Is GolfNow free for golf courses?
No. GolfNow costs no cash, but it is paid for in tee times you hand over and it resells at a discount — four prime times a day at a $40 rate works out to roughly $32,000 a year in revenue the course never sees.
The short version
- The cost is real, it is just denominated in tee times instead of dollars.
- Four bartered times a day, 200 days, at $40 is about $32,000 a year.
- Bartered times are resold below your rate, often to golfers who would have paid full price.
- Courses rated GolfNow at a net promoter score of −26 in NGF research reported in 2021, and largely stayed anyway.
- GolfNow — four times a day$32,000 a year
Four prime times a day at a $40 rate across a 200-day season.
- GolfNow — two times a day$16,000 a year
Half as many handed over. Still the most expensive row here.
- Paid tee sheet software, in cash$1,800–$6,000 a year
The $150–$500 a month the category actually charges.
- Putted, prepaid for a year$1,490 a year
$149 a month, or $1,490 up front.
The GolfNow bars are forfeited revenue, not an invoice: times handed over × your rate × days open. Nothing here appears on a statement, which is the reason the comparison is worth drawing at all.
How the barter actually works
GolfNow provides tee sheet software at no cash cost. In exchange the course provides tee times, which GolfNow lists on its marketplace and sells, typically at a discount to your rack rate. The course does not invoice anybody and does not write a cheque, which is why it reads as free.
What has happened is that a fixed number of your rounds each day now generate revenue for somebody else. The software is not free; it is being paid for out of inventory before you ever see it.
Do the arithmetic on your own sheet
Take the number of times you hand over per day, multiply by your rate, multiply by the days you are open. Four times a day at $40 across a 200-day season is $32,000. Even at two times a day it is $16,000.
Now compare that to what the category charges in cash: $150 to $500 a month, which is $1,800 to $6,000 a year. The barter is more expensive than nearly every paid product on the market, and it does not show up anywhere you would notice it.
The part that costs more than the times
The bartered rounds are the visible cost. The cannibalisation is the other one: a golfer who was going to book with you directly finds your course on the marketplace, books the discounted time, and you have converted a full-rate round into a discounted one you also do not get paid for.
The habit is the third cost. A golfer who books your course through a marketplace has learned to start at the marketplace, which is where they will also see the course fifteen minutes away.
When it is still the right call
If you genuinely cannot fill those times, a discounted round beats an empty one and the marketplace is doing real work generating demand you could not generate yourself. That argument is sound, and it is why the model has lasted.
It stops being sound the moment the times you are handing over are times you could have sold. Most courses do not check which of the two they are in, because the cost never appears on a statement.
What replacing it costs
Putted is $149 a month, or $1,490 prepaid for a year. Against $32,000 of forfeited inventory that is not a close comparison — but it does require you to sell your own tee times, which means having a booking page golfers can find and a reason for them to start there.
Where these numbers come from
Published or vendor-quoted figures, not negotiated ones, each with the date we checked it. Prices change; check them before you rely on them.
Put your tee times online without giving any away
Free setup, a free first month and no card to start. Tell us your hours and we will build your tee sheet before you decide anything.