Coach guide
A free booking page for tennis coaches
The short answer
A tennis coach can set up a free public booking page with laceup — a page at your own web address where people book themselves into your sessions from a link. When a session fills, the next booking goes to a waitlist. There is no fee and no commission. The page does not process payments; it can display your price, but you collect the way you already do.
It is half-eight on a Tuesday and the thread is moving faster than you can read it. Four people said yes. Two asked a question you have not answered. One replied to last week's message. Three texted you privately. You are counting yeses against a court that holds eight, you are one over, and now you have to tell someone they are out — in a message that will scroll past before they see it.
That work is real and it is yours, every week, by hand. It is not coaching and it does not pay. A group chat is a good place to talk to people and a bad place to hold a list, because a list needs a fixed number, a clear order of who is in and who is waiting, and a record that does not vanish up the screen. A chat gives you none of those. A booking page does the counting instead: people see the session and the spaces left and book themselves in. You read the list.
Should you run coaching sign-ups on WhatsApp or a booking page?
Most coaches are not choosing between software packages. They are choosing between the WhatsApp thread they already run and a page that holds the list for them. Here is the same week, both ways.
| The Tuesday list | On WhatsApp | On a booking page |
|---|---|---|
| Who is in | You count replies by hand, every week | People book themselves in; you read the list |
| Capacity | You hold the number in your head | Fixed spaces; the page enforces them |
| Overflow | You message someone to say they are out | The next booking goes to a waitlist automatically |
| The record | Scrolls up the screen and is gone | Stays put at your own web address |
| A regular slot | Re-typed and re-sent every week | Set once; it generates the weeks ahead |
| The price | Repeated in the thread, or assumed | Displayed on the session, so the rate is plain |
People book with a name and a phone number — they do not need an account, and there is nothing to sign up for to hold a spot.
How do you set up a free booking page as a tennis coach?
You can do this in an evening.
- Create your coach page. Set your name, a short bio, your location and how people reach you. This becomes your public page at its own web address.
- Add your first session. Give it a date, a start time, a venue and a number of spaces. Add a price if you want the rate shown — the page displays it; it does not collect it.
- Set up a repeating session if you coach a regular slot. Define the day, time and length once — Tuesday 7pm, 90 minutes — and let it generate the weeks ahead, instead of re-typing it every Monday.
- Share the link. Put it in your Instagram bio, your group chat, your email signature — wherever people already find you.
- Let the list fill. When a session is full, the next booking goes to the waitlist rather than onto your court. You manage the court; the page manages the count.
If you coach at a club, it is worth checking whether the club already runs on laceup — many Irish clubs do, and a coach who lists there is found by members who are already on the club's page.
What does a coach booking page not do?
You have been sold software before, so here are the edges, stated plainly.
- It does not process payments. There is no card checkout inside the page, and no commission is taken from you. You can show a price on a session, but you collect the way you already do — cash, bank transfer, or whatever arrangement you have with your players. We would rather tell you that now than imply a checkout that does not exist.
- It is not a CRM. It is a booking page, not a marketing system. It will not run campaigns, score leads or manage a pipeline. It holds your sessions and the people booked into them, and that is the job.
- It is not a club management suite for one coach. If you run a whole club, that is a different and larger product. This is the lightweight surface for a sole-trader coach who wants the WhatsApp scramble to stop.
Narrow and honest beats broad and vague. The page does one thing — it turns 'who's in on Tuesday?' into a list that fills itself — and it does not charge you for it.
Create the page, add a session, share the link. That is the evening. Next Tuesday, nobody does the maths by hand.
Common questions
- Is the booking page actually free?
- Yes. There is no fee to create a coach page, add sessions, or take bookings, and no commission on what you charge your players.
- Do the people booking need an account?
- No. Someone booking a session enters their name and phone number on your page. They do not need to sign up for anything to reserve a spot.
- Can I take payment through the page?
- Not inside the page — there is no card checkout, and that is deliberate for this version. You can display the price on a session so people know the rate, but you collect payment the way you already do. If online payment is the thing you most need, it is worth saying so, because it is on the list of things we are looking at rather than something that ships today.
- What happens when a session is full?
- The next person to book goes on the waitlist automatically rather than overbooking your court. If a space opens up, you can see who is next in line.
- Can I run a regular weekly slot without re-entering it every week?
- Yes. Set up a repeating session template — the day, time and length — and it generates the upcoming weeks for you, so you are not retyping the same session every Monday night.
- I coach at a club. Does this connect to the club?
- If the club uses laceup, your coaching can appear on the club's public page as well as your own, so members who are already on the club's page can find and book you.