Revenue per seat hour (RevPOSH): how much each seat in the dining room earns

In brief

Revenue per seat hour answers a simple question that is hard to answer by eye: how much does each seat in my venue earn, on average, while it is occupied? A table for four that turns over twice in an evening earns more than a table for six occupied just once by a couple: revenue per seat hour puts everyone on the same scale, so you compare rooms, shifts, and evenings on equal terms of seats and time.

In Carteia you find it in the Dining room section of the Statistics page, in the Resa posto-ora column. It is available from Ristorante onward.

carteia.app/dashboard/analytics

Why it is the most important number in the dining room

Almost all restaurateurs look at the evening's revenue. But revenue alone is misleading: an evening with the room full for four hours can earn, seat by seat, less than an evening with the room half full but tables that turn over quickly. Revenue per seat hour removes the deception because it takes two things into account together:

• how many seats you have occupied (not just how many tables);
• for how long you have kept them occupied.

It is the same reasoning hotels have used for decades with revenue per available room. In the restaurant business, the "inventory" you sell is the seat per unit of time: every empty seat, or one occupied too long by someone who consumes little, is margin that does not come back.

How to read the table

For each room you see, in the selected period:

Seats

The active seats in the room.

Sittings

How many times a table was occupied and freed (the dining room service sessions).

Average duration

How long a table stays seated on average, in minutes.

Guests

The total covers served in the room.

Revenue

The revenue of the orders linked to those sittings.

Revenue per seat hour

The heart of the table: revenue divided by the seat-hours actually occupied. It is how much, on average, each seat earned you for each hour it was occupied.

How Carteia calculates it (and why it is honest)

Here lies the important part, and it is worth explaining in plain words, because it distinguishes Carteia's revenue figure from the one you find in many articles.

Carteia's formula is:

Revenue per seat hour = Revenue ÷ (sum, for each sitting, of: covers × duration of the sitting in hours)

In other words: the denominator is not the theoretically available seats multiplied by opening hours, but the seats actually occupied for the real time they were occupied. A sitting of 4 people lasting an hour and a half "weighs" 6 seat-hours; one of 2 people lasting an hour "weighs" 2 seat-hours. You sum everything and divide the revenue by that total.

Why this choice? Because it is honest and requires no estimates:

• you do not have to declare how many hours a day the room is "open" (a number that changes between lunch, dinner, seasons, closing days);
• the result comes only from real sittings, recorded by the LIVE table service;
• no phantom seats: if a table stayed empty, it simply does not enter the count.

Revenue per seat hour and RevPASH: the same idea, two denominators

If you search online you will often find the term RevPASH (Revenue Per Available Seat Hour), considered the leading KPI of the restaurant business. Its classic formula is:

RevPASH = Revenue ÷ (AVAILABLE seats × hours)

For example, according to a sector explanation from TheFork Manager: a venue with 25 seats that earns €400 from 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM has a RevPASH of 400 ÷ 25 = €16 per seat hour; a venue with 40 seats that earns €6,500 in 5 hours has 6,500 ÷ (40 × 5) = €32.50 per seat hour.

The difference with Carteia is just one, but it matters:

	"Classic" RevPASH	Carteia's revenue per seat hour
What is in the denominator	Available seats × opening hours	Occupied seats × real duration of the sittings
What it measures	Revenue and fill rate together (an empty seat lowers the number)	How much a seat earns while it is occupied
What is needed to calculate it	Knowing/estimating how many seats and how many hours you "sell"	Only the real sittings, already recorded
Does it penalize empty seats?	Yes	No (it measures them separately, with occupancy)

They are complementary, not in competition:

• revenue per seat hour tells you how much those who sit down spend (ticket quality and table turnover speed);
• occupancy (the day × hour heatmap, next to the table) tells you how much you use the capacity (how many seats you fill and when).

Read together, they give the complete picture: a room can have excellent revenue but low occupancy (few tables, well spent) or high occupancy but low revenue (a room full of people who consume little).

carteia.app/dashboard/analytics

What you can do with it, in practice

• Compare rooms. If the dehors earns less than the indoor room for the same number of seats, perhaps the tables are too far from the service, or the menu outside is not the same.
• Choose the layout. Many large tables occupied by couples lower the revenue: sometimes two tables for two earn more than one for four.
• Work on table turnover. If the average duration is very high and the revenue low, the problem is not the price but the time: faster desserts and checks free up seats for a second sitting.
• Push the ticket at the right hours. By cross-referencing revenue and occupancy you discover the time slots where you have occupied seats but low revenue: there, a pairing or a server's suggestion makes the difference.

What is needed for it to appear

Revenue per seat hour comes from two ingredients, and it must be said clearly:

1. The real sittings. They are produced by the LIVE table service (Table Manager), included from Ristorante onward. Without recorded sittings there is nothing to calculate.
2. The table revenue. The revenue figure is in euros, so it needs the checks linked to the sittings. These come from table orders: the column is valued if the QR table orders add-on is active for the venue.

Limits per plan

Feature	Assaggio	Osteria	Bistro	Ristorante	Insegna	Insegna Plus
Room occupancy and sittings	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Average duration and covers per room	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Revenue per seat hour (value in euros)	No	No	No	Add-on	Add-on	Add-on

What it is NOT

• It is not the margin. Revenue per seat hour looks at revenue, not net profit: two dishes that sell the same may have different food costs. For the margin see Food cost and the dish matrix.
• It is not an absolute grade. There is no universally "right" revenue figure: it depends on the type of venue, the city, the average ticket. The value is in the comparison — between your rooms, your shifts, your months.
• It does not replace occupancy. On its own it does not tell you whether the room is full or empty: it must be read together with the occupancy heatmap.

Related features

• Insights and statistics — the page that contains the Dining room section.
• Table management — the LIVE service that generates the real sittings.
• QR table orders — brings the table revenue into the revenue calculation.
• Food cost — to move from revenue to margin.