How to Split Court Booking Costs Between Players Without Chasing Anyone

A doubles court costs the same whoever pays for it, but somebody has to. In most clubs that somebody is the player who booked: they pay the whole court, then collect from the other three over the next week, in cash, by bank transfer or not at all. The club got its money, so the problem stays out of sight.

To split a court booking cost properly, the club has to decide three things in advance: who pays when the court is booked, what is held for the players who have not paid yet, and who covers a share that never arrives. This guide goes through the options, with the trade-offs of each, and shows how a split works when the players are not all known at the time of booking.

Why splitting the cost is a club problem, not a player one

It looks like a matter between friends. It stops being one in three situations:

• The booker gives up. Players who are tired of chasing their partners book fewer doubles, or only with the same three people who always pay back.
• Seats go unpaid. Someone books "for four", two turn up, and the club has a court priced for four and paid for by one, or by nobody if payment was due at the desk.
• Prices differ. A member and a guest on the same court should not pay the same if the club charges them different rates. Once one person pays for everyone, the guest gets the member price, or the member pays the guest's.

How clubs usually handle it

There are four common arrangements. Each works somewhere.

The fourth is the one that works best for both sides, and most of the rest of this guide is about setting it up well. The organiser secures the court at once, everyone pays their own part, and the club is paid in full whatever happens.

How to split court booking costs: the booker guarantees, the others pay their share

The principle is simple: the person who books the court guarantees it, but only pays what nobody else does.

1. Price each share at the player's own rate

Divide the court price by the number of players, using each player's own price list. A member on a plan with discounted court time pays a quarter of the member price, and a guest pays a quarter of the guest price. That way nobody's discount pays for someone else, and the club is not short when a guest plays on a member's booking.

2. Hold the rest on the booker's card, don't charge it

When the booker pays by card, charge their own share and place an authorisation hold on the same card for the rest. A hold reserves the money on the card without moving it. Each time another player pays their share, the amount still to collect from the booker goes down. When the deadline arrives, the booker's card is charged only for what is still unpaid.

If everyone pays, the booker pays exactly their own share.

3. Set a deadline that is before the match

Give the other players a fixed window to pay. A sensible deadline is a set number of hours after booking, or the start of the match, whichever comes first. After the match nobody pays up, and a hold left open for days helps no one.

A card hold also does not last forever. Card networks let an authorisation lapse after about a week, so a booking made two weeks ahead cannot be held from the day it is booked. For bookings that far out, take the booker's own share at once and place the hold for the rest shortly before the match, on a card saved for that purpose.

4. Decide what the wallet does

If your club runs a prepaid club wallet, the choice is less obvious than it looks. You have two options:

• The wallet fronts the whole unpaid amount. It is debited for the whole court and credited back as the others pay. This protects the club, but a member whose balance only covers their own share cannot pay at all.
• The wallet pays only the member's share. Members with a small balance can still book, but nothing is held for the other players. Their shares stay open until they pay, so you are back to collecting them yourself.

Clubs whose members keep large balances can use the first option. Clubs where members top up a little at a time often prefer the second, and accept that some shares will have to be collected at the desk.

5. Decide who pays for a seat nobody fills

This is the question most clubs never answer. When a player books a court for four before knowing who the other three are, someone has to pay for any seat that is still empty when the match starts. The fair answer is the booker, at the guest rate: the seat was being kept for someone the club does not know yet, so it is priced like a guest. The booker chooses how many seats to book, and pays for the ones they do not fill.

6. Decide what happens when someone drops out

Write down the rule before you need it:

• Before they pay, a player can simply leave. Their seat is open again.
• After they pay, either the club releases or refunds their share and the booker covers the seat, or the payment stands and the seat stays theirs. Choose one and say it at booking.
• When the whole booking is cancelled, the club's normal cancellation policy applies to every share, not only the booker's. How to set that policy is in how to create a court booking cancellation policy, and how returned money goes back to the players is in how to handle refunds for cancelled court bookings automatically.

Example: a padel doubles booked for four

Hypothetical numbers. A padel club charges €28 for a 90-minute court on its member price list and €40 on its basic, non-member list. Ana, a member, books Thursday 19:00 for four players, without naming anyone else yet.

On Tuesday two members, Ben and Iva, take a seat each and pay €7 each. Ana's hold was placed at the guest rate of €10 a seat, so each seat a member takes brings what she owes down by the full €10, not only by the €7 the member paid.

On Thursday at 19:00 one seat is still empty:

Nobody chased anybody. Ana paid for the seat she left empty, at the rate of the guest she was holding it for, and nothing more. If a fourth member had joined, the club would have received €28 and Ana would have paid €7.

How SportyPlus can help

In SportyPlus, split payments are a club setting: Settings → Payments → Split online payments, on top of Enable online payment. With it on, a player paying by card in the member app can Pay everything or Pay your share. Paying their share by card holds the rest of the booking on the same card. Each share another player pays comes off that hold, and whatever is still unpaid is charged 48 hours after payment or when the match starts, whichever is sooner. Each share is priced from the player's own price list, through the club's membership rules. For a league match, whoever booked the court can also pay for everyone, even when they are not the first player listed.

A player can also book for 2 or 4 players before knowing who the others are. Open seats are priced at the club's basic, non-member rate, club members can take them from the court list or through a link the booker sends, and whoever joins pays their own share at their own rate. The booker's card is held for the open seats; for a match more than six days away, the booker's own share is charged at once and the hold is placed the day before, which is why it needs a saved card.

Two more options on the same page change the defaults described above:

• Ewallet split: pay own share only makes a wallet payment cover the member's share alone. The others pay theirs themselves, and nothing is fronted for them.
• Seat holds on open bookings makes everyone on a booking made for open seats pay by a hold on their own card, and charges every card only when the match starts. Since only then is it known whether it was singles or doubles, each card is held for the most that share could be and cut to the real share at the start. The booker pays only for empty seats and for any player who never authorised theirs. Until the start, a player can leave, or be removed by the booker or the club, and their hold is released. Players who have not authorised are reminded three hours before the match.

A booking whose remaining amount is held on a card shows as authorised rather than unpaid, since it will be charged at the start. Details are on the payments and finance module page and the court booking module.

Practical recommendations

1. Put the rule in one sentence on the booking screen: "You pay your share now; the rest is held on your card and charged only if the other players have not paid by the start."
2. Price shares at each player's own rate, and open seats at the guest rate. It is the only version where no discount pays for someone else.
3. Use holds, not charges, for other people's shares. A booker who is charged for four and refunded for three will stop booking for four.
4. Make the deadline the start of the match at the latest. Settle everything then.
5. Choose the wallet behaviour on purpose, based on how much your members usually keep in their wallets.
6. Let players leave before the match, and say what happens to what they have paid.
7. Require payment for every share at the contended hours. A share nobody has to pay is how a booked doubles court ends up with two players on it; see how to prevent court no-shows.

Related questions

Should a member and a guest on the same court pay the same share? Only if they pay the same rate when they book alone. Splitting the court price evenly regardless of who is playing quietly passes the member discount to the guest.

Is a card hold the same as a charge? No. The amount is reserved on the card and shows as pending, but only the part that is actually captured is charged. The rest is released. Say this to players, because a pending amount for four shares alarms people who expected to pay for one.

What if the booker's card hold cannot be placed? When the booking is made, it is treated like any card payment that fails: the booking is not paid. When the hold is placed later, the day before a match booked far ahead, the player whose card failed should be told at once, while there is still time to sort it out. SportyPlus notifies them.

Can a club still let players pay at the desk? Yes, and for walk-in clubs it is often the right choice. The risk is only that unpaid shares are discovered after the court has been played. The two can be mixed: staff can take one player's share at the desk on a booking whose other shares were paid online.

Let every player pay their own share. SportyPlus prices each share at the player's own rate, holds the rest on the booker's card and settles everything when the match starts. See court booking, or read the full guide to court booking management.