Unmanned Batting Cage SoftwareTwo tunnels, no front desk, and nobody has to drive over.

How does an unmanned batting cage actually work?

A customer books and pays for a tunnel online, signs the liability waiver on their phone as part of checkout, and receives a numeric door code that activates a few minutes before their slot and expires at the end of it. They let themselves in, hit, and leave. No employee is scheduled, and no one has to be called out to open the building.

The reason this model works at all is that payment happens before access. There is no register to run, no no-show to chase, and no negotiation at the door — the person standing outside either has a live reservation or they don't, and the lock knows which.

The reason it fails is almost always the same: the code and the booking live in two different systems. Someone reschedules in the booking tool, the access system never hears about it, and now a paying customer is standing in a parking lot in Missouri at 10pm with a code that doesn't work and nobody to call.

What does the software have to do for an unstaffed cage facility?

It has to enforce every rule a front-desk employee would otherwise enforce: full payment before the slot is held, a signed waiver on file before the door opens, a code that expires so nobody lingers into the next booking, and a reminder before the session so the slot doesn't get wasted.

• Payment up front. Full payment at booking, not a deposit and not an invoice. This is what eliminates no-shows in an unstaffed model — there is no one on site to enforce a cancellation policy after the fact.
• Waiver before code. The waiver is signed with initials during checkout and stored against the customer. Returning customers show as already on file. The code isn't issued until it's signed.
• Time-boxed access. The code works for the reserved window plus a short grace period, then stops. That's what keeps the 8pm booking from eating into the 9pm booking when there's no one there to ask them to wrap up.
• Reminders that carry the code. The code appears on the confirmation screen, in the confirmation email, and in a calendar invite that puts it on their lock screen at session time. If they're on the texting plan, it comes by SMS too.
• Remote everything. Refunds, reschedules, a re-sent code, a manually opened door — all from a phone, because the alternative is a 20-minute drive.

What does unmanned batting cage software cost?

Cinch is $249/mo flat with unlimited bookings and no per-transaction fee; you connect your own Stripe account and pay Stripe's standard 2.9% + 30¢ directly. Most sports-facility platforms instead charge a bundled per-transaction fee in the range of 3.9% + $2.79, which is the more expensive structure at cage-rental ticket sizes.

The flat per-transaction component is what does the damage. A fixed $2.79 is a rounding error on a $300 team package and it is 8% of a $35 half-hour rental — and half-hour rentals are the entire business.

Can it use the door hardware I already have?

Usually, yes — and that's the cheaper path than replacing it. Cinch generates the per-session code and pushes it to your existing access controller through the controller's API, so you keep the keypad and controller already on the wall.

Cinch issues the code. Delivering it to your specific door controller is integration work we scope and confirm before you sign — not a checkbox we pretend is already ticked. Most cloud access controllers (infinias / 3xLOGIC, and others in that class) publish an API for doors, people, and PIN credentials, which is all a per-session code needs. If yours doesn't, we'll tell you that on the first call rather than after the contract.

Do I need texting, or is email enough?

Email is enough to launch, and it's faster to launch with. The code shows on the confirmation screen, in the confirmation email, and inside a calendar invite that surfaces on the customer's lock screen when the session starts — no phone signal required at the door.

Texting is better, and it's a flip-on-later upgrade rather than a rebuild. The one real cost of text messaging is time: US carriers require A2P 10DLC registration for business SMS, which takes roughly one to three weeks. Launching email-first means you can be open before that clears, then add SMS when it lands.