Playtomic vs Playbypoint: How to Book US Padel Courts

If you have played padel in two different US cities, you already know the problem. The court you booked in Austin lived in one app. The court in Brooklyn lived in another. And the club your friend swears by took the reservation over the phone, because it is not in any app at all.

There is no single "padel app" in the United States. There are three that matter, they carve up the country unevenly, and a startling share of clubs sit outside all of them. So we counted.

The three apps that run US padel booking

Padel Browser tracks every active padel club in the country and records which booking platform each one uses. Here is the split across all 392 active US padel clubs in our directory as of September 2026:

Platform	Clubs	Padel courts	Share of clubs
Playtomic	102	524	26%
Playbypoint	96	412	24%
CourtReserve	14	43	4%
CatchCorner, OpenCourt, SpaTime	3	—	1%
No online booking on file	177	—	45%

Three things jump out.

Playtomic and Playbypoint are effectively tied. 102 clubs to 96 is not a rout, and anyone telling you one app "won" US padel is guessing. Playtomic's edge is a little wider measured in courts — 524 to 412 — because the clubs that pick it tend to be bigger: 5.2 padel courts on average against Playbypoint's 4.3.

CourtReserve, despite being the largest of the three as a business, is a rounding error in padel specifically.

And the biggest single group is none of the above.

About 45% of US padel clubs cannot be booked in an app

177 of the 392 clubs we track have no online booking platform on file — and "on file" is doing real work in that sentence. Some genuinely have no online booking: they take a phone call, a WhatsApp message, an Instagram DM, or a walk-in. Others almost certainly run a system we have not recorded yet. Our directory is a living document, not a census.

But the pattern inside that 177 is not random, and it is the most useful thing in this post. Of the 53 clubs we classify as members-only, 44 have no public booking platform — 83% of them. Private clubs do not need an app, because they have a front desk and a member roster. Among commercial, pay-to-play clubs the figure drops to 108 of 301, or 36%.

So if a club you found has no app, check whether it is private before you assume the listing is broken. Our guide to public padel courts you can play without a membership is the faster way to filter for doors that are actually open to you.

Playtomic — the marketplace one

Playtomic is the only one of the three built for you rather than for the club. Its homepage puts a "For players" menu ahead of "For clubs," and it describes itself as "the world's leading App for racket sport players and clubs." A Forbes line the company quotes on its own site puts it at 4 million players across 5,500 partner clubs in 52+ countries — a Spanish-born network that treats the US as one market among many.

How it works: open matches and a level that travels

Two features make Playtomic genuinely different in practice.

Open matches. You can book a court and publish the match publicly, and strangers fill the empty slots. If you have two players and need four, this is the single most useful tool in US padel. Neither Playbypoint nor CourtReserve has an equivalent that works as well.

A level that travels with you. Playtomic rates every player on a 0–7 scale and adjusts it after competitive matches based on who you beat, not merely whether you won. It also tracks a reliability figure — how confident it is in your number — so early swings are large and then settle. It is not DUPR and it is not a national ranking, but it is the closest thing US padel has to a portable level, and it is what keeps an open match from pairing a first-timer against a 5.0.

Where it dominates: Texas and Florida

Playtomic's US strength is concentrated rather than national:

State	Playtomic	Playbypoint	CourtReserve	No app on file
Florida	36	20	1	36
Texas	27	5	1	37
California	11	10	0	16
New York	1	9	2	12
Pennsylvania	1	8	0	4
Colorado	0	7	0	7
Arizona	4	2	0	4
New Jersey	1	4	3	1
Illinois	1	3	0	5
Georgia	2	2	1	4

In Texas it is not close: 27 clubs to Playbypoint's 5. Book padel in Houston, Austin, El Paso, or the Rio Grande Valley and Playtomic is very likely the app — PADEL CLUB AUSTIN, Padel39, Cube Padel Houston, Padel 9 in El Paso, Deuces Padel Club in Laredo.

In Florida it leads 36 to 20, from Privé Padel at Thesis in Coral Gables to The Bay in North Bay Village and Mondo Padel in West Palm Beach. California is a genuine coin flip at 11 to 10, with Taktika Padel and Kingdom of Padel in San Diego on Playtomic.

Playbypoint — the club-software one

Playbypoint — often written PlayByPoint, though the company itself styles it as one word — is the opposite proposition. Its homepage title is literally "Club Management Software," and there is no "For players" menu anywhere on it. It sells court scheduling, memberships, pro-shop POS, invoicing, and access control to club operators.

Why you book it without ever seeing the name

This is the part that explains a great deal of confusion. Playbypoint sells clubs a white-label app: your brand, your logo, your name in the App Store, with — in their own words — "No Playbypoint branding, only your club."

So when you download a club's own app or book through its own website and it feels like bespoke software, it usually is not. You are using Playbypoint with the badge filed off. This is exactly why players say "my club doesn't use an app" about a club that is, in fact, running one of the two biggest platforms in the country.

The practical consequence: there is no marketplace to browse. You find the club first, then use whatever booking surface it hands you — and expect a separate login per club.

Where it dominates: the Northeast and Mountain West

Playbypoint owns precisely the markets Playtomic barely entered.

• New York — 9 clubs to Playtomic's 1. Padel Haus Williamsburg and Padel Haus DUMBO in Brooklyn, Reserve Hudson Yards in Manhattan, Brisas East Hampton out on the East End.
• Colorado — 7 clubs to Playtomic's zero. Arenna Denver Padel, Padel Haus Denver, and Smash Padel in Boulder. There is no reason to install Playtomic for a Front Range trip.
• Pennsylvania — 8 to 1, including PADELphia in Bala Cynwyd and VIVA Padel & Pickleball in Flourtown.
• Elsewhere: Bay Padel (Treasure Island) in San Francisco, Padel N9NE in San Diego, Padel Haus Nashville, Union Padel Club in Chicago, Padel Boston in Dedham, and Padel United Sports Club in Cresskill.

CourtReserve — the tennis-first one

CourtReserve is the largest of the three by company size and the smallest in padel. It advertises 2,300+ clubs, 6 million players, and 105 million bookings — but its own homepage title is "Pickleball & Tennis Club Management Software," and padel appears third and last under its industries menu.

Our data matches that positioning almost too neatly. Look at the 14 padel clubs on CourtReserve and notice what they are named:

USTA National Campus in Orlando. OKC Tennis Center. Maywood Racquets Club and The Club at Monroe in New Jersey. Forked Lightning Racquet Club in Santa Fe. The Heights Racquet & Social Club in Minnesota. Padel America at Pickleball America in Stamford. Cross Court Pickleball + Padel in Hawthorne. Padel + Pickle outside St. Louis.

Hardly any are padel brands. They are tennis clubs, racquet clubs, and pickleball facilities that added a court or two and kept the software they already paid for — which is why the average CourtReserve club carries 3.3 padel courts against Playtomic's 5.2. You will meet CourtReserve at a tennis club, not a padel club.

One thing worth watching: CourtReserve is building a player-facing layer it calls CourtReserve Network, currently in beta for eligible Florida clubs. If that ships broadly, the tidy three-way split above gets messier.

Which app to install first, by metro

• Houston, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso, Rio Grande Valley → Playtomic
• Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach → Playtomic first, Playbypoint second
• New York City, Long Island, the Hamptons → Playbypoint
• Philadelphia and the Main Line → Playbypoint
• Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs → Playbypoint only
• Los Angeles, San Diego, Bay Area → both; California splits down the middle
• Phoenix and Tucson → Playtomic leads, 4 clubs to 2
• Chicago, Boston, Nashville, Salt Lake City → Playbypoint
• New Jersey → the one state where CourtReserve is a real third option

The rule of thumb: Playtomic first if you are south or west of Dallas, Playbypoint first if you are in the Northeast or the Rockies, and both if you travel for work. Whichever you install, our club directory lists the booking platform on every club page, so you can check before you download anything.

Practical tips once you are in

Peak and off-peak are not a small difference

All three platforms let clubs price by time slot, and US padel clubs use that aggressively. Weekday mornings and early afternoons are routinely the cheapest hours on the board; weekday evenings from roughly 6pm and weekend mornings are the contested ones, priced accordingly. If your schedule is flexible at all, that flexibility is worth real money — see our breakdown of what padel actually costs in the US for the ranges.

One quirk to know: most clubs quote the price for the whole court, not per person. A court that looks expensive is usually being split four ways.

Check the cancellation window before you confirm

This is the most common way new players lose money, and the least standardised thing across the three platforms. Cancellation rules are set per club, not per app: one refunds up to 24 hours out, the next charges you inside 12, a third holds the slot as a credit. Playbypoint's white-label setup makes it worse, because the policy lives in whatever the club wrote rather than on a consistent app-wide screen. Learn it once for your home club.

Finding a fourth when you only have three

If you are on Playtomic, publish the match as an open match and let the level system do the matchmaking. If your club is on Playbypoint or CourtReserve, there is no marketplace to fall back on, so the fourth comes from somewhere else: the club's WhatsApp group, its open-play and clinic sessions, or a league night. Our guide on how to find a padel partner covers the channels that work, and finding tournaments and leagues covers the organised end.

Newer clubs almost always rent rackets at the desk, which makes it easy to draft a curious friend as the fourth. Once they are past the rental stage, Racket Central is the deepest US padel catalogue to point them at.

The short version

Install Playtomic if you want to browse courts and find players; it is the only real marketplace and it leads in Texas and Florida. Expect Playbypoint to arrive invisibly, wearing your club's logo, especially in New York, Philadelphia, and Colorado. Treat CourtReserve as the tennis-club option. And do not assume a club without an app is closed — 45% of US padel clubs have no online booking on file, and most of the members-only ones never will. Sometimes you still just call.

You can browse every club we track or check availability across clubs without installing anything at all.