AI4Padel vs Playtomic: who actually fills your club?
The short answer: they do different jobs. Playtomic is a marketplace — it brings you players who had never heard of your club. AI4Padel is your club’s AI manager: it gets the players who already pay at your place playing more, picking who fits each match and leaving you the WhatsApp written, which you send from the club’s number. They can run side by side, and that is exactly how our clubs use them. But if your problem is filling courts with the community you already have, they are very different things, and the numbers are worth a look before you decide who does which job.
Different jobs: the marketplace acquires outside; AI4Padel makes the players you already have perform.
At a glance
| Playtomic | AI4Padel | |
|---|---|---|
| What it solves | Bringing in outside players | Filling with your players and keeping them coming back |
| Who picks the player | Whoever joins the open match first | Level, court side and history: the one who fits, with the reason written down |
| The player relationship belongs to… | The platform | Your club: your WhatsApp number |
| What your player installs | Their app and an account | Nothing: they answer a WhatsApp |
| Cost to your player | 4% card booking fee and 20% to join an open match | €0 |
| Commissions charged to the club | Per contract, on online payments | Never, on any plan |
| Leaves the confirmation and the dropout notice written | No | Yes; you send them from the club’s WhatsApp |
| Price | Subscription + fees | Flat, from €49/month |
What Playtomic does better than us
Credit where it is due: acquisition. If you open a club where nobody knows you, or you live off passing players in a tourist area, a marketplace puts you on the map and brings people who would never have found you alone. AI4Padel does not do that job and we will not pretend otherwise: we are not a marketplace and we do not bring you strangers.
What the open match doesn’t tell you
Now the part almost nobody looks at. When you publish an open match, the spot goes to whoever signs up first with a roughly similar level — not to whoever fits by court side and history. If the game comes out lopsided, all four take weeks to come back, and that cost lands on you, not on the platform.
There is more: that match is advertised across the platform’s whole network of nearby clubs, and the digital relationship with the player — their account, their data, their bookings — lives in the platform, not in your club. Every spot you fill that way trains your own player to book through a shop window where your competitors sit one thumb-swipe away.
The cost is not symbolic either. Per their own help centre, joining an open match costs your player 20% of their share, and paying by card another 4%: on a €6 court share, around 16.5% more. That same spot, offered through your club’s WhatsApp to someone who genuinely fits, costs the player nothing and carries no commission for you.
Your player plays wherever the match is
This one appears in no feature comparison, and it is the one that decides the year.
On Thursday they played at your club. On Tuesday, at the one down the road. They have not fallen out with you: they are looking for a match, and that night the match was there. A shop window showing every court in the area teaches your player to choose by free slot, not by club.
You fill today’s court, yes. But you build nothing for next month. In December, when you do the sums, you will not know which of those were yours.
The opposite — your club having a community rather than a booking list — is built by writing to the people already playing with you, from your own number.
And you are the one who has to explain it
When the commission for joining an open match went from €0.29 to €0.99 per player, the ones explaining it were the clubs. Raúl López, of Pádel Go Indoor Parla, put it this way in elDiario.es: the rise was not communicated well and many players ended up thinking it was the club that had raised prices.
That is the problem in one sentence: somebody else sets the fee and you have the conversation at reception.
The same thing happens with level, and it shows more. A lopsided match was put together by an app pairing four approximate levels, but the club is the one who hears about it: “what a match you’ve set me up with.” The ones who don’t say it at the desk write it on the club’s Google listing instead, and that review keeps the club’s name on it. The club didn’t pick those four.
What AI4Padel does better
AI4Padel works your most profitable asset: the players you already have. It puts the match that needs players in front of you, picks who fits from your own players — by level, court side, time slot and how often they play — and leaves the message written. You press «Enviar invitación» (send invitation), the club’s WhatsApp opens with the text in place, and you send it; when they answer, you note down “Yes” and they are seated. For the confirmation, or to tell the others someone has dropped out, the message is just as ready. You decide what goes out. Always.
The court with the free slot and the side that is missing, and beside it who fits: every name with its reason written, and what it adds up to.
A court booking averages around €24 in Spain, per Playtomic’s own annual report, so a player who plays every week leaves around €300 a year. Getting them one extra game a month, or making sure they don’t drift away without anyone writing, beats any acquisition campaign (the analytics tell you who has gone a month without coming). How each player gets picked, with the reason written under every name, is in this guide.
What if I use both?
That is the setup we see most: Playtomic acquiring outside, AI4Padel making the inside pay. AI4Padel comes in with your player spreadsheet, no migration, and each tool does the job it is good at. The match gets filled first from your own players, through your WhatsApp, free; the marketplace stays for what it is: bringing in new faces.
When to pick each one
- Playtomic only: a newly opened club with no community yet, or a passing-players business in a tourist area. First you need people; loyalty comes later.
- AI4Padel only: a club with plenty of players and gaps that slip because you can’t get to everything. Your problem is making what you already have perform.
- Both: most clubs with more than 4 courts. Acquire outside, fill inside, and the player relationship stays on your number.
Quick questions
Do I have to leave Playtomic to use AI4Padel? No. They do different jobs: the marketplace acquires outside and AI4Padel fills inside, with the players you already have.
Does AI4Padel publish open matches? No. You invite specific players who fit that match, from the club’s WhatsApp, and AI4Padel shows you the reason behind every name.
What does my player pay? Nothing: no fee, no app, no account. They get a WhatsApp from their club and reply.
And if it doesn’t work for me? There is a free 7-day trial: you try AI4Padel with your courts and your players without paying anything, and after that it is month to month.
Want to see the difference on last week’s calendar? Book a 15-minute demo and we’ll show you, with your data, who AI4Padel would have proposed for every gap. If you came looking for an alternative, there’s a dedicated page at Playtomic alternative, and the comparison with the rest of the tools in Why AI4Padel.