How Full Do Your Courts Need to Be for the Numbers to Work?

The published sources reviewed here do not provide an independently validated average revenue or occupancy rate for pickleball clubs. The defensible approach is to calculate available court-hours, define what “occupied” means, model demand by daypart and season, and apply a consistent realized revenue per occupied court-hour. Then test whether the resulting contribution—not merely gross revenue—covers the facility’s complete cost structure.

Start with the revenue and occupancy formulas

The basic gross court-booking revenue formula is:

Gross court-booking revenue = courts × operating hours per day × operating days × utilization × average revenue per occupied court-hour

Court utilization is:

Court utilization = occupied court-hours ÷ available court-hours

If a club has eight courts available for one hour, it has eight available court-hours. If five courts are occupied throughout that hour, utilization is 62.5%.

The arithmetic is simple; the definitions are not. Operators should distinguish at least four measures:

• Booked occupancy: Court-hours reserved in the booking system. Depending on the report, this may include canceled, complimentary, discounted, or unpaid reservations.
• Paid occupancy: Reserved or used court-hours associated with a nonzero realized revenue allocation under the selected reporting convention. This does not necessarily identify when cash was collected or revenue recognized.
• Physical occupancy: Court-hours during which players actually used the court.
• Player density: Players served per occupied court-hour.

These measures are not interchangeable. A charged no-show may appear in booked and paid occupancy but not physical occupancy. A complimentary clinic can create physical occupancy without paid occupancy. A private rental for four players and open play rotating eight players can each consume one court-hour while producing different player density and revenue.

Average revenue per occupied court-hour also requires a consistent definition. It can mean:

1. The realized court rate alone, after discounts and refunds; or
2. Allocated club revenue, potentially including a share of memberships or programming.

Either convention can support internal analysis, but mixing them inflates the forecast. If membership revenue is allocated to occupied hours, it cannot also be added in full as a separate revenue line.

Capacity multiplied by price represents hypothetical gross potential. It is not actual revenue, profit, or cash flow. Courts will not be occupied continuously, some reservations will be discounted or refunded, and operating, financing, tax, and capital obligations remain.

Worked example: an eight-court revenue and occupancy model

Consider an explicitly illustrative indoor facility with:

• 8 courts
• 14 operating hours per day
• 350 operating days per year
• $40 in realized booking revenue per occupied court-hour

Its annual capacity is:

8 × 14 × 350 = 39,200 available court-hours

Applying different utilization assumptions produces these gross booking-revenue scenarios:

Utilization	Occupied court-hours	Assumed hourly yield	Gross booking revenue
30%	11,760	$40	$470,400
50%	19,600	$40	$784,000
70%	27,440	$40	$1,097,600

These are scenario outputs, not revenue benchmarks. They exclude memberships, programming, ancillary sales, operating expenses, financing, taxes, and capital spending.

Suppose utilization rises from 50% to 60% while available hours and the $40 yield remain unchanged:

39,200 × (60% − 50%) = 3,920 additional occupied court-hours

3,920 × $40 = $156,800 in additional gross booking revenue

That is a 10-percentage-point increase. It is not a 10% relative increase. A 10% relative increase from 50% would produce 55% utilization, adding 1,960 occupied hours and $78,400 at the assumed yield. Forecasts should state which convention they use.

Replace every illustrative input with facility-specific assumptions:

• Number of courts
• Sellable operating hours
• Open days
• Utilization by period
• Realized hourly yield
• Discounts and complimentary use
• Refunds and credits
• Maintenance and event closures
• Ramp-up time before stabilized occupancy

“Sellable” matters. A court blocked for maintenance, staff training, private events, or exclusive access may be physically present without being available to the relevant booking market.

What published occupancy benchmarks can—and cannot—tell you

CourtReserve presents vendor-reported planning ranges of approximately 55%–75% peak utilization and 25%–40% off-peak utilization. It characterizes blended utilization above 60% as strong and above 75% as a possible expansion signal. The same page reports vendor benchmarks for annual indoor revenue per court of approximately $40,000 at the low end, $75,000 at the median, and $120,000 or more for the top quartile (CourtReserve’s court revenue calculator and benchmark page).

These are commercially sourced planning references, not established industry averages. CourtReserve sells facility-management software, and the page does not disclose its sample composition, collection period, geographic mix, treatment of new versus mature clubs, or independently validated methodology. The figures do not establish profitability or predict what an individual club will earn.

One way to test the revenue-per-court figures is to reconstruct them. The table below assumes 4,900 available hours per court—14 hours a day for 350 days—and a $40 realized yield:

Vendor-reported revenue per court	Available hours	Implied utilization	Assumed realized yield
$40,000	4,900	20.4%	$40
$75,000	4,900	38.3%	$40
$120,000	4,900	61.2%	$40

This is a plausibility check, not the vendor’s disclosed calculation. The same annual revenue could result from fewer available hours at a higher yield, more hours at lower utilization, or a revenue definition that allocates memberships and programs to court-hours.

Before using any revenue-per-court comparison, ask:

• What revenue is included?
• How many hours was each court available?
• Does utilization mean booked, paid, or physically used?
• Are discounts, taxes, credits, and refunds removed?
• Is the facility new, mature, indoor, outdoor, seasonal, or mixed-use?

A benchmark that cannot answer those questions should remain a sensitivity input rather than the foundation of an investment case.

Model peak, off-peak, weekday, weekend, and seasonal demand separately

A blended annual utilization rate can hide the operating problem that matters most: sold-out periods may coexist with large blocks of empty inventory. A club can have waiting lists on selected evenings yet finish the year with modest utilization because weekday inventory remains difficult to sell.

Do not assume universal peak times. Build the forecast around local customer behavior. To keep the worksheet compact, group the three court-hour measures and the two revenue inputs within shared columns:

Period	Court-hours: available / booked / paid	Yield / cancellations or no-shows	Gross revenue
Weekday morning	/ /	/
Weekday midday	/ /	/
Weekday evening	/ /	/
Weekend	/ /	/
Event blocks	/ /	/

Calculate revenue from paid hours under the club’s selected convention while retaining booked hours to diagnose scheduling friction. The gap between booked and paid hours can reveal complimentary access, cancellations, reporting differences, credits, or weak collection controls. Comparing either measure with physical use can identify no-shows and unused reservations.

Add a monthly or seasonal factor rather than assuming constant demand. A trade-magazine article profiles clubs reporting slower indoor traffic when players move to free outdoor courts in favorable weather, but those examples are operator anecdotes rather than audited occupancy or financial records (Pickleball Club Magazine’s seasonal-club profiles).

A new club also needs a ramp-up curve. Prepare at least three cases:

• Conservative: Slow customer acquisition, weak off-peak demand, seasonal losses, and more discounts or introductory offers.
• Base: Locally supported daypart assumptions with gradual stabilization.
• Aggressive: Faster acquisition and stronger utilization, still constrained by capacity, staffing, and realistic booking behavior.

Do not let the aggressive case become the only scenario that covers costs. If break-even requires immediate mature-club occupancy, the project has little tolerance for launch delays or forecast error.

Keep court revenue, memberships, and programming from being counted twice

A pickleball club may earn revenue from:

• Court rentals
• Memberships
• Open play
• Leagues
• Clinics and camps
• Private coaching
• Tournaments and corporate events
• Retail and merchandise
• Equipment rental
• Food and beverage
• Sponsorships

Model direct court-booking revenue first. Then add each non-court stream once at the total-club level, with its own price, participation, capacity, refund, and delivery-cost assumptions.

Memberships require special care. Allocating membership revenue to the court-hours members use can help compare the effective yield of member and nonmember activity. Once that allocation is included in hourly yield, however, the same membership revenue must not be added again as a separate line.

Playtomic’s revenue report, for example, reports revenue by payment date net of refunds and separates wallet top-ups from wallet spending to prevent double counting (Playtomic’s revenue-report definitions). That is a software reporting convention, not a universal accounting rule.

A club could therefore show different totals in:

• A booking report based on reservation or service date
• A payment report based on transaction date
• Bank deposits based on settlement date
• Financial statements prepared under the club’s accounting policies

Name the convention used and reconcile the differences.

Calculate break-even occupancy instead of stopping at gross revenue

Gross revenue does not show whether a club works financially. Begin with contribution per occupied court-hour:

Contribution per occupied court-hour = realized revenue per occupied court-hour − variable costs attributable to that hour

If court bookings alone must cover all fixed operating costs, the court-revenue-only stress test is:

Break-even occupied court-hours = fixed operating costs ÷ contribution per occupied court-hour

For a facility with positive contribution from memberships, programs, or ancillary sales, use a facility-level formula:

Break-even occupied court-hours = (fixed costs − expected net contribution from non-court streams) ÷ contribution per occupied court-hour

Break-even utilization = break-even occupied court-hours ÷ available court-hours

“Net contribution from non-court streams” means revenue minus the variable and directly attributable delivery costs of those streams. Using gross membership or program revenue in the numerator would understate required court occupancy.

For example, suppose a facility has $600,000 in annual fixed operating costs, no assumed contribution from other revenue streams, and earns $32 of contribution per occupied court-hour. It needs 18,750 occupied court-hours. With 39,200 available court-hours, operating break-even utilization is approximately 47.8%.

That result changes if other activities make a positive contribution. It also changes according to the type of break-even being measured:

Do not count the same asset burden several times. Likewise, do not include both planned capital spending and reserve funding for that same spending in the same period.

Depending on the version being tested, the model may need:

• Rent or property costs
• Payroll and contractor costs
• Utilities and climate control
• Insurance
• Booking and operating software
• Marketing and customer acquisition
• Cleaning, repairs, and maintenance
• Payment-processing fees
• Coaching and program-delivery costs
• Equipment replacement
• Interest and scheduled debt principal
• Taxes where applicable to the selected measure
• Owner compensation
• Depreciation
• Court resurfacing and capital reserves

Classify each cost carefully. Payment fees, coaching labor, balls, event supplies, and some utilities may rise with bookings or participation. An expense forecast that remains flat while utilization climbs can overstate the value of fuller courts.

Consultant estimates—not industry standards: Johns Design & Consulting reports approximately $400,000 in annual revenue as a profitability threshold for certain autonomous facilities, at least $750,000 as a staffed-facility break-even estimate, and $1.2 million as its benchmark for a successful facility (JDC’s facility ROI guide). These thresholds lack standardized court counts, occupancy assumptions, disclosed datasets, and independent validation. They cannot replace a facility-specific break-even model.

Revenue thresholds transfer poorly between clubs. A small venue with low property and staffing costs may survive on revenue that would be inadequate for a larger financed facility. Conversely, a high-revenue club can lose money if labor, programming, property, or financing costs consume too much of each sale.

Compare programs by net contribution per court-hour

The best use of a court is not necessarily the format with the highest posted price or the most players. Compare gross revenue, staffing, variable costs, capacity, and resulting contribution. The $40 rental and $5–$8 per-player open-play ranges used by one consultancy are illustrative rather than measured industry results (JDC’s programming and scheduling guide).

Format	Illustrative gross revenue per court-hour	Delivery profile: staffing, variable cost, capacity	Contribution test
Private rental	$40	Usually limited direct delivery cost; typically one group	Does the realized rate cover its fixed-cost allocation?
Open play	$56 at 8 × $7	Check-in, coordination, processing, supplies; eight places	Does added volume exceed added costs and discounts?
League	Enter local price	Scheduling, administration, possible officials; enrollment cap	Is contribution stable across the full season?
Clinic	Enter local price	Coach and equipment costs; skill-based capacity	What is contribution at minimum and maximum enrollment?
Private lesson	Enter local price	Coach compensation; low player capacity	What does the club retain after instructor pay?
Event	Enter local price	Sales, setup, staffing, cleanup; variable group size	Does contribution justify displaced bookings?

In this example, open play produces $56 in gross revenue compared with $40 for the rental. It is not automatically more profitable. Processing fees, staffing, member concessions, coordination, supplies, added wear, and unfilled participant spaces can narrow or reverse the difference. Higher throughput can also weaken the experience if rotations, skill matching, or waiting times are poorly managed.

Leagues, clinics, camps, lessons, and targeted events are tactics to test during weak periods, not universal solutions. A format that fills idle courts in one market may displace higher-yield reservations in another.

Treat waitlists, booking limits, cancellation controls, and targeted pricing as measurable experiments. For each change, monitor:

• Incremental occupied hours
• Change in realized yield
• Net contribution after delivery costs
• Displacement from full-price periods
• Cancellation and no-show behavior
• Member complaints or churn signals

Dynamic pricing, discounting, programming, and autonomous access can change demand or delivery costs. None necessarily creates profitable incremental demand.

Build the operating dashboard and validate local demand

A forecast becomes credible when its assumptions can be compared with operating data. Track:

• Booked, paid, and physical utilization by time slot
• Revenue per available court-hour
• Revenue per occupied court-hour
• Contribution per available and occupied court-hour
• Player density
• Program capacity and fill rate
• Waitlist volume and conversion
• Denied booking requests
• Booking lead time
• Cancellations and no-shows
• Member and nonmember usage
• Discounts, credits, and complimentary hours

Revenue per available court-hour combines occupancy and yield without hiding idle inventory. Contribution per available court-hour goes further by showing whether a busier schedule creates enough incremental value after variable costs.

Validate the dashboard against local conditions:

• Competing indoor and outdoor court supply
• Drive times rather than a simple geographic radius
• Competitors’ peak and off-peak prices
• Free municipal or neighborhood alternatives
• Weather and seasonal outdoor-play conditions
• Planned closures and maintenance
• Staffing and coaching availability
• Parking, noise, access, and operating-hour constraints

Review sustained waitlists and denied bookings alongside peak utilization before adding courts. A full evening schedule does not establish a universal expansion threshold. The constraint could instead reflect narrow booking windows, poor court allocation, event blocks, or pricing that concentrates demand.

A Reddit poster’s observation of ten apparently busy courts illustrates anecdotal market interest, not measured occupancy, revenue, or profitability (the discussion about how much pickleball clubs make). Before investing, convert observations into counts: available courts, occupied courts by time slot, prices, player turnover, waitlists, competing supply, and seasonal changes.

A credible pickleball-club forecast does not begin with a claimed industry average. It begins with available court-hours, clearly defined occupancy, realized hourly yield, daypart and seasonal demand, and a cost model matched to the chosen break-even measure. The formulas are transparent, but the available numerical benchmarks reviewed here largely come from vendors and consultants rather than audited, representative club data. Use them as scenarios to test, then replace them with local booking, pricing, demand, contribution, and expense data.