Courts and build-out
Hours open per week, per court
Hourly rate by daypart ($ per court-hour)
Utilization by daypart (% of court-hours played, members included)
Membership
Other revenue per month
Costs per month
Ramp-up
Utilization is the share of all court-hours that are played, including member play. Member hours come out of the booked hours; if members would play more than the courts allow, play is capped at capacity and you get a warning.
Enter your court count and hours, then click Calculate.
Result
Monthly P&L at steady state
| Line | Per month | Per year |
|---|
24-month ramp-up cash curve
| Month | Revenue | Operating costs | Debt service | Cash | Cumulative cash |
|---|
Monthly cash after debt service: utilization vs peak rate
Rows shift every daypart's utilization by percentage points; columns change the peak rate.
Monthly cash after debt service: membership fee vs member count
What raises profit most
Each input moved up and down 10% on its own; change in annual net operating income. Elasticity is the % change in income per 1% change in the input.
| Input | +10% | -10% | Elasticity | Size |
|---|
How it is calculated
Capacity: courts x weekly hours in each daypart x 52/12 weeks. Booked hours: capacity x utilization. Members: members x court-hours each; that play comes out of the booked hours (and if it exceeds them, utilization is treated as higher; if it exceeds capacity, it is capped). Court revenue: remaining hourly play x the daypart rate. Revenue: court revenue + dues + leagues, lessons and events + pro-shop and F&B margin (sales x margin). Costs: staff, rent, utilities, insurance and other fixed costs plus the percentage fee on everything except pro-shop margin. Net operating income (NOI): revenue less costs, before debt. Cash: NOI less debt service.
Ramp-up: revenue (and the percentage fee) climbs in a straight line from your month-1 percentage to 100% at the ramp month; fixed costs and debt service run in full from month 1. Month 0 is your own cash in: build-out cost less the debt-financed part. Break-even utilization: your peak, off-peak and weekend utilization scaled together until cash after debt is zero, shown as overall utilization. Break-even members: the smallest member count at which cash after debt is zero, counting the hourly play those members displace. Payback on build-out: build-out cost over annual NOI.
Not modelled: income tax and depreciation, seasonality, price elasticity (raising a rate does not lower play in the ranking), member churn, no-shows and refunds, staff scaling with hours, sales tax, equipment replacement and court resurfacing, working capital, landlord concessions, build-out overruns, and permitting or zoning. In the ranking, adding hours assumes the same utilization in the new hours. Sample numbers are invented. Unverified: tested on hand-calculated examples, not on a real facility. It computes outcomes from your inputs; it does not tell you whether to open.
Common questions
How much does it cost to open an indoor pickleball facility?
It varies enormously with building, region, court count and whether you lease an existing warehouse or build new, so the tool ships no cost figure as fact. Enter your own build-out or lease-up quote (flooring, nets, lighting, HVAC, front desk, locker rooms, permits) as one number, plus how much of it is financed. The tool then shows how much of your own cash goes in, the deepest point your cash balance reaches while the facility ramps up, and how long until cumulative cash turns positive.
What utilization does an indoor pickleball facility need to break even?
The tool finds it from your own figures: it keeps the shape of your peak, off-peak and weekend utilization and scales it until monthly cash after debt service is zero, then reports the overall share of court-hours that represents. Fixed costs (rent, staff, insurance, utilities, debt service) mostly do not move with play, so break-even utilization is driven by how large those are against your hourly rates.
How do I price memberships against hourly court rental?
Every member hour is an hour you cannot rent to a walk-in. The tool counts member play against the booked hours your utilization implies, so a membership only adds profit when the monthly fee beats the hourly revenue those hours would have earned. If members would play more hours than your utilization implies, utilization is treated as higher; if they would play more hours than the courts have, member play is capped at capacity and you get a warning. The membership table shows monthly cash for combinations of fee and member count.
What is revenue per court-hour, and why does it matter?
It is court revenue (hourly play plus membership dues) divided by the court-hours you have available in a month. It lets you compare a facility with eight courts and long hours against one with four courts and short hours, and see whether a rate change or a membership push moved the number. The tool also shows revenue per booked court-hour, which is what a booked hour is worth on average.
How long does an indoor pickleball facility take to pay back?
Two readings are shown. Payback on build-out is the build-out cost divided by annual net operating income at steady state. Months to cash break-even runs a month-by-month curve from your ramp-up assumption, with fixed costs and debt service from month one and revenue climbing from your starting percentage to full, and tells you the month cumulative cash turns positive and the lowest cash point on the way.
What raises profit the most: rates, utilization, members or cutting costs?
The ranking moves each input up and down ten percent, one at a time, holding the rest fixed, and shows the change in annual net operating income and the elasticity (percent change in income per percent change in the input). It is a local view around your numbers, not a forecast: raising a rate ten percent is easier to type than to achieve without losing play, and the tool does not model that response.
Does this work for padel or a different racquet-sport facility?
Yes, the model only needs courts, hours, rates, utilization, memberships, other revenue and costs, so it fits padel, tennis or squash facilities too. Examples are written for pickleball, and the sample numbers are invented.
Is my information uploaded?
No. The calculation runs in your browser from figures you type, nothing is sent to a server, there are no accounts, and it works offline after the page loads. No address or personal information is asked for.