Playtomic or Momence? Choosing booking software for a venue

Booking software is the most consequential technology decision a leisure venue makes. It sits between your customer and your bank account, it owns your pricing rules, and switching it later is painful enough that most operators avoid it long past the point they should. We operate two venues on two different platforms, so this is written from the operator's chair rather than a feature grid.

Start with what you sell, not what the software does

Courts and classes are different businesses wearing similar clothes. A court is inventory sold by the hour, priced by time of day, and the same slot is worth more on a Saturday morning than a Tuesday lunchtime. A class is capacity sold per seat, tied to a timetable and a named instructor, and the same session is either full or it is not.

That single difference should drive the decision. Court-first platforms think in slots and grids. Class-first platforms think in schedules and credit packs. Both will insist they do the other one too. Ask to see their other one working with your actual prices.

The three questions that expose the real cost

1. How does the platform treat a member's billing anchor?

Every recurring membership has a day of the month it charges. Ask specifically what happens to that date when a member is removed and re-added, when a plan is edited, or when the platform migrates your existing members. If the answer is "it depends", ask for it in writing. A silent shift of a billing date is invisible for weeks and then arrives as an awkward conversation with a customer who thinks they were charged twice.

2. Who holds the money, and when does it land?

Some platforms collect on your behalf and pay out on a schedule, which means your cash flow is somebody else's release calendar. Find out the payout cadence, the reserve they hold, and what happens to refunds and chargebacks. Then connect the payment account yourself and confirm you can see the settlement details without a support ticket.

3. What can you actually get out of it?

Occupancy per hour, revenue per court, no-shows, unpaid sessions, the difference between a peak and an off-peak block. If the reporting only exports a booking list, you will be rebuilding your own analysis in a spreadsheet every week. Test the export before you sign, not after.

When a custom build beats both

Rarely, and later than agencies like ours would have you believe. Custom software earns its cost when your model is genuinely unusual, when you run multiple venues with shared memberships and one brand, or when a platform's commission on your own customers becomes larger than the build. It does not earn its cost because you dislike the dashboard.

Buy the boring product that fits, until the boring product is provably costing you more than building would.

What we would do again

• Import a handful of real members first and watch one full billing cycle before moving everyone.
• Keep your own copy of the customer list. Always.
• Read the benefit and membership terms as a contract, because they are one.
• Decide who owns the payment account on day one, and make sure two people can access it.

Get those four right and the platform choice matters much less than the internet thinks.