The entry fee is the most underrated conversion booster at a padel tournament. Not for financial reasons, but because it all but eliminates no-shows. Anyone who has paid 15 or 25 euros shows up. Anyone who is only on a list: roughly 30 percent drop out on the day itself.
The problem is the payment flow. Most clubs try to handle it with payment requests, bank transfers, or cash at the court. All three have big gaps.
Why payment requests do not work for tournaments
Sending a payment request means reaching out to each person individually. For 16 players that means 16 requests, 16 reminders about who has not paid, and manual tracking in a spreadsheet. For a 32-player tournament that is several hours of admin. On top of that: payment requests expire, people forget them, and you cannot immediately see whether the match actually adds up.
Bank transfers are even worse: players transfer the amount, forget to include your name, or type the wrong figure. Reconciliation is a nightmare.
How iDEAL through a registration page solves this
The modern way: players register through your club's public registration page. On that page they enter their name, pick the tournament, and pay straight away via iDEAL. No payment request, no email, no reconciliation. The payment is linked to the registration automatically.
For the organiser: you see in real time who has registered and paid. Anyone who has not completed a payment lands on the waiting list or falls outside the count. No more chasing.
What a good registration flow has
- One page: name, email, a partner if needed, then pay. Not three screens.
- iDEAL as the primary method: 70 percent of Dutch payments go through iDEAL. Put it at the top.
- Instant confirmation: a confirmation email within seconds of payment, with tournament details and the date.
- Capacity check: if the tournament is full, do not allow payment. Otherwise you end up with refunds.
- Refund flow: for the case where a player does cancel before the deadline.
What to charge as an entry fee
A few benchmarks from Dutch padel practice:
- Social Americano evening (16 participants, one evening): 10 to 15 euros per person
- King of the Court event (16-32 participants, one evening): 12 to 20 euros per person
- Classic group tournament (1 day, max 32 pairs): 25 to 40 euros per pair
- Autumn or winter league (8-12 weeks): 20 to 35 euros per person for the whole series
Too low (under 10 euros) signals that you are not taking it seriously yourself. Too high (over 50 euros per day) gets pushback in an average club population.
How to set up the Mollie/iDEAL integration
Three options as a club:
- Your own Mollie account: you register your club with Mollie, connect your account, and use it within a platform. Full control, low transaction costs (around 30 cents per iDEAL transaction), but you set it up yourself.
- A platform with a built-in payment flow: tools like Slams have Mollie or Stripe integrated. You connect your account once, and after that everything runs automatically.
- External ticketing tools: Eventix, TicketKantoor, and so on. It works, but your payment flow lives separately from your club admin and player database.
For most padel clubs, option 2 is the best mix of simplicity and control. Read how Slams handles iDEAL payments.
In practice: from payment requests to iDEAL at an 80-member club
A padel club we followed switched from payment requests to a registration page with iDEAL in 2025. Results after three tournaments:
- Registration time per player: from an average of 2 days (request plus reminder) to an average of 4 hours
- Payment rate: from 78 percent to 96 percent (the remaining 4 percent are registrations that did not go through)
- Organiser admin time: from 3-4 hours per tournament to under 30 minutes
- No-shows on tournament day: from 12 percent to 4 percent
The biggest gain is not financial: it is mental. An organiser who no longer has to nag for payment can focus on the organising itself.
Slams and iDEAL
Slams supports iDEAL payments through Mollie out of the box. You connect your club account once, then set the entry fee per tournament and share the page. Money lands straight in your club account, and Slams never holds any funds. Start with Slams for free.
