (Bookings API)

- [Chope vs OpenTable APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/chope-vs-opentable.md)
- [Eat App Partner API vs OpenTable APIs](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-app-vs-opentable.md)
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- [Chope vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/chope-vs-square-appointments.md)
- [Eat App Partner API vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/eat-app-vs-square-appointments.md)
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- [SevenRooms vs Square Appointments (Bookings API)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/sevenrooms-vs-square-appointments.md)
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