Free Racket Tournament Software Compared
Seven free plans for tennis, table tennis, badminton, squash and pickleball, and where each one stops
Most free plans for racket tournaments stop at one of four walls: entrant count, number of categories, live scoring, or a public results page. On the pricing pages we read on 25 October 2026, Tournify Amateur stops at 8 teams, Xporty Free at 20 players and 1 category, and Score7 Starter at 1 active tournament. Turniermeister's demo keeps tournaments private, and Rankedin Basic runs a tournament but puts live scoring in its paid plans. JudgeMate has no paid plan and its plan sets no entrant cap (the public event page lists up to 500 entrants across all categories), and it sets the match format per sport: match tie-break in tennis, points per game in table tennis and badminton, side-out or rally scoring in pickleball.
How we read the free plans
We opened each vendor's pricing page or product page that loaded on 25 October 2026, without logging in, and copied the limit in the vendor's own words. Challonge's pricing page did not open (27 October 2026), so it has no quoted limit. Where a page did not say something, the table below says "not stated" instead of guessing.
Seven free options made the list because a club organiser can run, or at least draw, a racket tournament on them: Rankedin Basic, Tournify Amateur, Xporty Free, the Turniermeister demo, Score7 Starter, Challonge's free plan and PlayTime Scheduler. Some cover one sport only, others none by name, so the sport sections further down say which tool fits which game.
Padel has its own page, because its free options (americano apps, club circuits) are different products. Read the free padel tournament software comparison for that.
Seven free plans, quoted where the vendor publishes them
Rankedin Basic. The pricing page lists the free plan as "Create, Run, End" with "Draws, Seeding, Scheduling, Enter result". Live scoring sits in the paid plans: "Live scoring with E-Referee & Scoreboards". The free plan also lists an "Event page", and Premium adds "No ads on your tournament page". The first paid step is "Up to 24 players 14.90 €" per tournament. Rankedin's E-Referee supports tennis, squash, badminton, table tennis and pickleball, so the paywall applies in every racket sport.
Tournify Amateur. "Free per event", "Up to 8 teams", with participant management, a format and schedule tool and a "Live website & slideshow". The pricing page counts players the same way: "Add up to 8 teams or players to your group(s) or knockout bracket." The next plan is "€40 per event" for up to 60 teams.
Xporty Free. "up to 1 active competition for free … up to 20 players, 15 pairs, and 6 teams. Limited to 1 category and 2 phases." Premium starts at "€30.00 per competition" for up to 50 players. Xporty names tennis, pickleball, squash and padel; table tennis and badminton are not on its site.
Turniermeister demo. "Dauerhaft kostenlos im Demo-Modus. Keine Kreditkarte." One tournament per tournament type, kept private: "Öffentliche Seiten, Helfer, gespeicherte Mannschaften und Sponsoren brauchen einen bezahlten Plan." Paid access starts at 29 € one-off for 30 days or 19 € a month. Turniermeister has pages for table tennis, tennis and padel.
Score7 Starter. "Free", "1 active tournament", "Single admin", "Public tournament page", "Score7 branding & ads". Essentials costs $9.00 a month for three active tournaments. Score7 is a general bracket tool and names padel as its only racket sport.
Challonge. Its pricing page did not open for us on 27 October 2026, so we quote no free-plan limits for it.
PlayTime Scheduler. "a FREE scheduling tool created exclusively for pickleball" with "FREE Round Robins … from your session's signup list". It runs open play sessions, without a knockout draw.
What the free plan blocks
Four limits decide whether a free plan survives a real club event. The table puts them side by side, as published on 25 October 2026.
| Product | Entrants | Tournaments or categories | Live scoring | Public page | First paid step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JudgeMate | No cap in the plan; the public event page lists up to 500 per event | No cap in the plan; up to 50 categories per event | Yes, live scoreboard per match | Yes | No paid plan |
| Rankedin Basic | Not stated for Basic | Not stated | Paid plans only | Yes, event page with ads | €14.90 per tournament up to 24 players |
| Tournify Amateur | 8 teams | Priced per event | Live score updates included | Live website included | €40 per event up to 60 teams |
| Xporty Free | 20 players, 15 pairs or 6 teams | 1 active competition, 1 category, 2 phases | Not stated | 1 published competition at a time | €30 per competition up to 50 players |
| Turniermeister demo | Not stated | 1 per tournament type | Not stated | No, private only | €29 for 30 days or €19 a month |
| Score7 Starter | Not stated | 1 active tournament | Basic match tools | Yes, with Score7 ads | $9 a month for 3 tournaments |
| Challonge | Not checked (pricing page unavailable) | Not checked | Not checked | Not checked | Not checked |
| PlayTime Scheduler | Session signup list | Not stated | No | Not stated | Free |
Two walls hit racket clubs hardest. Category limits hurt because a club tournament rarely has one draw: men's and women's singles, doubles, a veterans' group. Xporty's free plan holds one of them. And without a public page, players phone the desk to ask who they play next, which is the job most organisers wanted the software for.
Tennis: can the free plan play a match tie-break?
Club tennis rarely plays three full sets. ITF Rules of Tennis 2026, Appendix VI, lists the shortened formats: short sets to 4 games, a 10-point match tie-break that replaces the deciding set at one set all, and a final-set tie-break to 10 at 6-6. Your entry form will say which one you play, and the software has to record it.
On the vendors' own pages: Turniermeister's tennis page says plainly "keine Einzelpunkte, kein Match-Tiebreak", so Turniermeister does not record a match tie-break, and its tennis template costs €3.99 one-off and is not in the free demo. Tournify says "You can enable set scoring and configure it per category, for example best-of-3", and its tennis FAQ answers "Yes" when asked about match tiebreaks, without describing how it scores them. Xporty Free covers a tennis draw of 20 players in one category, which fits a club singles event and little more.
In a JudgeMate tennis draw you set golden point or advantage, games per set (4, 6 or 9), sets to win (1, 2 or 3), a tie-break to 5 or 7, and a super tie-break to 10 in place of the deciding set. You can apply the format to the whole draw or to a single match. What we do not support: a set without a tie-break (advantage set), the final-set tie-break to 10 at 6-6, a match tie-break to 7, and team ties with several singles and doubles counted as one match. If your league plays any of those, a free plan from us will not record it correctly.
Start a draw at create a tennis tournament or run a single match on the tennis live scoreboard.
Table tennis: points per game and best of five
ITTF Statutes 2026 set a game at 11 points with a two-point lead from 10-10 (2.11.1), and a match as the best of any odd number of games (2.12.1). Service changes every two points, and every point from 10-10 (2.13.3).
Turniermeister has a table tennis template, but it costs €3.99 one-off and the free demo does not include it: "Die kostenlose Demo enthält sie nicht." Its own page says the product records "die vollständigen Satzstände … keine Ballwechsel": final game scores, not rallies. Xporty does not list table tennis. Rankedin's E-Referee covers it, inside a paid plan.
JudgeMate gives every table tennis draw two fields, "Points per set" (11, 15, 21 or 25) and "Sets to win" (1, 2 or 3), so best of one, three or five. The live scoreboard switches service by the ITTF rule. Best of seven and team matches (several singles scored as one tie) are not available. For a quick printed draw without an account, the bracket generator has table tennis on its sport list; to run the event live, create a table tennis tournament.
Badminton: 21 points now, 15 points from January 2027
Under the BWF Laws of Badminton in force since 26 April 2025, a game goes to 21 points with a two-point lead from 20-all, and the side that scores the 30th point at 29-all wins it (Law 7). The version in force from 4 January 2027 changes the game to 15 points: two clear from 14-all, capped at 21 from 20-all. Clubs that run tournaments over the new year will play both formats within weeks.
None of the free plans in this comparison names the BWF scoring on its pricing page. Cup2000, a Danish program with badminton at its centre, offers a demo without printing or PDF output; the licence costs EUR 75 for a year or EUR 245 unlimited. Tournify lists badminton among its sports, with the same eight-team free limit.
In JudgeMate, "Points per set" for badminton offers 11, 15, 21 or 25, and the cap moves with the target: 30 at 21 points, 21 at 15 points. So the January 2027 format is already one setting. The bracket generator draws a badminton bracket for free without an account, and create a badminton tournament takes it live. Team matches (several games inside one tie) are not supported.
Squash: PAR-11 and best of three or five
Since World Squash's 2025 rules came into force on 1 September 2025, a game is played to 11 points, two clear from 10-all (rule 2.2), and a match is "normally the best of 5 games, but may be the best of 3" (rule 2.3). The appendix with alternative scoring, PAR-15 and hand-in/hand-out to 9, was removed in that edition.
Squash has the thinnest free choice of the five sports. Xporty names squash, so its 20-player, one-category free plan applies. Rankedin lists squash federations among its references and scores squash in E-Referee, again in a paid plan. Turniermeister and Score7 do not mention squash.
A JudgeMate squash draw plays to 11 with a two-point lead by default, and you can choose best of three or best of five; the rally winner serves next, as the WSF rule says. On the scoreboard, let and stroke decisions are recorded, and a stroke awards the point. Start with the squash organiser guide or go straight to create a squash tournament.
Pickleball: side-out or rally scoring
Under the 2026 USA Pickleball Official Rulebook, games go to 11 and are won by two points (rule 15.C). Traditional side-out scoring awards points only to the serving side. Rally scoring, where every rally scores, is a provisional rule (15.C.2) that tournament directors may use, except in double-elimination doubles events, 2026 Golden Ticket events and the 2026 National Championships. Before you print a draw, decide which system each event uses.
PlayTime Scheduler is free and built for pickleball, and it runs round robins from a session signup list; it does not run a seeded knockout. Xporty Free names pickleball and holds 20 players or 15 pairs in one category. Rankedin's E-Referee scores pickleball in its paid plans. None of the pricing pages we read mentions a choice between side-out and rally scoring.
The JudgeMate pickleball scoreboard asks at setup whether points come only on your own serve or on every rally, and in side-out doubles it shows the three-number score. The draw defaults to pairs, with singles one switch away. Create a pickleball tournament to start, or try the pickleball live scoreboard on one court first.
JudgeMate: what is free and what is missing
JudgeMate has no paid plan. The plan sets no entrant cap, no category cap and no per-event fee. The software itself loads up to 50 categories per event, and the public event page lists up to 500 entrants across all of them. Each category holds up to 500 matches and 200 pairs, so a single round-robin group fits at most 32 players.
Included at no cost: singles draws as knockout, round robin, or groups into a knockout (1 to 4 groups, top 1, 2, 4 or 8 advance), and doubles with eight formats. Seeding, byes for the top seeds, a consolation round and a third-place match. Courts as resources with an automatic schedule. A referee QR code for each match, a public event page and printable match cards. The match format per sport, as described above.
Limits to know about: the standalone live scoreboard allows 30 new boards an hour without an account and 60 with one.
Not in the product: taking payments (we record entry fees as paid, waived or unpaid, but never collect money), email or push notifications, player ratings and federation ranking integration, court booking, and team ties. If you need ranking points or online payment, a paid federation or club system is the right tool, and the tables above tell you where each one starts charging.
Which free option fits your event
A one-off club singles event under 20 players, one category: Xporty Free or JudgeMate cover it. Tournify Amateur stops at 8 players, so 20 need the €40 plan for up to 60. Check that your scoring format is supported before the draw.
Several categories on one day: Xporty Free stops at one category and Score7 Starter at one active tournament. Rankedin Basic does not publish a category limit; JudgeMate takes up to 50 categories per event.
Spectators and players follow results online: the Turniermeister demo is private. Tournify (live website), Score7 (public tournament page), Rankedin Basic (event page with ads), Xporty Free (one published competition at a time) and JudgeMate have public pages in the free plan.
Live point-by-point scoring: Rankedin puts it in paid plans. JudgeMate's live scoreboard is free, within the hourly creation limit.
Open play and social round robins in pickleball: PlayTime Scheduler was built for that.
Ranking points or a sanctioned event: use your federation's system. No free plan here, ours included, reports to a national ranking.
Try JudgeMate on your next event
A tennis event takes about 10 minutes to configure. No athlete limits, no commission on registrations. See tennis features · Tennis glossary
See also
Tennis tournament software
Tournament Planner, Rankedin, Xporty, Tournify, Turniermeister, Cup2000 and JudgeMate on ITF short formats, consolation draws, seeding, live scores and price.
Xporty alternative
Tennis leagues, team ties and paid sign-ups, free up to 20 players — and where JudgeMate fits instead, format by format.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Rankedin: pricing — Rankedin AS
- Rankedin: sports and event types supported by E-Referee — Rankedin AS
- Tournify: pricing — Tournify B.V.
- Tournify: tennis — Tournify B.V.
- Xporty: pricing — Xporty
- Xporty: tennis tournaments — Xporty
- Turniermeister: Preise — Turniermeister
- Turniermeister: Tennisturnier erstellen — Turniermeister
- Turniermeister: Tischtennisturnier erstellen — Turniermeister
- Score7: pricing — Score7
- Challonge: pricing — Challonge
- PlayTime Scheduler — PlayTime Scheduler
- Cup2000: buy a licence — Cup2000
- ITF Rules of Tennis 2026 — International Tennis Federation
- ITTF Statutes 2026 — International Table Tennis Federation
- BWF Laws of Badminton, in force 26 April 2025 — Badminton World Federation
- BWF Laws of Badminton, in force 4 January 2027 — Badminton World Federation
- World Squash Singles Rules 2025 — World Squash Federation
- USA Pickleball Official Rulebook 2026 — USA Pickleball