Most organizers find Pickleheads through the round robin tool. It's fast, it runs matchups automatically, and it makes game nights easier to manage. But round robins are just the starting point.
When you Plus-power your sessions — meaning your players hold a Pickleheads Plus subscription to join — you unlock the full organizer toolkit: unlimited round robins, tournaments, leagues, ladders, and advanced automations all for free.
This guide covers all of it.
What "Plus-Powered" Means
Plus-powering is how you run the full Pickleheads organizer toolkit without paying for it yourself.
Here's the idea: your players subscribe to Pickleheads Plus ($1/month, billed as $12/year) to join your Plus-powered sessions, and you get the full organizer toolkit free. Unlimited round robins, leagues, ladders, tournaments, plus the automation tools that make running events easier: recurring sessions, session duplication, and waitlist management. Your players get all the benefits of Plus in return.
There's no player threshold to hit. No subscriber count to track. When you Plus-power a session, you have the tools.
💡 Good to know: Plus-powering works on a session-by-session basis. You enable it on each round robin, tournament, or league individually when you create it — there's no account-level switch. More on where to find it for each tool below.
What You Can Run With Plus-Powered Tools
Round Robins
Round robins are where most organizers start, and Plus-powering removes the only real limit: how many you can run per month.
On the free plan, you get 2 round robins a month. Require Pickleheads Plus on a session and that session's usage is waived — it doesn't count against your monthly total. Do that for every session and you can run as many round robins as you want.
The round robin tool itself handles everything on game night: matchup generation, court assignments, score entry, and live standings. Your job is just to show up and run it.
To enable: Create or edit a round robin session → Advanced Settings → toggle Pickleheads Plus on.
Tournaments
Mini-tournaments run the same way as round robins — you set them up in the app, players sign up, and the tool manages pools, brackets, and court assignments automatically. Plus-powering a tournament session waives its usage, the same way it works for round robins.
A full mini-tournament runs in about two hours: pool play first, then a championship bracket (up to 32 teams) with an optional consolation bracket. Players enter their own scores in the app, courts never sit empty, and you can submit results to DUPR in one tap at the end.
To enable: Create a session → choose the mini-tournament format → Advanced Settings → toggle Pickleheads Plus on.
Leagues
Pickleheads leagues are built specifically for pickleball — not repurposed from tennis software. That matters because pickleball has its own formats, its own social culture, and its own way of running structured play. The Pickleheads league tool accounts for all of it.
Create your league once and it builds a full session schedule automatically, automatically invites your roster every week, and updates standings in real time as scores come in. Win percentage, point differential, participation thresholds — it handles the things that used to live in a spreadsheet.
Leagues are available via Plus-powering or subscribing to Pickleheads Ultra. Leagues are not included in Pickleheads Pro.
To enable: Create a League → in Platform Pricing, select Players chip in.
Ladders
A ladder is the right format when you want a competitive, ongoing program that doesn't require everyone to commit to a fixed season. There's no set end date — players move up or down the ladder by a step system each week based on results, and they can skip weeks without losing their position.
Like leagues, ladders update standings automatically, handle scheduling, and run on the same round robin session engine. You configure the movement rules (how far players move up or down each week), set a step floor so nobody falls off the bottom, and the app takes it from there.
Ladders are available with Plus-powered sessions or via Ultra. Not included in Pro.
To enable: Create a League → select Ladder as your format → in Platform Pricing, select Players chip in.
Automation tools included with Plus-power
Plus-powering also unlocks the automation tools that are included in our Pro subscription. Three big ones:
- Recurring sessions — Set up a session once and it automatically repeats on your schedule. No more manual rebuilds every week.
- Session duplication — Copy a session with one tap. Same format, same settings, fresh date.
- Waitlist management — When a spot opens up, the next player on your waitlist gets in automatically.
These were Pro-only before. Now they come free when you Plus-power your sessions.
Get Started
Pick the tool that fits what you're running right now.
- Round robins and tournaments: Create a round robin or tournament →
- Leagues and ladders: Create a league or ladder →
You're good to go. If you want a hand figuring out which setup fits your group, ping us in the organizer community or DM me in the app.
