Last updated . Source: SnagRes availability record, 61,530,416 checks across 284 restaurants through 19 October 2026. How we measure. Open dataset.
Yes, for rooms that are hard but not impossible, and for people who tap fast. Everyone with a matching Notify is told at once and the first to book gets the table, so at the most wanted rooms the odds are low. It never holds or books anything for you.
Resy limits the number of active Notifies per account, and each covers one restaurant, one date, one party size and one time window. Widening the time window is the best way to make each one count.
No. Notify fires when a table on a date you asked for comes back, usually a cancellation. A scheduled release puts up a whole new night that was never on sale, and Notify has no date to watch for it. Release times for each room are on the release-times page.
Notify is Resy's waitlist for one date at one restaurant. SnagRes watches the calendars of 284 restaurants across Resy, OpenTable, Tock and SevenRooms and texts you the exact time a table opens on any date you care about, including scheduled releases. Neither books the table for you.
Notify is Resy's own waitlist. On a sold-out date you pick a party size and a range of times, tap Notify, and Resy emails or pushes you if a matching table comes back. It is free, it is built into the app, and for a lot of people it is the first thing they try after the calendar shows nothing.
It works the way a mailing list works. Everyone who set a Notify for that room, date and window is told at the same time, and the table goes to whoever taps first. Notify does not hold anything for you and does not book anything for you. It tells you that something existed a moment ago.
That is also its limit. At the rooms people fight over, the Notify list for a Saturday is long, the message reaches all of it at once, and the table is gone before most of the list has opened the app. The more wanted the room, the less a Notify is worth.
One Notify covers one restaurant, one date, one party size and one time window.
The alert goes to the whole list at once. First tap wins.
Nothing is held. Notify is a notice, not a reservation.
Notify only knows about the date you asked for. If you would take any of the next three Fridays, that is three Notifies, and Resy caps how many you can hold. It only knows Resy, so a room that books on SevenRooms, Tock or OpenTable is out of its sight entirely. And it says nothing about releases: when a room opens a new night on its schedule, Notify is silent, because no table was cancelled.
SnagRes watches the calendar itself rather than a waitlist. Across the 284 restaurants we track, 61,530,416 availability checks so far, on all four booking platforms, 169 of those rooms on Resy. When a date flips from nothing to something, members get a text with the exact time, whether it opened because someone cancelled or because the restaurant released the night. A watch covers every date in a range and every party size you set, and it runs at the release minute for rooms with a known rule.
Use both. Set a Notify on Resy for the exact night you want, because it costs nothing. Then star the room here so you hear about the nights Notify cannot see: the other dates, the other platforms, and the drops.
Notify: one date, Resy only, cancellations only, everyone told at once.
A SnagRes watch: any dates, four platforms, releases and cancellations, texted with the time.
Neither books the table. You do, in your own account, at the restaurant's price.
Widen the time window as far as you can stand. A 5 to 10 PM window fires far more often than a 7:30 to 8 window, and you can always decline. Set it for the party size you will actually book; a table for two does not appear for a Notify set to four. And set it early, because the list is first come and the notice reaches everyone at the same instant.
When the notice arrives, book from the notification itself rather than opening the app and searching. The seconds matter more than they seem.
Keep reading: How Resy works · Booking a hard table on Resy · What time restaurants release · What to do when a restaurant is fully booked · Reservation alert services compared · Alerts versus bots
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SnagRes checks 284 hard-to-book restaurants across four cities and alerts you when one opens. Watching one is free and no card is needed: watch a table free in New York City, or last-minute tables in NYC tonight, or see the hardest tables right now.