A two-court squash club with fifty members pays the same monthly subscription for court booking software as a fifteen-court venue on the same plan. That is not a criticism of the software. It is simply what a flat subscription means, and for a club run by volunteers out of a clubhouse it is the single largest fixed cost many of them carry.
This post works out what that number actually is, because it is not the number on the pricing page.
The subscription
AllBooked by Skedda publishes three tiers: $99, $149 and $199 a month, in US dollars, billed annually. The entry plan covers up to three spaces, so a two or three court club sits on it comfortably. Skedda's own pricing page lists AllBooked only as "Talk to Sales"; the published tiers are on allbooked.com.
At $99 a month that is $1,188 a year, around £877 at the rate on 8 September 2026, paid twelve months up front. For a fifty member club that is roughly £17.54 per member per year before anyone has hit a ball.
The part that is not on the pricing page
Payments run through Stripe Connect, and AllBooked publishes no processing rate of its own. Its support documentation says:
Your payment processing costs under Stripe Connect are designed to closely match Stripe's standard list pricing for all countries.
So the honest way to budget it is the subscription plus Stripe's list price. In the UK that is 1.5% + 20p on a domestic card, 2.5% + 20p on an EEA card and 3.15% + 20p on an international one. Two consequences worth noting before the arithmetic:
- Stripe does not return its fee when you refund a booking. On courts, where cancellations are constant, that is not a rounding error.
- Those rates rise for overseas cards. A club with members abroad pays more than the headline.
ClubPal works the other way round. No subscription at any club size, and 20p + 3.5% per transaction, which covers card processing rather than sitting on top of it. Refund a booking and the whole fee comes back to the club.
The crossover is simpler than it looks
Both fees have the same fixed part, 20p, so it cancels out entirely and can be ignored. What is left is the percentage and the subscription:
- ClubPal costs exactly 2% more per pound processed (3.5% against Stripe's 1.5%).
- AllBooked costs a subscription ClubPal does not charge.
Set those equal and the subscription is worth it once 2% of your card turnover exceeds it. In other words:
The crossover is 50 times the annual subscription.
| Plan | Subscription a year | ClubPal is cheaper below |
|---|---|---|
| $99 a month | about £877 | £43,900 of card payments a year |
| $149 a month | about £1,320 | £66,000 |
| $199 a month | about £1,763 | £88,200 |
That rule holds whatever the exchange rate does, because both sides move together. Only the pound figures drift.
What it looks like for a real club
Take the two court club above: fifty members, court hire at around £8 a slot, subs collected online, roughly £14,100 a year going through the system across about 1,350 payments.
| ClubPal | AllBooked entry plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | £0 | £877 |
| Percentage on £14,100 | £494 | £212 |
| Fixed part, 1,350 payments | £270 | £270 |
| Total | £764 | £1,359 |
The club pays a little under half. Not because our rate is lower, it is not, but because it never pays for the months when nobody books a court.
Now run it again for a six court centre taking public bookings, £60,000 a year across 6,000 payments. ClubPal costs £3,300. AllBooked costs £2,977. At that size the subscription is the cheaper model and we are not. If you are that club, the answer to this post is that you should probably stay where you are.
Three things the table leaves out
All three push the crossover further out, so treat £43,900 as a floor rather than a precise line.
Refunds. Our whole fee comes back when you refund a booking. Stripe's does not. A court that gets cancelled and rebooked costs a ClubPal club nothing and a Stripe club twice.
Card mix. Stripe's 1.5% is the UK domestic rate. At 2.5% for EEA cards and 3.15% for international ones, a club with overseas members closes most of the 2% gap on those payments.
Currency and timing. The subscription is billed annually in US dollars. A UK club carries the exchange rate on top of the sticker price and pays the whole year before it takes a penny.
What we do not do
AllBooked supports repeat bookings, and ClubPal does not. A member cannot hold a standing Tuesday evening slot with us. Blockouts will reserve court time for club nights, leagues and maintenance, so the club-level cases are covered, but a recurring member booking has to be made each time.
If a standing slot per member is central to how your club runs its courts, that is a genuine reason to choose AllBooked and no amount of arithmetic changes it.
Common questions
How do I work out what my club actually processes in a year?
Add up everything that would go through the booking system: court hire, membership subs, coaching, club nights, socials and any casual or guest fees. Use last season's figures rather than an estimate. If your club currently takes some of that by bank transfer or cash and intends to keep doing so, leave it out, because it never touches either platform's percentage. That total is the number to compare against the crossover.
Does the crossover change if my club takes payments from overseas members?
Yes, in ClubPal's favour. The 2% gap assumes Stripe's UK domestic rate of 1.5%. On an EEA card Stripe charges 2.5% and on an international card 3.15%, against our flat 3.5% everywhere, so the gap narrows to 1% and 0.35% respectively on those payments. A club with a meaningful share of overseas members will find its real crossover sits well above the headline figure.
Is Skedda the same product as AllBooked?
They are the same booking engine sold under two names. Skedda is the workplace product, aimed at desks and meeting rooms. AllBooked by Skedda is the version packaged for sports and community venues, and it is the one a squash, tennis or badminton club will be pointed at. Pricing and feature sets differ between the two, so check you are reading the AllBooked page rather than the Skedda one.
What happens to the fees when a member cancels a court?
On ClubPal, refund the booking and the whole 20p + 3.5% fee is returned to your club in proportion to the amount refunded. Refund in full and it all comes back. Under Stripe's standard pricing the processing fee is not returned on a refund, so a cancelled and rebooked court is charged twice. AllBooked does not publish anything different, and their documentation points to Stripe's list pricing.
Where to go next
The full side by side, including the features where AllBooked is genuinely ahead of us, is on the AllBooked by Skedda alternative page. If you run courts specifically, squash club management software covers peak windows, member and guest rates and box leagues in more detail.
Every AllBooked and Stripe figure here comes from their own published pages and was checked on 8 September 2026. Prices change, so check them again before you decide anything.