How the messages go out (and what they cost)
Messages leave your club in one way only: from the club’s WhatsApp, with one click, and you are the one who sends them. AI4Padel tells you who to write to and leaves the text written; you tap, your WhatsApp opens with the message already in it, and you hit send. There is no account to connect, no Meta paperwork and not a cent per message. Here is how it works, what you do and what it does, and the number that really matters when people talk about what writing costs.
A gap at 8pm and six names to write to: six clicks from the club’s WhatsApp.
How a message goes out
- You open the match. Below it is the list of players who fit (“Los que encajan”), each with the reason they fit (“Por qué encaja”) beside them: level, time slot, how long since they last played.
- You press “Invitar” (invite) on the ones you want, and they move to the invitations block (“Invitaciones”).
- Next to each name, “Enviar invitación” (send invitation): the club’s WhatsApp opens with the message already written, with their name, the day, the time and the level. You send it.
- When they reply, you note what they said: yes, can’t make it, or other (“Sí”, “No puede”, “Otra”). A yes puts them in the match.
Court 4 at 20:00, one player short: “Invitar” (invite) prepares the message, which opens in your WhatsApp already written, and in the match you note what they reply.
| AI4Padel | You | |
|---|---|---|
| Who to write to | Ranks the players who fit and tells you why | You pick who to invite |
| The message | Leaves it written from the club’s template | You tweak it, if you like |
| Sending it | Opens your WhatsApp with the text in it | You hit send |
| The reply | Puts yes / can’t / other next to the name | You note what they said |
| The tally | Keeps who said yes and how many are missing | Nothing |
| Closing the match | Leaves the confirmation written | You press “Cerrar y pedir confirmación” (close and ask for confirmation) |
The text comes from the club’s templates, with your signature. When you create the match you choose which one goes into the invitation, the confirmation and the notices, and you see it exactly as the player will receive it:
The “Mensaje” step of a new match: on the left, which template goes in each case; on the right, the WhatsApp as the player gets it.
Why by hand
Four reasons, and all four matter:
- It comes from your number. The player sees the club’s number they already have saved, not a new sender. And the chat stays on your phone, as always.
- You start today. There is no number to verify and no account to register: you are in this afternoon.
- Sending costs nothing. Nobody charges you for a WhatsApp sent from the club’s phone.
- Nothing goes out without you. Every message is sent by a person. You decide what gets sent.
And what it does not do, said plainly: AI4Padel does not read your WhatsApp. What the player replies reaches your phone, as it does today, and you note it with one tap; it does not remind anybody on its own and it does not close matches by itself. What it takes off you is what eats your afternoon: working out who to call, writing the same message twenty times and keeping track in your head of who said what. You can check that without paying: you get a free 7-day trial.
Who charges whom
Tools that send WhatsApp on their own do it through Meta, which charges per message, and almost always with a middleman who sells you message bundles with a margin on top. It is convenient and it is expensive, and the margin is the least of it next to the incentive. Whoever sells you messages earns more the more you send, so nothing inside that tool will ever nudge you towards writing to fewer people.
We charge a flat licence per club and we don’t sell messages: they leave from your WhatsApp, so there is no transport to charge for. What suits us is the opposite of writing a lot: that you get it right first time and write to just the right people, because that is what makes the product show and makes you renew. It is the same idea as charging no commission per booking, applied to messages.
Coming soon, you’ll be able to connect the club’s WhatsApp account so AI4Padel sends and reads the replies on its own. Then there will be a cost per message, the one Meta sets, but the club will pay it to Meta, directly and with no middleman: we still won’t sell messages or add a margin, and inside AI4Padel you’ll be able to cap the spend.
The number that does matter
If a message costs nothing, what filling a slot costs is how many people you have to write to: each message is a click of yours, a reply to read and a person you have interrupted.
A six-court club, one hundred and eighty players, one free spot for tomorrow at 20:00. Four ways to find the missing player:
| How you pick who to write to | Messages | Who it was no use to |
|---|---|---|
| Broadcast to the whole club | 180 | 174 |
| The ones at the right level | 40 | 34 |
| The ones at that level who play at that hour | 12 | 6 |
| The ones who fit on level, position, hour and history | 6 | 0 |
Six messages are six clicks and a moment. Forty are the afternoon. And a hundred and eighty are no longer sent one by one: they go to the group, which is where the next section’s problem starts.
That is the whole product, put in clicks: AI4Padel does not send your messages for you, it cuts how many you need and leaves them written. It picks on level, position, time slot and who they play with, which is why the list of people to write to is short. The inside view is in how it picks players.
What writing to the wrong people costs
Even if the message is free, the mistake is not: you wrote to 174 people that match was no use to. Next time fewer of them open, fewer reply and one or two ask you to stop writing. A club’s broadcast list burns itself out, and by the time you really need it nobody reads it — which is exactly what happens to the WhatsApp group.
A normal month at a six-court club, eight matches saved at six messages a slot, is 48 messages: 48 clicks to recover about €192 of court time. Transport: €0.
Quick questions
Do you charge me for messages? Not one, on any plan, with no cap. We don’t sell messages: they leave from your WhatsApp.
Do I have to register anything with Meta? No. There is no account to connect and no number to verify: you use the club’s WhatsApp you already have.
Whose WhatsApp is it? The club’s. Messages leave from your number and the chats stay on your phone. If you ever leave, nothing changes for your players.
Does AI4Padel read what they reply? No. The reply reaches your WhatsApp, as always, and you note it with one tap (yes, can’t make it, or other). That is how the match knows who is in and how many are missing.
Can I change the wording? Yes: they are your club’s templates, with your signature, and you edit them in Settings. How, in customising AI4Padel.
Want the numbers with your courts, your players and your hours? Write to us and we will send them the same day. And if you would rather see how it works first, here is the demo in writing.