Get4th vs Pickleheads

Pickleheads is the biggest court directory in pickleball and USA Pickleball's official rec-play partner — if you're looking for somewhere to play or an open session to join, it's excellent. The comparison below is about a different job: filling your own group's games every week. Compared August 2026 from Pickleheads' public site; tell us if something changed.

	Get4th	Them
Players need an app?	Never — invites are texts	App + account for the full experience (chat, standings); basic join via link
Invite channel	SMS from your group's own number	In-app, links, QR codes
Auto-backfill from standby	Yes — dropout triggers a text to the next player	Waitlists on sessions
Your group's own phone number	Yes — players save it once	No
Court discovery / open play finder	Directory built in, but not the focus	Best in category — 18,000+ locations
Round robins, ladders, tournaments	Included on Club plan; partner round robins built in	Free: 2 round robins/mo; more via Plus
Player cost	Players never pay	Plus-powered sessions: players pay $1/mo each
Organizer price	30 days + 5 courts free, then from $15/mo (30 games — from 50¢/game)	Free tier; Plus $12/yr for player features

Choose Pickleheads if…

you want to discover courts and open sessions near you, or you run huge open-play events where players expect to browse a board.

Choose Get4th if…

one organizer runs a recurring group and wants it to fill without anyone installing anything — especially groups with players who will never download an app.

Sudbury Thursday Crew (508) 555-0139

Thursday 6pm, Featherland Park. 8 spots. Reply YES to take one.

YES

You're in. 5 spots left.

— Thursday, 6:04am —

so sorry, kid's sick, I have to drop

No problem. Marina was next on standby — she's texted.

🥒 COURT FULL · 8 of 8 · nobody was chased

Questions

Can I use both?

Plenty of organizers do: Pickleheads to discover players and courts, Get4th to run the weekly game by text once the group exists.

Does Get4th have a court directory too?

Yes — a nationwide directory is built into the organizer app for picking your home courts. It's a convenience, not the product.

Which is cheaper for a 12-person group?

Get4th: $15/mo flat with players never paying. A Plus-powered Pickleheads session at $1/player/mo would be $12/mo paid by the players themselves. Similar money — the difference is who pays and whether players must install anything.

Try it on your real group

30 days and 5 full courts free. No card, and your players never install anything.

$15/month covers 30 court reservations. That's 50¢ a game — about 6¢ per player, per hour.

Start free

Competitor details checked August 2026 on their public sites. Spot an error? support@get4th.com — we fix comparisons fast.