Court Booking Software With No Per-Transaction Fees
Court booking software rarely costs what the pricing page promises. A look at the module fees, overage charges, and card surcharges that show up after you sign, and why a flat price with no per-transaction fees actually matters.
Picture a 12-court pickleball facility that signs up for CourtReserve at a clean $369 a month. Three weeks in, the invoice looks different. A DUPR rating sync module adds $25. A point-of-sale integration adds another $25. The branded mobile app everyone wanted costs a $499 setup fee and locks the club into a one-year contract. None of that showed up clearly on the page that closed the sale.
This isn't a rare story. It's how most court booking software gets priced: a base plan up front, then a growing list of modules, overages, and fees that show up after a club has already migrated its members, its schedule, and its payment history onto the platform.
The pricing page shows one number. The invoice shows another.
Look at how the bigger platforms structure their plans and a pattern shows up fast. CourtReserve's published pricing scales with court count: an 8-court club starts at $199 a month, a 32-court club starts closer to $549. On top of that base price, the modules stack. A stringing module runs $25 a month. Access control integration, DUPR sync, video recording, and beverage POS each add another $25. Flex leagues cost $99 a month. A club that wants three or four of these can watch its bill climb well past what the homepage quoted.
Email and text messaging get metered too. Go over the included volume and the overage bills arrive in $5 increments. None of this is hidden exactly, it's listed on a plan comparison table a few clicks past the sign-up button. But almost no club owner reads that table before they demo the product, and by the time they do, they've already built a season schedule on it.
The card fee that gets pushed onto your players
The part that surprised us most while researching this: CourtReserve now lets clubs add a "convenience fee," capped at 4%, on any online card payment. It exists because credit card processing costs are real, and club owners felt them. Operators spent years asking for this feature in CourtReserve's own public feedback forum, describing processing costs eating into their margins on a nightly basis.
In 2022, the company said most clubs weren't turning a similar fee on because absorbing the cost was simply part of running the business. It shipped the following year anyway, capped at 4% under CourtReserve's own policy, because enough operators kept asking. Turning it on isn't simple, either. The fee only applies to online card payments, not in-person ones. Clubs are expected to give members 30 days of notice before it takes effect. And a club has to track whether local or state rules cap the fee lower than 4%. That's a real operational burden for someone whose actual job is running open play on a Tuesday night, not reading payment processing regulation.
What "no per-transaction fees" actually means
We built Facility Presence around one number: a flat monthly price. Court rentals with double-booking prevention, drop-in open play with a live queue and fair court rotation, membership management, and CRM tools for tagging and segmenting your player base all live in the same platform, not as modules you add one at a time. Payments run through Stripe, with refunds, PDF invoices, and account credits handled directly. Packages and credit balances deduct automatically the moment a player checks in. There's no per-transaction fee stacked on top of your subscription, no setup fee, and no multi-year contract. If you're migrating off another system, we handle the data transfer for free.
| Cost driver | Facility Presence | CourtReserve (published pricing, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Base subscription | One flat monthly price | $199 to $549+/month, scaled by court count |
| Per-transaction fees | None | Optional 4% card convenience fee |
| Add-on modules | Included | $25 to $99/month each |
| Contract term | Month-to-month | Subscription-based, though the branded app requires a 1-year term |
| Migration | Free, white-glove | Varies by setup |
None of this is about being cheaper for the sake of it. It's about a club owner looking at one number and knowing that's the number. When you're running badminton open play or a pickleball ladder on a Thursday night, the last thing you need is to wonder whether tonight's court fees are quietly funding a module you turned on eight months ago.
Does "no per-transaction fees" mean court booking is free?
No. It means the subscription price is the price. You aren't charged extra per booking, per payment, or per swipe on top of what you're already paying each month.
Why do some platforms charge a "convenience fee" on card payments?
Usually to offset the credit card processing cost the club would otherwise absorb. It's a real cost, and some clubs prefer to pass it along. The tradeoff is complexity: legal caps, notice requirements, and a member who wasn't expecting a fee at checkout.
Does Facility Presence require a setup fee or a contract?
No setup fee and no long-term contract. Plans are month-to-month, and migration from another system is handled for free.
If your current software bill has stopped matching what you signed up for, it might be worth seeing what a flat price actually looks like. Book a 30-minute demo and we'll walk through your setup.