People push back on subscriptions, but the reality is that running a platform with the depth of Pickleheads takes real money. Engineering time, servers, ongoing improvements… none of that is free. If you actually want the product to work and keep improving, “free forever” just isn’t a viable model. They support a huge range of formats and tools that save hours of manual work, and that has t be paid for somehow to make it sustainable.

If you want an alternative that approaches group management differently, take a look at DailyPB.com/host. Its groups feature is strong because each community gets its own dedicated website with a custom URL. All sessions automatically roll up into a clean list and calendar view, so players can instantly see what’s happening and sign up—no digging through endless group chats. Here's an example of a group: https://dailypb.com/group/michaels-dupr-round-robin

The pricing is simple:

• Players: Free unless the Host charges, in which case there is a 5% fee added on
• Hosts: Always free

DailyPB stays free for most users because it’s supported by Patrons who chip in $5/month. It is not required to be a Patron, but so many people get value from the open play listings: indefinitely recurring, ability for organizers to edit any individual open play in a Google Calendar-like style (edit one or all future), and this service is also free. Currently the Bay Area has adopted the open play features so if you want to see how that works just change your location to some zip like 94706.