Every course has the same problem: Saturday at 9am is packed, Tuesday at 2pm is empty. You charge the same rate for both. That doesn't make much sense when you think about it.
Airlines figured this out decades ago. Hotels too. A room on New Year's Eve costs more than a random Tuesday in February. Nobody complains — it just makes sense. The product is the same; the demand is different.
Golf is one of the last industries still charging flat rates for a product with wildly uneven demand. That's starting to change.
The Flat-Rate Problem
When you charge $65 for every 18-hole round, here's what happens:
Prime time is underpriced. Saturday morning at 8am would sell at $85 or $90. You're leaving $20-25 per player on the table during your busiest hours. Multiply that by 40 players on a Saturday morning and that's $800-1,000 you're giving away every weekend.
Off-peak is overpriced. Tuesday afternoon at 2pm isn't worth $65 to most players. They'd come at $40 or $45, but $65 feels steep for a weekday when the course is half empty. So the slot stays open.
You're subsidizing empty tee times with full ones. Your prime slots cover the losses on your quiet times. That works when the course is busy, but during slow seasons or bad weather weeks, the math falls apart fast.
What Dynamic Pricing Actually Looks Like
Dynamic pricing doesn't mean changing rates every five minutes like an airline. For golf courses, it's simpler than that:
- Weekend mornings: Premium rate. High demand, no need to discount.
- Weekday mornings: Standard rate. Solid traffic but not packed.
- Weekday afternoons: Value rate. Lower price fills otherwise empty slots.
- Twilight / shoulder hours: Discount rate. Better to sell at $35 than leave it empty.
- Weather-adjusted: If tomorrow's forecast is perfect and the tee sheet is filling up, rates tick up. If rain's in the forecast and bookings are thin, a nudge down pulls people in.
The AI looks at booking patterns, weather forecasts, historical data (how does the third week of June usually book?), and real-time availability. It adjusts rates within the ranges you set — you decide the floor and ceiling, the AI picks the sweet spot.
Won't Players Hate This?
This is the number one objection we hear. "My regulars will lose it if they see different prices."
Here's what actually happens: most players already expect it. They pay different prices at hotels, for flights, for concert tickets. They understand that a Saturday morning in July costs more than a Wednesday in March. It feels fair when the reason is obvious.
The trick is transparency. Show the player that they're getting a deal on off-peak times, not that they're being gouged on peak ones. Frame Tuesday afternoon as "$45 — great value" rather than Saturday morning as "$90 — surge pricing." Same math, completely different feeling.
How Amy Handles It
Caller: "What does 18 holes cost on Saturday?"
Amy: "Saturday morning's at $85 — that's our busiest window and it's almost full. If you've got any flexibility, I've got Sunday afternoon open at $55, same 18 holes and the course should be quiet. Which works better for you?"
Caller: "Sunday sounds good actually. Book me for 1pm."
The caller feels like they got a tip from someone helpful, not a hard sell. And you just filled an off-peak slot that would've sat empty.
How AI Makes This Actually Work
You could set different rates manually — plenty of courses have a "weekday" and "weekend" price already. But AI takes it further in ways that are hard to do by hand:
Real-time demand sensing. If Thursday's tee sheet is filling up unusually fast (maybe there's a local holiday or a tournament nearby), the AI adjusts rates up before you even notice. If a weather forecast changes and bookings start cancelling, it drops rates and pushes availability.
Individual player intelligence. The AI knows that Mike plays every Saturday regardless of price. It knows that Sarah only books when she sees a deal. It can surface the right rate to the right player at the right time — giving Sarah the Tuesday discount without discounting Mike's Saturday round.
Season-long optimization. Over a full season, the AI learns your demand curves — which weeks spike, which weeks dip, how weather affects bookings in your specific market. By the second year, it's predicting demand patterns weeks out and adjusting proactively.
The Revenue Impact
Courses running dynamic pricing alongside SimpleUP Golf's revenue AI see two things happen:
Peak revenue goes up — you stop underpricing your best slots. Even a $10 bump on Saturday mornings across a season adds up fast. 40 players × $10 × 30 weekends = $12,000 in extra green fee revenue alone.
Off-peak utilization goes up — lower prices pull in players who wouldn't have booked otherwise. More rounds = more opportunities for F&B, mid-round upselling, and pro shop sales. A $40 round that generates $32 in add-on spending is a $72 total per player.
Together, it's not uncommon to see a 15-20% lift in total revenue per available tee time. For a course doing $500K in annual green fees, that's $75-100K more per year — before the AI upselling even kicks in.
How SimpleUP Golf Handles Dynamic Pricing
Dynamic pricing is part of the larger SimpleUP Golf revenue stack. It connects to your tee sheet (whether you're running Lightspeed, foreUP, or anything else) and adjusts pricing within the rules you set.
You tell us: "Weekday range is $40-$65. Weekend range is $65-$95. Never go below $35." The AI handles everything within those guardrails. You can review and override anytime, but most GMs check in once a week and let it run.
And like everything with SimpleUP Golf — you're not configuring this yourself. We set it up based on your historical data, your market, your comfort level. The AI learns and refines from there. No spreadsheets. No pricing committees. Just smarter rates, automatically.
Amy handles the conversation when players ask about pricing — sshe knows the current rates, can suggest off-peak deals, and frames everything in a way that feels helpful rather than transactional.
Dynamic pricing pairs especially well with AI-powered loyalty programs — reward your regulars with better rates while maximizing revenue from one-time visitors. And when your player data feeds the pricing model, rates get smarter over time.
Want to see what dynamic pricing could look like at your course? Talk to Amy for an instant demo and we'll run the numbers with you. Or check the full feature breakdown, pricing plans, and our guide to golf course software in Canada for the complete picture. For the big-picture revenue story, see how courses are adding $50K+ per year with AI.
