The hardest part of opening a golf simulator facility isn't the buildout; it's getting the revenue model right. Too often, golf sims get off on the wrong foot because they rely on one-off hourly bookings and walk-ins, believing it’s the easiest way to get started. But growth requires a system that secures revenue month-over-month.
Why? Predictability is the foundation of a healthy golf business. The stronger the foundation you lay from the start, the easier it is to anticipate what your business will look like weeks, months, and years down the road.
There are many models to drive recurring revenue, but the one thing that holds true across all of them—you need the right operational systems to support your strategy.
Below is the membership approach that Keegan Dagg, Operations Manager at The Green Pinnacle, a luxury indoor golf simulator facility, used. The result? A customer base of 2,500 golfers and over 150 members in 18 months.
Launch with a single prepaid annual membership
Months 1–12
What The Green Pinnacle did:
- Launched with a single prepaid annual membership at $2,000/year for 2 hours/day
- Both hourly and membership pricing was set by the team based on revenue targets
What happened behind the scenes:
- User tags: each member was tagged so staff could identify them on the calendar at a glance
- Quota rules: daily booking limits were enforced automatically through AllBooked, keeping members within their allocated hours
The biggest takeaway: Start small and use your first year as a learning phase. You don’t need to have a fully built-out membership program on day one—just one that’s strong enough to support some form of recurring revenue. From there, you can let customer behavior tell you what kind of memberships will be most lucrative.
Multi-tier membership structure
Months 12–18
About 12 months in, Dagg realized he had a good problem on his hands: customer demand was outpacing bay availability. But his single $2,000/year membership plan was too steep for most golfers to justify, which meant the membership base wasn't growing fast enough to turn demand into recurring revenue.
The Green Pinnacle’s three-tier membership strategy:
Level 1: Free member (no cost)
- 10% off bay hire, exclusive offers direct to inbox
- Gets casual golfers into the system with a small incentive. These people still pay per booking, but they're now in the marketing database instead of anonymous walk-ins.
Level 2: Club Member ($20/week)
- 30% off all bay hire, 10% beverage rebate, coaching discounts, access to club events, 10% off gear
- Converts regulars into predictable recurring revenue. They don’t have allocated hours; this is a discount membership for golfers who come often enough that the savings justify the weekly cost.
Level 3: Full Member (four tiers based on weekly hours)
- Tier 1: $30/week, 2 hours of bay hire per week
- Tier 2: $50/week, 4 hours per week
- Tier 3: $65/week, 6 hours per week
- Tier 4: $75/week, 10 hours per week
All Full Member perks:
- NZ Golf affiliation number, bring up to five guests, discounts on additional bay usage beyond allocated hours, 10% off gear, 10% beverage rebate, exclusive member-only events
- Option for monthly billing or yearly billing with savings ($140–$400 depending on tier)
- Family memberships let multiple people share one tier's weekly hours
Why the change?
The reason this new model works is because the tiered pricing matches what his golfers actually want.
Tier 1 ($30/week) is roughly 10x more popular than the other tiers.
"Tier 1 is 10 times more popular than the rest probably because it's the cheapest. And even though the other ones are technically a better deal, I think that realistically people only need a couple hours a week."
That’s a stark contrast to the old membership structure that had a high barrier to entry and deterred what otherwise would have been predictable, recurring revenue.
With more members signing up at price points they can actually commit to, Dagg has predictable revenue coming in instead of relying on walk-ins who may or may not show up.
What happens behind the scenes:
- AllBooked Memberships: the membership structure is built and managed through AllBooked Memberships, with each tier's pricing, access rules, and quotas configured in the platform
- Weekly quotas: each Full Member tier has a weekly hour cap enforced automatically; members can't book more than their allocation allows unless they pay more for it
- Pricing rules: member vs. non-member pricing and tier-specific rates applied automatically at the point of booking; no manual adjustment needed
- User tags and roles: each tier gets its own tag, which controls what that member sees, what they can book, and what they pay
- Self-service signups: "Pay Monthly" and “Pay Yearly” links on The Green Pinnacle's website go directly to AllBooked's registration page where new members choose a tier, pay, and start booking with all access and perks applied automatically.
The results speak for themselves.
"We've managed to increase our utilization from around 40% to 50% every month.”
A members-only, fully automated golf sim
Now that The Green Pinnacle is up and running with a multi-tier membership strategy that runs entirely hands-off, from registration all the way to self-serve membership management, Dagg has room to focus on his long-term vision for the facility.
His goals are to:
- Triple the membership base
- Transition to a members-only booking model + block public bookings entirely once the membership base is large enough to sustain it
The end state? A facility that runs operations entirely on autopilot.
Read The Green Pinnacle’s full case study.
How to apply this to your golf sim facility:
- Start simple. Let customer behavior during your first phase of growth drive your strategy for the next. Make sure your booking platform is set up to start small and evolve with you.
- Launch your full-fledged membership strategy once you have the data to back it up. Don’t over-engineer what hasn't been proven to work yet.
- Price for how people actually use your facility, not how you think they should. Depending on your business model + market, your golfers may have different needs. Support them through your membership strategy.
- Automate the full membership experience. If a new member can choose a tier, pay, and start booking without you being involved, your membership program scales without adding any admin work.
