Running a pickleball ladder on Pickleheads is as close to set-it-and-forget-it as fun, competitive play gets. Create your ladder once, and the platform builds your full schedule, invites players before every night, tracks steps in real time, and does all the seeding for you.
Your job on ladder night is just to run the session – the Pickleheads app takes care of the rest. This guide walks you through the full setup, from the creation form to your first live ladder night.
Step 1: Open the League Creation Form
Go to your profile and click Leagues, then click Get Started. This opens the creation form for both leagues and ladders.
Everything you fill in here becomes the default configuration for every session the ladder generates – you can edit individual sessions later, but this is your starting point.
Step 2: Set Your Ladder Schedule
Enter the day(s) and time(s) your ladder meets. Ladders are built for flexible attendance, so many organizers run two or three nights per week. Players self-select which nights to come out, and the step system keeps track regardless of who shows up.
Once you create the ladder, it auto-generates 90 days of sessions based on this schedule. More sessions are added automatically as you go.
Step 3: Choose Your League Type
Select Ladder.
Selecting Ladder unlocks the step system and the high/low format options, and locks your primary standings criterion to Step.
💡 Good to know: Not sure which type fits your group?
- A league has a defined season length (6, 8, or 12 weeks are common) with an expectation that players attend regularly.
- A ladder often has no set end date, can run continuously, and works for mixed attendance – players show up when they can.
If you want a traditional league, our league guide has you covered.
Step 4: Set Your Standings Tiebreaker Criteria
Step is fixed as your primary sort. You'll set three tiebreakers that determine the order within the same step:
- Point differential ranks players who win by wider margins higher – a good default first tiebreaker
- Recency puts players who've played more recently above same-step players who've been away for a while
- Total sessions played gives the edge to the player with more sessions when everything else is equal
The default order works well for most groups. If a different order fits your crew better, adjust it here.
Step 5: Choose Your Default Format
Ladders only support high/low formats, where players move up or down a court based on round results. That court movement is what feeds the step system. You'll see four options:
- 🏆Up and Down the River (recommended for most ladders) — players cycle through partners on their court, then winners move up and losers move down after each round. The most common ladder format because results reflect individual performance over a full round, not a single game
- Double Header — best two out of three with every player on the court; works if your group prefers a tight skill band over variety, but players stay on the same court all night
- Claim the Throne — court movement happens after each individual game; faster and more volatile, requires exactly four players per court
- Cream of the Crop — a version of Up and Down the River with a seeding round at the start of each session; generally unnecessary once the step system is running
💡 Good to know: This sets the default format for every auto-generated session. You can change individual sessions later if you want to mix things up.
Step 6: Configure Your Session Defaults
Fill in the settings that apply to every session by default:
- Skill level and whether it's a DUPR-enabled ladder
- Expected player count and number of courts
- Description and images
- Co-hosts
- Whether you're collecting payment
- Advanced settings (player invites, contact info visibility)
These become the default for every session the ladder creates. Any of them can be overridden at the individual session level.
Step 7: Set Up Player Invites
This is the section with the most week-to-week impact. How you configure it depends on one question: are players signing up on Pickleheads, or registering somewhere else?
Path A — Registrations happen off Pickleheads (most facilities and larger operators)
Skip the Automated Invites section. Here's the flow:
- Well before the first ladder night, send your players an email asking them to download the Pickleheads app and create an account.
- On the session page for each ladder night, you'll find a QR code (Invite > Print a QR Code). Post it at the venue before play starts.
- As players arrive, they scan the QR code. Anyone without an account will be prompted to create one before joining. Plan for an extra 20–30 minutes on night one so this goes smoothly.
- Scanning the QR code adds players to the session and doubles as check-in. You'll know exactly who's there before you assign courts.
💡 Good to know: Creating a group for your ladder is optional under this path, but worth doing. It gives you a running record of who's created an account and a communication channel going forward.
Path B — Players are signing up on Pickleheads (smaller groups, community-run ladders)
Use the Automated Invites section. Here's how:
- Create a list of your ladder players. A list is private to you – players don't need to opt in, and you can add people by email or phone even if they don't have a Pickleheads account yet. As they create accounts using that same contact info, their placeholder gets replaced by their actual profile.
- Optionally, create a group for your ladder. Groups require players to opt in, so the list covers the gap while people get set up. Over time, as list members receive invites and create accounts, they'll join the group, and you'll eventually have everyone in one place with a shared communication channel.
- Attach both the group and the list in the Automated Invites section. Set how far in advance invites go out (the default is five days; range is six hours to seven days out).
Players get invited automatically before every session from that point forward.
Step 8: Choose Who Covers the Platform Cost
Pick one option before creating the ladder. It affects how sessions work for players and may be confusing to change later.
- Players chip in. Every session becomes a Pickleheads Plus-powered session. Players need an active Pickleheads Plus subscription ($12/year) to join. You get unlimited access to the ladder platform at no cost.
- You cover it. Requires a Pickleheads Ultra subscription ($74.99/month). Sessions are open to any player, no Plus subscription required. Best if you want zero friction for players at the door.
Step 9: Set a Step Floor (Optional)
Before you create the ladder, decide whether you want to set a step floor – the lowest step any player can drop to.
If someone has a rough stretch early on and sinks to a very low step, it can be discouraging enough to lose them. A step floor prevents that. It doesn't affect competitive play at the top of the ladder – it just keeps one bad night from doing too much damage at the bottom.
💡 Good to know: You can set the step floor here at creation. If you skip it and want to add one later, check the ladder settings on your league page.
Step 10: Create Your Ladder
Tap Create Ladder. You'll land on your ladder page, where the full session schedule has already been built based on your inputs.
Scroll through the schedule before you start inviting anyone.
Step 11: Review and Customize the Schedule
On your ladder page, each session is listed with options to edit. For any session you can:
- Tap the pencil icon to edit settings for that night specifically
- Tap the arrow to open the full session page
- Skip or cancel a week
- Change the round robin format for that session
- Toggle DUPR on or off
You can also add sessions outside the regular schedule – a special night, a makeup session, whatever the group needs.
💡 Good to know: Already running a ladder in a spreadsheet? You can link existing round robin sessions to pull those results and players into the new ladder. Only high/low round robin format sessions are compatible – standalone doubles games or weekly sessions won't link. This is a solid way to migrate mid-ladder without starting from scratch.
⚠️ Important: Ladder step changes are only processed for the most recent session. Linking an earlier session will add its stats but won’t adjust steps automatically. You can always adjust steps manually in standings.
Step 12: Run Your First Ladder Night
Run the session through the Pickleheads mobile app the same way you'd run any round robin. You'll see a League Event button where the regular green round robin setup button normally appears. That connects directly to the standings and schedule.
For the first night, seed your player list using DUPR ratings (best bet), self-reported skill level, or your own read on the group. This first session is what determines everyone's starting step, so take a few minutes to get the order roughly right. It doesn't have to be perfect – the step system self-corrects within a session or two.
Enter scores as rounds finish, then end the event. The standings update in real time with every score entered.
How starting steps are assigned: After the first session, the top four finishers land on Step 1, the next four on Step 2, the next four on Step 3, and so on down the line.
Step 13: Seed Each Week Using the Standings
From night two on, tap Sort by Standings when setting up the player list. This seeds court assignments by step – whoever shows up gets placed based on where they currently sit on the ladder, regardless of who came the week before.
💡 Pro tip: Because attendance varies on a ladder, Sort by Standings is more important here than it is for a traditional league. It's the thing that keeps courts balanced even when you've got a completely different mix of players each week.
After each session, step changes are calculated automatically. The system looks at how many courts each player physically moved during the session, then projects one additional move based on how their final round went.
In Up and Down the River, a player can typically move up to two steps in a single night – one physical court move and one projected.
Step 14: Handle New Players
Ladders have ongoing attendance, which means new players join throughout. The platform tags them with a yellow New label so you know to seed them manually before the session starts.
Place new players using your best judgment. A DUPR rating is useful if they have one. If not, aim for somewhere in the middle of the court order rather than the bottom – the system will calibrate them from there.
After the session, the platform calculates a starting step by looking at the established players who finished closest to the new player that night (two players above and two below in the final standings). It takes the average step of that group. So, if a new player finished alongside mostly Step 3 players, they start on Step 3.
If the initial placement is off, it corrects within a session or two. And if you need to make a manual adjustment at any point, use the up/down arrows on the ladder standings to move a player's step directly.
💡 Good to know: On desktop, you can see a full history of every step change and manual adjustment below the standings. Handy if a player asks why their step is where it is.
Wrapping up
Once your ladder is live, the weekly routine comes down to this: tap Sort by Standings, seed any new players manually, run the session in the app, enter scores, end the event. The platform handles everything else.
You're good to go. If you haven't set up your player list or group yet, that's the most useful five minutes you can spend before night one.
See you on the courts!
Want to share a quick explainer with your players before the first night? Point them to How Pickleball Ladders Work on Pickleheads – it covers what steps are, how they move, and what to expect.
