Unstaffed Court Booking SoftwareCourts that book, bill, and unlock themselves.
An unstaffed pickleball or tennis facility sells court time online, collects payment at booking, and releases a gate or door code that works only for the reserved window. Cinch handles reservations, memberships, open-play sessions, and the access code from one system, so courts can be open more hours than they're staffed.
- Typical ticket
- $15–$40 per court hour
- Common model
- Members 24/7, public during set hours
- Access
- Code per reservation, or a member credential
- Also handles
- Open play, leagues, ladders, lessons
- Cinch price
- $249/mo flat, unlimited bookings
How do unstaffed courts handle members versus the public?
Access is set per membership tier. Members get booking rights during hours the public doesn't — commonly round-the-clock — and their credential or code is tied to an active, paid membership, so it stops working the day the membership lapses or a payment fails.
That last part is the piece a lock-and-keypad setup can't do on its own. A static door code has to be changed manually and told to everyone; a code tied to membership status revokes itself.
Can it run open play and leagues too?
Yes. Open-play sessions are bookable with capacity limits and a waitlist, and league or ladder play is scheduled on the same courts without double-booking them. Court reservations, open play, and programming all draw from one calendar.
What does court booking software cost for a small facility?
Cinch is $249/mo flat with unlimited bookings and no transaction fee. Court time has a low average ticket — often $15 to $40 an hour — which makes per-transaction pricing with a fixed per-booking component especially expensive here: a flat $2.79 on a $20 court hour is 14% before card processing.
| Booking | Per-transaction platform (≈3.9% + $2.79) | Flat software + your own Stripe (2.9% + 30¢) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| $35 — half-hour cage or bay | $4.16 (11.9%) | $1.32 (3.8%) | $2.84 |
| $70 — one hour | $5.52 (7.9%) | $2.33 (3.3%) | $3.19 |
| $120 — two-hour court block | $7.47 (6.2%) | $3.78 (3.2%) | $3.69 |
| $300 — team package | $14.49 (4.8%) | $9.00 (3.0%) | $5.49 |
≈3.9% + $2.79 is a representative rate for all-in-one sports-facility platforms that bundle payment processing into one per-transaction fee; check the actual rate on any quote you're comparing. The flat column assumes you connect your own Stripe account and pay Stripe directly. The gap closes as the ticket grows — per-transaction pricing is genuinely reasonable on a $300 package and genuinely expensive on a $35 cage rental.
Asked and answered.
Can players split the cost of a court?+
What about lights?+
Do you handle family memberships?+
One system. Booking, payment, waiver, door.
$249/mo flat, every feature included, no transaction fees and no contract. Free migration from whatever you run today.