Commission on a court booking earns its keep when the marketplace brings you a player who'd never heard of your club. It earns a lot less when you pay it every week on the four who have played Thursday evenings for years. Here is the sum to run on your own numbers, the costs that don't appear on the invoice, and how to move regulars to booking direct without giving the marketplace up.
What padel booking app commission costs you
For clubs, court booking fees come down to one line:
court-hours booked through the marketplace each month × average price per court-hour × commission rate = what you pay each month.
A made-up example: a four-court padel club takes 300 court-hours a month through a marketplace at £30 an hour, £11.25 a player for a 90-minute game. That's £9,000. Say the commission is 10%: £900 a month, £10,800 a year.
Now split those hours between new players and regulars who would have booked with you anyway. If regulars account for two hours in three, that's 200 hours: £600 a month, £7,200 a year, paid on customers who were already yours.
Taking payment yourself has a cost too. Card processing takes a slice of each payment, say 1.5% plus 20p. On those 200 hours, £6,000 across roughly 133 games, that's about £117 a month, plus whatever your booking tool charges. The real saving is the gap between that and £600.
Before trusting the result, ask your marketplace:
- whether the commission already covers card processing;
- whether VAT is added to it, a real cost if your club isn't VAT-registered;
- whether players pay a booking fee on top of your court price.
The costs that never reach the invoice
- Who owns the customer list. If a player's email and phone number live with the marketplace rather than with you, you can't tell them about a closed court or a quiet-hours offer without going through it. And the same app that sends them to you shows them every other club nearby.
- Whose cancellation rules apply. If the app shows players one cancellation window and your desk enforces another, the argument lands at your front desk, not the app's. Book one of your courts through it and check the rule on screen is yours.
- Prices you don't set. A booking fee the marketplace adds for players, or a discount it runs, changes what someone comparing you with the club down the road actually sees. Your court price is only part of what they pay.
What a marketplace is genuinely worth
In fairness, it does things your own booking page won't. It puts you in front of people who don't know you: someone who has just moved to the area, a visitor, anyone searching for a game nearby. And it runs open matches, finding a fourth player at the right level. For a new club, or for hours nobody asks for, the commission on a new player is what it costs to win them, and that can be cheaper than advertising. What hurts is paying it every week on the same regular.
The middle way
Keep the marketplace for strangers and open matches, and bring your regulars to book with you directly. Two conditions:
- Split by court or by time, never the same court and hour in two systems. Say court 4 and weekday mornings stay on the marketplace and everything else is on your own page. Two calendars selling one hour will sooner or later double-book it.
- Read your contract first. Look for exclusivity, a minimum term, or a clause stopping you from inviting players to book another way or at another price.
Moving your regulars
- Start with the fixed slots. The Thursday-evening four needn't do anything: put their standing booking in your own calendar yourself.
- Give them a reason, not an instruction. The same price or a little less for booking direct, or first refusal on the fixed slots. Never more than the app.
- Collect contact details at the desk, with permission. Don't copy contacts out of the marketplace to send offers.
- Put the link where players already look: the club's WhatsApp group, Instagram, your Google listing and a QR code at the desk.
- You don't need your own app. A web page that opens on a phone, with nothing to download, is all a regular needs to see a free court and pay for it.
Doing it with Tuora
Tuora is a booking page for your club. Players pick a court on a map of the club, book 90-minute games and pay online, in full or as a deposit, into your own Stripe account. Your staff put fixed weekly slots in the same calendar, and you can send offers to your regulars. It costs €75 a month with five courts included, VAT included, with no commission on bookings and no minimum term. It doesn't run open matches or levels: keep the marketplace for those. More on tennis and padel clubs.
You can try it before talking to anyone: book a court at our demo club, then open its back office.