Best Booking Platform for Independent Wine Hosts and Sommeliers

For an independent host with no venue and no reservations team, Oxto is the closest fit. It is free to join and list, adds discovery that brings new guests, and prices Oxto Reserve at a host scale: $29 a month or $299 a year, or free with a 3% fee per ticket sold. Tock (now on Resy), Resy, and Eventbrite each solve a narrower piece.

Tock is venue software: since August 11, 2026 it runs on Resy, a restaurant-first app, and its entry plan is $289 a month plus 3% on prepaid bookings. Resy is built for restaurant tables and American Express diners. Eventbrite sells a ticket to a single event at 3.7% plus $1.79 per ticket. None of the three lists independent hosts, keeps a guest taste profile, or matches guests to you with an AI assistant, which is exactly what Oxto does.

• Oxto: free to list, 3% per ticket or $299 a year at 0%, with reservations, ticketing, taste profiles, AI matching, and new guests in one place
• Tock (now on Resy): $289 a month plus 3% on prepaid before you sell a seat, built for venues with staff
• Resy: restaurant table management, reported from about $249 a month, with no native event ticketing
• Eventbrite: 3.7% plus $1.79 per ticket, tickets only, with no reservations, no taste data, and a mass-market audience

The clearest split is cost model and discovery. Oxto and Eventbrite let you start with no monthly fee, while Tock/Resy charges venue-scale subscriptions. On discovery, Oxto and Eventbrite bring new guests, and Resy brings a restaurant-diner audience that now includes Tock’s venues. Only Oxto lists independent hosts as first-class profiles.

Prices for Tock and Resy come from Tock’s published plans and 2026 third-party reports; treat the Resy figures as reported rather than posted by Resy. Payment processing is separate on Tock/Resy and Eventbrite. Included, Not offered, and Not advertised reflect each company’s public pricing and feature pages as of September 2026 and our reading of them.

For an independent host, Oxto is free to list and charges 3% per paid ticket, or 1.5% on the $29 a month plan and 0% on the $299 a year plan. Luma is free with a 5% fee, or 0% at $708 a year. Posh sets its fee at checkout and does not publish a fixed rate; third-party 2026 reports put it near 10% plus $0.99 a ticket. Eventbrite charges 3.7% plus $1.79 a ticket. Tock/Resy (Tock moved onto Resy, American Express’s restaurant-first app, in August 2026) and CellarPass start at $229 to $289 a month plus 2% to 3%, with no free reservation tier. Card processing is extra on all of them; on Oxto it is charged by Stripe at its standard rate, currently 2.9% plus 30 cents per paid ticket.

On $5,000 in ticket sales (100 tickets at $50), here is what each platform keeps in platform fees before card processing:

What each platform actually charges, plainly:

• Oxto: free to join and list. 3% Oxto fee per paid ticket sold, or Oxto Reserve at $29 a month (1.5% per ticket) or $299 a year (no per-ticket Oxto fee). Stripe card processing, currently 2.9% plus 30 cents, applies to paid tickets. Free events are free. Takes seated reservations and ticketed events, keeps a taste profile on every guest, and lists you next to wineries in taste-matched discovery with the Oxto AI assistant and AI search.
• Luma: free plan with a 5% platform fee on paid tickets and free events free. Luma Plus removes the fee for $59 a month billed annually ($708 a year). Events only, no seated reservations.
• Posh: free to publish, no monthly fee. Posh does not publish a fixed rate; its fee is set at checkout and shown all-in, and third-party 2026 reports put it near 10% plus $0.99 a ticket with card processing included in that figure. Built for nightlife and music. Events only.
• Eventbrite: free events free. Paid tickets carry 3.7% plus $1.79 per ticket and 2.9% payment processing per order, passed to the buyer by default. The largest general event marketplace. Events only.
• Tock/Resy and CellarPass: venue reservation platforms with no free reservation tier. Tock Essential is $289 a month plus 3% on prepayments. CellarPass Professional is $229 a month plus 2%, and CellarPass Enterprise is $799 a month with no reservation fee. Neither lists independent hosts.

Included and Not offered reflect each company’s public pricing and feature pages as of September 2026 and our reading of them. Company names are trademarks of their owners. Capabilities change; if you spot an error, tell us and we will fix it.

Reservation platforms assume a venue: a fixed address, staff, and enough covers to justify a monthly subscription. An independent host has a calendar and an experience, not a tasting room. Tock’s published plans start at $289 a month and Resy is reported to start near $249, which is hard to carry on a handful of private tastings.

The deeper problem is discovery. A winery gets found through winery directories and its own address. A freelance sommelier or a private chef has no such listing. Restaurant platforms surface restaurants, and winery tools surface wineries, so the independent host stays invisible to new guests and depends entirely on personal referrals.

Oxto was built for that person. Your profile is discoverable on Oxto Explore, your dates show on the Oxto experiences calendar, and Oxto matches guests to you by the taste and atmosphere they want, not only by geography.

For a host running a few events a month, commission and per-ticket models beat flat subscriptions. Oxto Reserve is free with a 3% fee per ticket, so you pay only when you sell. Eventbrite charges roughly 3.7% plus $1.79 per paid ticket, plus about 2.9% processing, with free events free.

Tock/Resy inverts that math: a flat bill of about $249 to $289 a month before you sell a seat, and Tock’s plans still take 2% to 3% on prepaid bookings, with no fee-free prepaid tier. If you host often and want a predictable cost, Oxto’s $299 a year plan charges 0% per ticket, a fraction of one month on Tock/Resy.

Watch who absorbs the fee. Eventbrite adds fees on top of the ticket by default, raising the price the guest sees. With Oxto Reserve you can run the flat $29 a month plan to keep the guest price clean, or the free 3% plan to pay only on sales. Payouts go to your own bank either way.

Oxto handles event ticketing and reservations in one system, so a winemaker dinner, a pop-up tasting, or a guided tour lives beside your regular bookings. You set party sizes, tiered and per-experience pricing, deposits, and split payments, and each guest’s taste profile travels with the booking.

Eventbrite stops at ticketing: no reservation management, no taste data, 3.7% plus $1.79 on every ticket, and a mass-market brand that guests do not associate with premium wine experiences. Tock/Resy sells ticketed experiences only on a venue-scale monthly plan, from $289 a month plus 3% on prepaid.

Even a one-off event costs less on Oxto: a free Insider account sells tickets at 3% with no per-ticket dollar fee, and every event you run builds the same guest record and taste profile as your tastings, so nothing has to be stitched together later.

Each of them was designed for someone else. Tock was built for restaurant-style prepayment at venues with staff, and since August 11, 2026 it runs on Resy, a restaurant-first app. It costs $289 a month plus 3% on prepaid bookings before a host sells a single seat, it has no fee-free prepaid tier, and it does not list independent hosts.

Resy is table management for restaurants and American Express diners, with no native event ticketing and no host profiles. Eventbrite is a general-admission ticket at 3.7% plus $1.79 per ticket, with no reservations, no guest taste profiles, and no wine audience. For an occasional ticketed wine or food night, a free Oxto Insider account sells tickets at 3% and adds discovery, so it costs less than Eventbrite on the very event Eventbrite is built for.

Oxto is built for the independent host from the ground up: discovery, the Oxto AI assistant, AI search and taste matching, reservations, ticketing, deposits, and a guest CRM with taste profiles, at a price sized for one person rather than a venue.