Is your reservation system costing you guests and revenue? Here’s the truth shared by actual former Tock users.
In today’s competitive tasting room environment, every guest, every reservation, and every transaction counts. Wineries are looking for platforms that not only manage bookings but also help grow their business, elevate guest experiences, and streamline direct-to-consumer (DTC) operations. Unfortunately, the wineries who have adopted Tock have discovered that what was promised by their sales team doesn’t align with the real-world results.
Below are the top ten ways Tock can actually cost your winery money—based on feedback from tasting rooms and wineries who have tried, struggled with, and ultimately left the platform.
When Tock’s limitations result in missed guest opportunities—such as low visibility or a clunky booking process—your winery is being cost revenue that you could have earned. This happens when potential new guests can’t find you or abandon the reservation because the experience selection is unclear or restrictive.
But when Tock’s system itself prevents reservations from being booked—such as blocking seats due to its rigid “one experience per table” rule—your winery is losing cold, hard dollars. These are seats that should be filled with guests who would buy tastings, bottles, and likely join wine clubs.
This is exactly where CellarPass delivers a competitive edge. CellarPass allows tasting rooms to:
- Assign any experience to any table or location
- Seamlessly combine multiple floor plans (patio, estate room, vineyard overlook)
- Maximize capacity during peak windows
- Avoid operational blind spots that reduce seat utilization
More flexibility means more guests, more wine sold, and a higher lifetime value of each new visitor. That’s not just preventing losses—that’s enabling growth.
Tock was designed for restaurants. Its rigid capacity management system can’t handle multiple concurrent tasting formats—leaving seats empty when they could be generating revenue.
Its marketplace is dominated by restaurants. Wineries are buried, leading to far fewer new guests than promised by the sales pitch.
A 7–8 week setup means you may be paying subscription fees long before reservations are available. Lost time = lost bookings and time away from more essential staff tasks. Sign up for CellarPass in the morning and be launched by the afternoon.
Complex DTC needs like membership perks (discounts and exclusivity), pickup scheduling, or varied tasting flows often aren’t understood by their team—leading to costly misconfigurations.
Tock’s roadmap still prioritizes restaurant features, leaving winery-specific improvements slow or nonexistent. Simply stated, why invest in programming resources to meet the needs of the wine industry, which is less than 5% of their customers?
Sales pitches often don’t match reality, and your point of contact can change frequently—leaving commitments unfulfilled.
RESY (also owned by AMEX) receives the majority of promotional focus. Wineries have seen zero uplift in referrals from the acquisition.
Standard 3-year contract commitments and steadily increasing pricing puts financial pressure on seasonal operations.
Tock often forces tasting rooms to change how they operate to fit its software—causing slower workflows and frustrated guests.
Both Tock and Commerce7 are exclusively owned by payment processing companies, providing no alternatives that could be negotiated for better processing rates. CellarPass is integrated with the popular payment gateways, allowing you direct access to which payment gateway and processor your winery prefers.
Tock promises wineries visibility, streamlined operations, and increased bookings. But for many, the real-world experience is the opposite: fewer guests, missed sales, and a system that creates more overhead than efficiency.
You deserve a platform that:
- Fills your tasting room
- Enhances your DTC strategy
- Respects your workflow and brand identity
- Delivers real revenue growth
That’s why wineries choose CellarPass—the booking and ticketing engine built for the wine industry.
👉 Schedule a Demo with CellarPass »
Let’s make every seat count, sign up in the morning, be launched by the afternoon, guaranteed!
