How to split padel court costs with friends (fairly)

Booking a padel court is cheap split four ways — until someone no-shows, a fifth player rotates in, or one person always pays and never quite gets paid back. Here's how to split court costs fairly and stop the awkward chasing.

The three common ways to split a court

Equally among everyone booked. Court is AED 120, four players, AED 30 each. Simplest — and fine when everyone shows and plays the same.
By who actually played. If someone cancels last minute or a sub steps in, split among the people who were really on court, not the original list.
By time on court. For a long session where players rotate in and out, split by how long each person played. Fairest for drop-in games, but fiddly to track by hand.

For most regular groups, equal among those who actually showed up is the sweet spot: fair, without spreadsheet-level accounting.

Why "just send me your share" breaks down

One person books and pays the full court fee up front. Then they have to remember who owes them, message everyone, and chase the one friend who "forgot." Multiply that across a weekly game over a season and the organizer becomes the group's unpaid accountant — which is exactly how regular games quietly fall apart.

A simple, fair method

One person books and pays the court — someone has to.
Split equally among who showed. Drop anyone who didn't make it.
Keep a running tab; don't settle every time. Instead of four tiny transfers after every game, let balances build up — "Adeel owes you AED 90 across three games" — and square up once when it's convenient. Far fewer transactions.
Net it across everyone. If you paid the court last week and a friend paid this week, only the difference matters.

Don't forget balls, water, and the post-game meal

Court fees are rarely the only cost — there are new balls, drinks, the dinner afterwards. The fair approach is the same: whoever pays logs it, you split it among who's involved, and it all nets into one balance per person. Running three separate tabs is how you lose track.

Let the app do the math

This is exactly what yallacomeis built for. Anyone who pays — court, balls, dinner — logs the expense and picks who it's split between (equally, by amount, or by percentage). yallacome keeps a running, netted balance of who owes whom across the whole group, and when you want to square up, one person marks it paid and the other confirms — no card fees, no chasing.

Stop being the group accountant — try yallacome free