Tournify Alternative for Padel Tournaments
Big general-purpose tournament software, and the padel formats it does not have yet
Tournify is general-purpose tournament and league software with real scale behind it, native iOS and Android apps, an open event directory, Mollie payments on the sign-up form and a published price list that shows Polish złoty on the Polish site. It handles a padel event built from group stages and knockouts perfectly well. What it does not handle is padel's own formats: their padel page says in their own words that formats like americano are on the way, mexicano appears nowhere on their surfaces, and single-player registration with automatic pairing is not available yet. JudgeMate has americano and mexicano in the product, registers individual players in both, pairs the leftovers through a looking-for-a-partner list, and costs nothing at any field size. Their free tier stops at eight teams and keeps your tournament out of their app. If your padel event is a doubles knockout, Tournify is a strong choice. If it is an americano night, it cannot run it yet.
What Tournify is
Tournify is Dutch tournament and league software that covers more than fifty sports and treats padel as one landing page among fourteen. Their own line is "No more Excel", and that is a fair summary of the job it does: online registration with payment, a format built from groups and knockouts, a schedule dragged onto pitches or courts, live results, an automatic standings table, a public tournament website, a mobile app and a slideshow for the screen in the hall.
The scale is not in doubt. Their about page claims hundreds of thousands of organisers and tournaments, over a million app installs and customers in more than sixty countries; those are self-reported marketing figures with no methodology attached, so read them as claims. What is independently visible is a Google Play listing with over half a million downloads and a customer list that includes all twenty Premier League clubs through the Academy Games Programme.
Format primitives are deliberately few: a group stage played once or twice round, a knockout with control over how winners and losers progress, and single matches for placement, combined freely with three ready-made templates. Set scoring exists for racket sports, with a fixed or best-of number of sets and a long list of tie-breakers.
The distribution is the interesting part. Every tournament gets a public site with no setup, and there is an /explore directory filtered by sport, country and open-for-registration, so an event can be found by people who were not on your mailing list. Their mobile apps carry push notifications for upcoming matches and new results, and the interface exists in six languages including Polish.
For how padel's own formats differ from a generic bracket, see the padel tournament formats guide.
Pricing side-by-side
Tournify publishes everything, in three currencies, and the Polish site quotes złoty. That transparency deserves credit — several competitors on this topic publish nothing at all.
| Product | Model | Published rate | Free path |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tournify Amateur | Per event | Free | Up to 8 teams: participants, format and schedule tool, live website and slideshow |
| Tournify World Class | Per event | €40 / £35 / $45 / 180 zł | Up to 60 teams; adds branding, sponsors and publication in the mobile app |
| Tournify Legendary | Per event | €120 / £100 / $135 / 540 zł | Unlimited teams |
| Tournify Community | Per year | €300 / £265 / $340 / 1350 zł | Up to 30 tournaments a year, unlimited teams |
| Tournify Professional | Per year | On request | Unlimited tournaments, premium support |
| JudgeMate | Free for organisers | €0 | Unlimited events and players; free for players and spectators |
The conditions matter as much as the numbers, and they are stated plainly in their own FAQ. A per-event package is valid for one tournament only. After the event finishes it is locked and can no longer be edited. Upgrades are instant and you pay the difference; downgrades are not possible; there are no refunds. Copying last year's tournament for a new edition needs a new purchase.
One detail deserves a flag for a padel club specifically: the free Amateur tier does not publish your tournament into the Android and iOS app. Their strongest asset — an installed app your players already have — starts at €40.
Feature comparison
Both platforms build a schedule, take self-registration, update standings live and put results on a screen. The split is padel's own formats on one side and reach, payments and apps on the other. For the wider field, see the padel tournament software comparison.
| Capability | Tournify | JudgeMate |
|---|---|---|
| Americano | Not available. Their padel FAQ says padel-specific formats like americano are on the way | Yes, no player cap; sit-outs rotate round by round |
| Mexicano | Not present on any surface we checked | Yes. Quartets by current standing, court 1 plays 1+4 against 2+3 |
| Format primitives | Group stage, knockout, single match, combined freely, plus templates | Six named formats, including groups plus knockout |
| Draw setup | Manual — their help centre describes clicking empty spots and assigning teams; no automatic draw or seeding is documented | Automatic draw generation per format, with an optional seed |
| Sign-up without a partner | Not available. Their words: single-player registration with automatic pairing isn't available yet | Yes. Americano and mexicano register individual players |
| Pair sign-up | Yes, teams register as a fixed doubles pair, with custom form fields | Yes: create a team, join one, or join the looking-for-a-partner list |
| Entry fees | Yes, Mollie: cards, PayPal, iDEAL, Bancontact, BLIK; add-ons like meal vouchers | No |
| Scheduling | Auto-generate then drag and drop; their help centre states it cannot avoid back-to-back matches for a team | Auto-schedule with start time, slot length and conflict detection |
| League scheduling | Their help centre: a fully automatic league scheduler is not yet available | Match days generated per round |
| Who enters the score | Organiser, co-organisers, and teams or referees through a unique passwordless link | Whoever holds the match QR — the panel opens for that match only |
| Public reach | Tournament website plus an /explore directory filtered by sport and country | Public event page; no directory |
| Mobile app | Native iOS and Android with push — but only from the €40 tier upwards | Web only |
| Referee management | Dedicated module: import, preferences, assignment, teams-as-referees | Referee QR per match plus a printable sheet |
| Organiser price | Free to 8 teams, then €40 / €120 per event or €300 a year | €0 |
When Tournify fits
Pick Tournify when the event looks like a classic tournament and the reach matters.
- The format is groups and a knockout. That is what their engine is built for, and it does it with a mature scheduler, configurable tie-breakers and set scoring for racket sports.
- You need to collect entry fees. Mollie sits inside the registration form with cards, PayPal, iDEAL, Bancontact and BLIK, and you can sell add-ons like meals alongside the entry. Note that Mollie needs a registered business, so an informal group of friends cannot take payments.
- You want an app your players already have. Over half a million Android downloads, push notifications, a personalised schedule when a player follows a team. That is a distribution asset, not a feature.
- You want to be found. The /explore directory lists events by sport and country with an open-for-registration filter. Nobody discovers a JudgeMate event by browsing.
- You have sponsors to satisfy. Custom branding, sponsor logos and sponsor groups on the tournament site, in the app and in the slideshow give you something concrete to sell.
- Referees need managing. Import a list, record preferences, assign officials to matches in the planner, or have teams referee each other.
- You want the price in advance, in your own currency. They publish it, in złoty on the Polish site, which is more than most of this category does.
If your padel event is a doubles knockout with sponsors and an entry fee, they are a strong, well-supported choice.
When JudgeMate fits
Pick JudgeMate when the event is actually padel-shaped.
- Americano exists here. Rotating partners, individual scoring, sit-outs rotated round by round, points per round set to 16, 21, 24 or 32, and no cap on players. Tournify's own padel FAQ describes americano as still on the way.
- So does mexicano. Pairings are rebuilt each round from the current standings, with court 1 playing first and fourth against second and third. We found no trace of mexicano on Tournify's surfaces.
- A single player can sign up. In americano and mexicano the entrant is a person, so nobody needs to arrive with a partner. Tournify states plainly that single-player registration with automatic pairing is not available yet, which rules out the most common social padel format.
- The leftover player has a route. In pair formats, the looking-for-a-partner list collects singles for you to pair before the draw, instead of a message at 10pm the night before.
- The draw is generated, not assembled. Formats produce their own rounds. Tournify's help centre describes filling a bracket by clicking empty spots and assigning teams.
- Free at 8 teams and at 60. Their free tier stops at eight and their app publication starts at €40. Ours has no team cap and no tier.
- Referee QR per match. Scan at the net, enter that match only, no account. Their equivalent is a passwordless link per team or referee, which works but is not a poster on a court.
- Results can stay hidden. Set a draw to hidden and the standings do not appear until you release them.
- Forty other sports on the same account. A committee running padel and a climbing session does not need two platforms.
Start with the organiser guide, or try the americano generator with no account.
Where JudgeMate falls short
Measured against Tournify, here is where we lose.
- No reach whatsoever. No app, no directory, no push notifications, no half a million installs. If your goal is for strangers to find and enter your event, they have the machine and we do not.
- No native app. They ship iOS and Android with widgets and push; we are a browser tab.
- No entry fees. Mollie inside the sign-up form, with BLIK and iDEAL and add-on sales, is a complete money layer. We collect nothing.
- No sponsor tooling. No branding, no sponsor logos, no sponsor groups on the public page. An organiser who has sold sponsorship has nothing to show for it here.
- No referee management module. We have a QR per match; they have an officials list with preferences and assignment in the planner.
- Fewer format primitives outside padel. Their group-plus-knockout engine with configurable tie-breakers and set scoring is more flexible than ours once you leave padel's own formats.
- Groups only in fixed shapes. Two or four groups, one or two advancing. Nothing else.
- No CSV export of tournament results. League schedules and
/schedule-makerexport CSV; tournament results do not, in any sport. - A confirmed knockout match cannot be undone. Score correction exists; rolling a bracket back does not.
- A far smaller help centre. They run roughly seventy-six articles and video tutorials in five languages. Ours is documentation, not a support desk.
- No proof at scale. Twenty Premier League clubs are on their reference list. We have nothing of that weight to put next to it.
Running both without doubling the work
These two split cleanly by format, which makes them easier to combine than most pairs on this topic.
- Knockout and group events with entry fees stay in Tournify. Sign-up, payment, sponsors, app publication and the /explore listing all pull in the same direction there.
- Americano and mexicano nights run here. They cannot run in Tournify today, by their own statement, and they are the formats a padel club actually fills a Tuesday with.
- Keep the boundary at the event. Do not split one tournament across both; pick per event and stay there.
- Reuse the start list by hand. Nothing syncs — no importer, no shared player database, no export from one into the other. A list used in both is typed twice.
- Put whichever public view you are using on the club TV. Their slideshow and our
/display/[event-slug]do the same job; run the one that belongs to the event you are actually playing.
If your club runs one big open weekend a year and a social night every week, this split costs nothing and gives you the right tool for each. The americano night walkthrough covers the weekly half.
Try JudgeMate on your next event
A padel event takes about 10 minutes to configure. No athlete limits, no commission on registrations. See padel features
See also
Rankedin alternative
Racket-sport platform built around federations: national rankings, licences, Book247 court booking, Stripe entry fees. Basic is free; Premium is €14.90–€59.90 per tournament. Their manual's live-scoring list does not include padel.
Padel Fast alternative
Padel-only, native apps, a dozen social formats, own ELO, court booking and Stripe. Creating tournaments requires a plan — the cheapest way in is a $3.99 six-hour Day Pass.
Padel tournament software compared 2026
Rankedin, Padel Fast, Tournify, americano generators, regional circuits, club management systems and JudgeMate, lined up on formats, solo sign-up, courts, live scoring and price.
Free padel tournament software compared 2026
Where each free tier actually stops: eight-team and eight-player caps, disabled public pages, app publication behind a paywall, and the licence that moves the cost to your players.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Tournify — padel (formats FAQ, registration FAQ) — Tournify B.V.
- Tournify — pricing — Tournify B.V.
- Tournify — pricing in Polish złoty — Tournify B.V.
- Tournify help centre — schedule matches automatically — Tournify B.V.
- Tournify help centre — scoring and tiebreakers — Tournify B.V.
- Tournify — flexible tournament formats — Tournify B.V.
- Rules of Padel — International Padel Federation (FIP)