Choosing Tennis Coaching Software in 2026
ClubSpark's coaching module is free to LTA-registered venues and LTA Accredited coaches, funded instead by fees on card and Direct Debit payments. Bizzly is a flat £19 to £49 a month with no fee on top. This guide is about the coaching business, not the members' club: tennis coaches, academies and kids programmes selling coaching blocks, term packs and camps to parents.
That distinction runs through every product here. A tennis coach, academy or kids programme running kids tennis club software sells coaching blocks by stage group, Blue, Red, Orange, Green and Yellow, alongside term packs, rolling monthly memberships, free tasters and holiday camps to parents, and needs online booking, automatic billing, capacity and waitlists, a parent portal and WhatsApp or SMS reminders. A members' club with its own courts needing court booking, LTA rating and competition tie-ins is a different buyer, covered briefly further down. This guide compares six UK tennis coaching platforms: ClubSpark's coaching module, Coacha, ClassForKids, Pembee, Bookwhen and Bizzly, verified against each vendor's own pricing page during September 2026.
What Matters for a Tennis Coaching Business
Coaching blocks bookable by stage group
Junior tennis coaching runs on stage groups, Blue, Red, Orange, Green and Yellow, each with its own age band and court size. Look for software that lets a parent book directly into the right stage group rather than a generic timetable, and that can stop a booking into the wrong group before it happens.
Term packs and memberships billed automatically
Most coaching businesses run a school-term structure, sometimes alongside a rolling monthly membership. Check whether a family joining in week four of a ten-week term is charged the full block or a pro-rated amount for what is left, and whether a lapsed payment does anything on its own rather than becoming a treasurer's spreadsheet job.
Camps and tasters as separate bookable products
Holiday camps and free taster sessions are how most coaching businesses win new families, and they need different pricing logic from a weekly term booking: a taster is normally free and capped per child, a camp is often priced by the day or the week. Software that treats both as first-class products, rather than a workaround on a term-pack template, saves real admin every school holiday.
Capacity and waitlists
A popular stage group or a school-holiday camp fills fast. A waitlist that automatically offers a freed place to the next family, rather than requiring a parent to keep emailing to ask, is the difference between a full session staying full and quietly losing children to a slower manual process.
A parent portal and reminders
Parents expect to manage their own bookings, payments and cancellations without phoning the coach, and automated reminders by email, SMS or WhatsApp cut the no-shows that cost a small coaching business real money every week.
A website or booking page
Some products give you a full public website; others give you a booking page or widget to embed into a site you host elsewhere. Work out honestly whether you already have a site you like, because that decision changes the total cost of every option below. Read more about how a tennis coaching business runs as a subscription operation on the how a tennis coaching business works as a subscription business page.
What it costs at your actual size
A flat monthly licence is predictable but can feel expensive for a very small coaching business; a percentage-fee model is cheap when you are small and can cost more than a licence once your fee income grows. Work out the total cost at 60, 150 and 300 children before comparing headline prices, not just the number on the pricing page.
Feature Comparison
Tennis Coaching Software: Feature Comparison
| Feature | ClubSpark | Coacha | ClassForKids | Pembee | Bookwhen | Bizzly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier available | To LTA venues/coaches | Lite, free to 50 members | 50 bookings/month, free events only | 14-day trial, no card | ||
| Coaching blocks bookable by stage group (Blue, Red, Orange, Green, Yellow) | General coaching-programme booking, not stage-specific | Check website | Course/ticket types, not stage-specific | Via custom profile fields gating eligibility | ||
| Term packs with mid-term pro-rating for a late joiner | Recurring subscriptions only; packs not published | Not published | Blocks supported; pro-rating not published | Termly tickets; no auto pro-rating found | ||
| Monthly membership or subscription billing | Card or Direct Debit instalments | Supported; +0.5% Stripe Billing surcharge | Standard plan+ | |||
| Holiday camps and free taster sessions as separate bookable products | Not a distinct feature | Trial tickets, session passes | Course/ticket types | Free trial toggle plus term/camp packs, Standard+ | ||
| Capacity limits with waitlist management | Check website | Premium only (£70) | Standard plan+ | Standard plan+ | ||
| Payment-gated booking quotas (lapsed payment blocks new bookings) | Not published | Not published | Not published | Membership-only ticket access | ||
| Parent portal (self-service view, pause, cancel) | Check website | |||||
| WhatsApp AI assistant answering parent enquiries 24/7 | Standard plan+ | |||||
| Automated SMS reminders | Check website | Check website | Check website | Check website | Check website | Standard plan+ |
| Fully flexible drag-and-drop website editor | Basic templated coach/club microsite | Themed booking page + embeds, not a builder | ||||
| Attendance registers | Check website | Standard plan+ | ||||
| Card payments | ||||||
| Direct Debit / GoCardless payments | Via GoCardless | Native, via GoCardless | Check website | Via your own Stripe account, if enabled | ||
| Native iOS and Android member apps | Check website | Responsive web app | ||||
| Free trial with no card required | N/A, free to eligible venues | None published; free tier instead | 7 days | 30 days | 2 weeks | 14 days |
| Platform or application fee on top of processing | ClubSpark fee within the card/Direct Debit rate | None published beyond processing rate | Per-booking fee quoted per club | 0.59% application fee | None; Stripe, PayPal or WorldPay only | None from Bizzly |
| Pricing published in GBP | USD list price | |||||
| Built specifically for tennis | ||||||
| Suits a standalone coaching business without its own courts | Needs an LTA venue or accreditation | |||||
| Child profiles under one paying adult | Check website | Known customers on a booking contact |
Platform Reviews
ClubSpark coaching module
Best for: A coach already working from an LTA-registered venue who wants free coaching-programme booking, not a full standalone brand.
ClubSpark, built by ClubSpark Group Limited (formerly Sportlabs) and offered free to LTA-affiliated venues and LTA Accredited coaches, bundles coaching-programme booking with the venue's wider court-booking and membership site. For a coach delivering sessions at a club that already runs ClubSpark, that is a genuinely free way to take bookings and payments with no software cost at all.
What it does not do for a coaching business is the part that matters most once you want your own brand: no standalone website, since the coaching module sits inside the venue's microsite rather than a site you control; no holiday camps or free tasters as distinct bookable products; and no WhatsApp channel for parent enquiries. Card payments run at roughly 2.9% + 25p combined and Direct Debit via GoCardless at around 1.8% + 20p + VAT, capped at £4, so a busy programme pays real money in fees for “free” software.
- Pricing: Free to LTA-registered venues and LTA Accredited coaches. Card payments roughly 2.9% + 25p; Direct Debit via GoCardless roughly 1.8% + 20p + VAT, capped at £4. As of September 2026, confirm directly.
- Strengths: Zero licence cost for eligible venues and coaches, bundled into a venue's existing site, purpose-built coaching-programme booking
- Limitations: Payment fees on every transaction, no standalone website, no term or camp pro-rating, no WhatsApp, built around a venue's microsite rather than an independent brand
Coacha
Best for: A coaching business or academy under 50 members that wants a genuinely free plan with native Direct Debit and mobile apps built in.
Coacha's Lite plan is free for life, not a time-limited trial, and includes unlimited classes, registers, online payments via Stripe, Direct Debit via GoCardless, a member portal and native iOS and Android apps for up to 50 members and one coach login. Premium (£36/month) and Custom (£60/month) remove the member and staff-account caps as a coaching business grows. Full breakdown in our Coacha pricing guide.
The gaps: Coacha has no website builder, and its published feature set covers recurring subscriptions rather than one-off term or holiday-camp packs, so a coach running a school-term structure alongside a rolling membership needs to check that directly. There is no WhatsApp assistant.
- Pricing: Lite free (50 members), Premium £36/month, Custom £60/month. Card processing 2.5% + 20p, Direct Debit 2.2% + 24p, both via Stripe or GoCardless. As of September 2026.
- Strengths: Genuinely free entry tier, native Direct Debit via GoCardless, native mobile apps, purpose-built safeguarding fields, sibling discounts built in
- Limitations: No website builder, no published term or camp pack pro-rating, no WhatsApp assistant, member cap on the free tier
ClassForKids
Best for: A tennis academy or coaching business that wants a marketplace listing and free hands-on onboarding, and is comfortable with a per-booking fee.
ClassForKids covers structured session booking, registration forms, waitlists, attendance and trial-session management, all built for children's activity providers rather than adapted from a general tool. Its free Discovery Site listing is a genuine acquisition channel most of this comparison does not offer, and onboarding and data migration are free. Full breakdown in our ClassForKids pricing guide.
The licence, from £34.99 a month, does not scale with headcount, but the per-booking fee is quoted per club rather than published; one UK club's own parent FAQ cited 3.1%. There is no website builder, and term or camp pro-rating for a mid-term joiner is not published.
- Pricing: From £34.99/month + a per-booking fee quoted per club (one published example: 3.1%). 7-day free trial. Figures as of July 2026; classforkids.com/pricing returned a 403 when fetched directly.
- Strengths: Purpose-built for children's activity providers, free onboarding and data migration, Discovery Site marketplace listing, waitlists and trial management
- Limitations: No website builder, per-booking fee not published, no WhatsApp assistant, term or camp pro-rating not published
Pembee
Best for: A tennis coaching business that wants every fee published up front, including Tax-Free Childcare support for after-school and holiday programmes.
Pembee publishes both halves of its pricing on its own page, a genuine rarity in this market: £30 or £70 a month plus a 0.59% application fee on Stripe payments, on top of Stripe's own processing. Registration forms, registers, session passes, trial tickets and sibling-saver discount rules are standard, and Tax-Free Childcare or childcare voucher support is a real point of difference for after-school or holiday tennis programmes. Full breakdown in our Pembee pricing guide.
Waitlists, arguably the most valuable feature for an oversubscribed stage group, sit behind the £70 Premium tier, not the £30 Standard plan. There is no website builder beyond themed booking pages and embeds, and no WhatsApp assistant.
- Pricing: Standard £30/month, Premium £70/month, both plus a 0.59% application fee on Stripe payments. 30-day free trial, no card. As of August 2026.
- Strengths: Every fee published, longest trial in this comparison, Tax-Free Childcare and voucher support, sibling-saver discount rules, Apple Pay/Google Pay/Klarna
- Limitations: Waitlists on Premium only, no website builder, no WhatsApp assistant, term pro-rating not published
Bookwhen
Best for: A coach running simple one-off lessons, courses and holiday camps who wants a genuinely free tier and no percentage fee on payments.
Bookwhen counts a booking as a transaction rather than an attendee, so one parent booking three children into a term counts as a single booking against the monthly cap, worth knowing when comparing plan limits to a rival's. The free tier covers 50 bookings a month but only for free events; taking payment requires Lite and up, and memberships, reminders, waitlists and attendance tracking only appear from Standard. Bookwhen takes no cut of your payments at all. Full breakdown in our Bookwhen alternatives guide.
It has no website builder, no per-child family record beyond a booking contact's known customers, no WhatsApp channel, and its published documentation does not confirm automatic pro-rating for a mid-term joiner or season-to-season rollover.
- Pricing: Free ($0, 50 bookings, free events only), Lite ~$16, Standard ~$29, Plus ~$59, Enterprise on application. No cut of your payments. Two weeks free, no card. Figures as of July 2026, USD, confirm directly.
- Strengths: Genuinely free tier, simple and quick to set up, no platform fee, choice of payment processor, strong support reputation
- Limitations: No website builder, no WhatsApp, no per-child family records, monthly booking caps on every tier, memberships and waitlists only from Standard
Bizzly
Best for: A tennis coaching business, academy or kids programme that wants a real website, term pack and membership billing gated to payment, and a WhatsApp assistant, on one flat monthly fee.
Bizzly is not a members'-club platform: it has no court booking, no LTA integration and no competition-entry tools. What it is built for is the coaching business most of the platforms above treat as an afterthought. Every plan includes a fully flexible drag-and-drop website editor, not a form embedded in a venue's microsite: 26 components covering the booking calendar, plans, testimonials, a store and the full customer portal, styled down to a raw CSS inspector, with per-page SEO and a media library.
Billing runs monthly memberships, session-credit packs and one-off term or camp packs side by side, with automatic pro-rating for a mid-term joiner and camps sellable whole or day by day. Booking is payment-gated, so a child can only book what a family's plan or credits cover, and a lapsed payment removes booking access automatically. From the Standard plan, a WhatsApp AI assistant answers parent enquiries and books, cancels and checks availability around the clock, and custom profile fields gate a session by stage group. Attendance registers, review requests and Google Calendar sync round out the day-to-day.
The gaps matter for a coaching business considering court-owning ambitions specifically: no LTA integration of any kind, no court-specific booking logic, no competition-entry tools, and payment methods that follow your own Stripe account, cards and wallets by default, with Bacs Direct Debit available if you enable it, rather than a native GoCardless integration. There is no marketplace listing equivalent to ClassForKids' Discovery Site.
- Pricing: Base £19, Standard £29, Pro £49/month. No fee on top of Stripe's own processing. 14-day free trial, no card.
- Strengths: Fully flexible drag-and-drop website editor, subscription plus term, camp and season billing together with pro-rating, payment-gated booking quotas, WhatsApp AI assistant, attendance registers, no per-transaction platform fee
- Limitations: No LTA integration, no court-specific booking, no native GoCardless Direct Debit, no marketplace listing, no native mobile apps
If You Run a Members' Club With Its Own Courts
Everything above is for the coaching side of tennis: coaching blocks, term packs, memberships and camps sold directly to parents. A members' club that owns its own courts and needs court booking, LTA rating and competition tie-ins is a different buyer entirely, and none of the six products above should be your first port of call for that job. ClubSpark's wider club platform, the same product family as its coaching module but built around a venue's courts, membership renewals and LTA affiliation, remains the default for most volunteer-run UK clubs. ClubPilot is the general club-management alternative worth comparing if membership admin at a transparent, low monthly price matters more to you than LTA integration. If court booking and club membership are your whole operation, look at those two rather than anything else in this guide.
Term Packs and Membership Billing Compared
A large share of the searches that lead to this page are really asking one narrower question: which of these actually automates term fees or a monthly membership, rather than just taking a one-off card payment for a single lesson. It is worth separating out, because the differences between these six products are bigger than the feature table above implies.
Genuinely automated recurring billing is a named, core feature on most of them. Coacha runs native recurring subscriptions with Direct Debit via GoCardless. Pembee supports monthly subscriptions and session passes side by side. ClassForKids supports subscriptions too, with a small additional Stripe Billing surcharge that its own help centre says clubs should absorb into their prices rather than pass to parents. Bookwhen's membership billing only appears from its Standard tier upward. ClubSpark supports recurring collection through card instalments or Direct Debit, but its published material does not describe term-pack or season-pro-rating mechanics specifically.
Bizzly extends the model a step further: memberships are not just billed automatically, they gate booking access. A lapsed payment removes a family's ability to book a new coaching session immediately, rather than leaving a coach to notice and chase it manually, and a term or holiday-camp pack pro-rates automatically for a family joining partway through rather than charging them the full block or nothing at all. None of the other five products in this comparison ties payment status to booking access this way.
Which one earns its price depends on which billing shape your coaching business actually runs. A programme selling mostly single termly blocks with a modest membership tail can often make do with any of the five specialists; a business running stage-group coaching, rolling memberships, camps and free tasters together, and wanting a lapsed payer stopped from booking automatically, is the case Bizzly is built around.
Pricing Comparison
| Item | Estimated Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ClubSpark coaching module | Free + ~2.9% card or ~1.8% Direct Debit fees | Free to LTA-registered venues and LTA Accredited coaches: coaching-programme booking and a basic microsite. Card payments roughly 2.9% + 25p combined; Direct Debit via GoCardless roughly 1.8% + 20p + VAT, capped at £4. As of September 2026. |
| Coacha | Free to £60/month | Lite free for life up to 50 members, Premium £36/month, Custom £60/month (Premium and Custom currently discounted to £18/£30 for a new customer's first 3 months). Card processing 2.5% + 20p, Direct Debit 2.2% + 24p, both inclusive of the processor's own fee. As of September 2026. |
| ClassForKids | From £34.99/month + a per-booking fee quoted per club | UK Standard from £34.99/month covers unlimited children, coaches and venues, plus a free Discovery Site marketplace listing. The per-booking fee is not published; one UK club's own parent FAQ cited 3.1%. 7-day free trial. Figures as of July 2026; classforkids.com/pricing returned a 403 when checked directly. |
| Pembee | £30 to £70/month + 0.59% | Standard £30/month, Premium £70/month (adds waitlists and a custom domain), plus a 0.59% application fee on Stripe payments on top of Stripe's own processing. 30-day free trial, no card. As of August 2026. |
| Bookwhen | Free to ~$59/month (USD) | Free tier: 50 bookings/month, free events only, no payments taken. Lite ~$16, Standard ~$29 (first tier with memberships, waitlists and attendance tracking), Plus ~$59. Bookwhen takes no cut of your payments. Prices published in USD as of July 2026; confirm in your own currency. |
| Bizzly Base | £19/month (£190/year) | 50 bookings, 1 calendar, full drag-and-drop website editor, subscription and pack billing, payment-gated booking quotas, Stripe payments with receipts and purchase history. No fee on top of Stripe's own processing. |
| Bizzly Standard | £29/month (£290/year) | 200 bookings, 3 calendars, WhatsApp AI assistant (500 messages), waitlists, free trial sessions, custom profile fields for stage/age eligibility, SMS reminders. |
| Bizzly Pro | £49/month (£490/year) | Unlimited bookings and calendars, custom domain, branded email domain, merch store, per-venue pricing, WhatsApp 2,000 messages, 200 SMS/month. 14-day free trial, no card required. |
Total cost at 60, 150 and 300 children
Assume an average of £30 a month per child across term packs and memberships, an illustrative figure, not a quote, that scales revenue from £1,800 a month at 60 children to £9,000 a month at 300.
| Item | Estimated Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 60 children, ~£1,800/month in coaching fees | ClubSpark ~£52 · Coacha ~£81 · ClassForKids ~£91 · Pembee ~£81 · Bookwhen ~$29 · Bizzly £49 | Illustrative only, assuming an average £30/month per child across term packs and memberships. Coacha needs Premium past its 50-member cap; Pembee needs Premium for waitlists; weekly coaching bookings already push past Bizzly Standard's 200-a-month cap, so Pro is the fair comparison. |
| 150 children, ~£4,500/month in coaching fees | ClubSpark ~£131 · Coacha ~£149 · ClassForKids ~£174 · Pembee ~£97 · Bookwhen ~$29 · Bizzly £49 | ClubSpark, Coacha and ClassForKids all charge a percentage on top of a licence, so their totals climb with revenue. Pembee's 0.59% fee stays small. Bookwhen's roughly 650 monthly bookings at this size still sit under Standard's 800-booking cap. |
| 300 children, ~£9,000/month in coaching fees | ClubSpark ~£261 · Coacha ~£261 · ClassForKids ~£314 · Pembee ~£123 · Bookwhen ~$59 (Plus) · Bizzly £49 | At this scale the percentage-fee platforms cost five to six times their 60-child total. Bookwhen's roughly 1,300 monthly bookings cross the 800 cap on Standard, so Plus becomes the realistic tier. Bizzly's flat Pro fee and Pembee's small percentage scale the best. |
How to Choose
Coaching at an LTA-registered venue you already have
ClubSpark's coaching module is free and bundled into the venue's existing site. Budget honestly for its payment fees rather than treating it as free, and be clear that it is not a standalone brand for you if you also coach elsewhere.
A small coaching business under 50 members watching every pound
Coacha Lite, for a genuinely free licence with online payments, Direct Debit and a member portal included. Revisit the decision once you pass 50 members or need a second coach account.
An academy wanting a marketplace listing and hands-on onboarding
ClassForKids, for its Discovery Site and free data migration, if a per-booking fee quoted per club is acceptable in exchange.
A business that wants every fee published up front
Pembee, since both the licence and the 0.59% application fee are printed on its own pricing page rather than quoted on a call, plus Tax-Free Childcare support for holiday and after-school programmes.
Simple one-off lessons and courses, no percentage fee
Bookwhen, for a genuinely free tier and no cut taken from your payments, provided your coaching business does not need term-pack pro-rating or a full website.
A coaching business, academy or kids programme wanting a real website and payment-gated booking
Bizzly, at a flat £19 to £49 a month, if you want term packs, memberships and camps running side by side with automatic pro-rating, a lapsed payer blocked from booking without you chasing it, and a WhatsApp assistant fielding parent enquiries while you coach.
Frequently Asked Questions
What software do tennis coaches use to run bookings and payments in the UK?
Is there free software for a tennis coaching business?
How much does tennis coaching software cost?
What is the best software for a kids tennis academy?
Do I need different software for a members' club and a coaching business?
Can I run holiday camps and free taster sessions on the same platform as term bookings?
Does ClubSpark work for a coaching business that does not own courts?
What is the best ClassForKids alternative for tennis coaching?
Summary
There is no single best tennis coaching software in the UK, because the right answer depends on what your business actually sells. ClubSpark's coaching module is the free default if you already work from an LTA-registered venue, though its payment fees and venue-shaped assumptions are worth weighing before you assume free means best. Coacha owns the free-to-cheap end for a small coaching business under 50 members. ClassForKids and Pembee are the closest specialists for structured kids' coaching, one with a marketplace listing, the other with every fee published. Bookwhen keeps a genuinely free tier for simple one-off lessons and courses.
For a coaching business, an academy, or a kids' tennis programme that wants its own brand, term packs and memberships billed and gated together, and a WhatsApp assistant answering parents, Bizzly is the broadest fit at a flat £19 to £49 a month with no fee on top. If you run a members' club with its own courts instead, look at ClubSpark or ClubPilot, not any of the six compared here. See how Bizzly fits a tennis coaching operation on the kids tennis club software page, more broadly on kids club subscription software, or current plans on Bizzly pricing. If you coach a different sport, see our best football club software UK comparison for the same shape of decision.