Frequently asked
Your pickleball mixer questions, answered.
Short answers to the questions organizers actually ask. Grouped by where they tend to come up — first-timers up top, edge cases lower down. Scan the headings; the long-form material lives on the About page.
// 01 Getting started
Q.01 What is PickleMixer?
PickleMixer is a free pickleball mixer built to keep players on fresh partners and opponents deeper into the session than typical random or basic rotation tools, and generates a mix in milliseconds — online or offline. It handles doubles, fixed partners, mixed doubles, on-the-fly sit-outs, drag-and-drop swaps, and squad-vs-squad team play.
Q.02 Do I need an account to use PickleMixer?
No account is required for core mixer features. You can start entering player names immediately. Your session is saved locally in your browser. Create a free account only if you want to save players, track ratings, or sync across devices — the free plan saves up to 19 players in one group, and paid plans lift those limits.
Q.03 How do I get started?
Open the mixer, enter player names one at a time, set the number of courts, and press Mix. When done playing, press Mix Next for the next game. Use REmix only if the shown game was not actually played.
Q.04 How many players can PickleMixer handle?
PickleMixer supports up to 150 players per session, scaling courts and sit-out fairness to match. Partners and opponents stay fresh deeper into the session than typical random or basic rotation tools.
Q.05 How is PickleMixer different from manual rotation?
PickleMixer keeps partners and opponents fresh deeper into the session than manual tracking can, and it generates each round in milliseconds. Manual rotation means tracking who played with whom by hand, plus complex scenarios like fixed partners, skill ratings, and mixed doubles that are difficult to manage manually. See the full comparison.
Q.06 Does PickleMixer work on mobile?
Yes, PickleMixer works on any device — phone, tablet, or desktop. The interface adapts to your screen size.
Q.07 Can I save player names and rosters between sessions?
Yes. Without an account, the current session — player names included — is saved locally in your browser, so refreshing or coming back later restores it. A free account saves a named roster in the dashboard (up to 19 players in one group), so each session starts pre-populated: pick the saved group, check off who showed up, and mix. Lite saves up to 100 players across 5 groups; Pro and Club have unlimited saved players and groups.
Q.08 How does PickleMixer avoid repeat partners and opponents?
It remembers every game in the session — every partner and every opponent for each player — and refuses to repeat a pairing until it's mathematically unavoidable. For popular player counts it consults pre-calculated rotation schedules; for everything else it runs a direct constraint search, and the online mixer adds a genetic refinement pass that fine-tunes each round. That's why partners and opponents stay fresh deeper into the session than with a pure randomizer, which can pair the same people together in back-to-back rounds.
Q.09 Does PickleMixer avoid repeat opponents as well as repeat partners?
Yes — opponents are tracked just as seriously as partners, across the entire session. Every game is remembered: every partner and every opponent for each player. When building the next round, the engine avoids a repeat partner, a repeat opponent, and even a crossover — a past partner coming back as an opponent — until the math of your player count and round count makes a repeat unavoidable. And because the history follows each player rather than the round number, this keeps working when players arrive late, leave early, or sit out.
Q.10 Can every round give me three completely new players (new partner and two new opponents)?
That is exactly what PickleMixer optimizes for. Many rotation tools count a round as "fresh" even when yesterday's partner has simply moved across the net — so only two of the three players on your court are actually new. PickleMixer treats that role flip as its own tracked event (the X crossover badge) and searches first for fully fresh rounds where your partner and both opponents are all new to you. When your player count makes that impossible, it degrades gracefully — allowing a crossover before it allows a straight repeat — and flags every compromise with a badge so you can see exactly what happened. See how badges work.
Q.11 Is PickleMixer the same app as "Pickleball Mixer" or "Picklemix"?
No — those are unrelated products from other developers that happen to have similar names. PickleMixer is the free web mixer at picklefriend.net, built by Picklefriend.net, and its only official app-store listing is "PickleMixer" on Google Play, published by Picklefriend.net. It is not affiliated with the Android app "Pickleball Mixer", the iOS "Pickleball Mixer App", or "Picklemix – Court Organizer". If you're looking for the mixer that avoids repeat partners, repeat opponents, and crossovers until they're mathematically unavoidable, that's PickleMixer — it runs in any browser at picklefriend.net with no install required.
// 02 Mixing modes
Q.12 Can I link players as fixed partners?
Yes, use the link feature in the player roster to assign fixed partners. The system handles any mix of fixed teams with individual players, including odd numbers. See the fixed-partner randomizer for the full walkthrough.
Q.13 Does PickleMixer support mixed doubles?
Yes, set player genders in the roster and use a gender-based preset to maintain mixed doubles courts, all-men courts, or all-women courts automatically. See the mixed doubles randomizer for the full walkthrough.
Q.14 What is squad-vs-squad mixing?
Squads let you organize players into named teams within your group. When squads are active, the mixer keeps squad-mates on the same side of the net and pits different squads against each other. Create subgroups in the Dashboard, mark them as squads, assign players, and the mixing engine handles the rest automatically.
Q.15 Can I prevent two players from playing with or against each other?
Yes — this is the Bad Blood feature. Open a player's three-dot menu, choose 🩸 Bad Blood, and set, against any other player, whether the two should never partner together, never play against each other, or both. The rule sticks to the players and applies automatically whenever both are on the roster, while everyone else rotates normally. It's a strong preference rather than an absolute ban: on a tight roster the mixer will bend it rather than force a worse repeat, and badges on the round flag exactly when that happened. See Bad Blood in the Help Center.
// 03 At the venue
Q.16 Why aren't my players rotating evenly?
Check if some players are marked as VIP (they won't sit out), or if you have an unusual player-to-court ratio. The algorithm prioritizes fairness over perfect rotation when constraints conflict.
Q.17 What is the bad court feature?
If you have one court nobody wants to play on, the bad court setting fairly distributes that court across all players so no one gets stuck there repeatedly.
Q.18 Can I freeze a court?
Yes, tap the snowflake icon on any court to freeze it. When you remix, those players stay on their court while others are shuffled. Perfect for games still in progress.
Q.19 Can I rename courts or use custom court numbers?
Yes. Tap the three-dot menu on any court to give it a custom name or number — "North Gym", "Court 7", "A" — so the cards match your venue's real courts. Bulk shortcuts renumber every court at once: ×2 turns courts 1–4 into 2, 4, 6, 8, and ×N / +N apply any multiplier or offset. And if you launch the mixer from a scheduled event whose courts field lists explicit courts (e.g. "2, 4, 6 and 10"), the session picks up those court numbers automatically.
Q.20 What is VIP protection?
Mark players as VIP using the star icon to protect them from sitting out. They will keep playing while others rotate through fairly.
Q.21 Can I add late-arriving players?
Yes, use the shoo-in feature to add late arrivals directly to the current game without needing to remix. Perfect for players who show up after courts have been called.
Q.22 Can PickleMixer work offline (without internet)?
Yes. PickleMixer ships a full offline mixing engine that runs entirely in your browser. Open Games Settings, tap Download Offline Mixer once while online, and the engine (under 200 KB) is cached on your device. Then flip the Offline Mode toggle and mix locally with no connection — fresh partners and opponents deeper into the session, never-sit players, linked partners, player swaps, and fixed-partner round-robins all work, and a mix returns in milliseconds. Frozen courts, court pinning, bad-court rotation, mixed-doubles balancing, squad mode, and account features (cloud sessions, score entry, big-screen mode) need the server and are unavailable offline. More on the offline engine.
Q.23 How fast is the offline mixer?
Most mixes return in well under half a second on a typical phone. The offline engine consults the same pre-calculated rotation patterns for popular player counts (5 to 36 players) that the online version uses, then falls through to local direct-search constraint solving for everything else. The online mixer adds one extra step on top — a genetic refinement pass that fine-tunes the rotation — so offline is the same engine minus that final pass.
Q.24 Can I print the court assignments?
Yes, use advanced printing with customizable spacing, fonts, and column layouts to fit everything on one or two pages. Color markers help with visual identification of teams.
Q.25 Can I show court assignments on a large screen?
Yes, use Big Screen Mode to display all courts on a TV or projector without scrolling. You can also set a countdown timer with a loud buzzer, and enable auto-mixing so the next round of matches is generated automatically when time is up — completely hands-free rotation.
Q.26 What is the Big Screen timer and auto-mix?
In Big Screen Mode, you can set a countdown timer for game duration. When time is up, a loud buzzer sounds. If auto-mixing is enabled, the system automatically generates the next round of matches — completely hands-free court rotation on your TV or projector.
Q.27 What is Headless Mode?
Headless Mode lets you hand a live session to the server and walk away. Once you enable it and pick how many rounds to run, the server auto-finalizes each round as soon as all scores come in, auto-mixes the next round using the same algorithm the manual mixer uses, and republishes the new court assignments to players. You can open Enter Scores, click Enable Headless, and be done — players keep entering scores from their phones and the server runs the whole session in the background. A banner on the modal shows games remaining and provides Pause and Take Control buttons at any time.
Q.28 Can I split the session or enable Headless before the first game is mixed?
Yes to both. Headless Mode can be armed before the first mix — once you have at least 4 active players, open Enter Scores and click Enable Headless; the server will mix round 1 from scratch. If you already split the session and then turn Headless on, the server waits for every court (including carry-overs from the earlier game) to finish scoring before consolidating everyone into the next round. Split Session is hidden while Headless is active — press Take Control first if you need to split mid-run.
Q.29 How are byes handled with an odd number of players?
When there are more players than court slots — odd counts included — the extra players get a bye (sit-out) that round. PickleMixer tracks byes across the whole session and rotates them so bench time evens out: players who have sat more are prioritized to play. Late arrivals and drop-outs are folded into the same accounting, and VIP-marked players can be protected from byes entirely.
Q.30 Does the mixing stay fair when players arrive late, leave early, or sit out?
Yes. Late arrivals can be shooed straight into the current game or folded into the next mix, and someone leaving early is simply dropped from the roster — the rotation rebalances around everyone remaining. Partner history, opponent history, and sit-out counts follow each player individually, so a mid-session change never resets fairness: the players who have sat the most still get priority to play, and repeats are still avoided until mathematically unavoidable.
// 04 Scores, ratings & leagues
Q.31 How does the rating system work?
Set player ratings manually or let the system calculate them from recorded game scores. The mixer then balances teams by skill level for competitive matchups. See the rating-balanced randomizer for the full walkthrough.
Q.32 What is the Scheduler?
The Scheduler is a PickleFriend.net organizer tool — back by popular demand from the classic site. It lets organizers create events and recurring leagues for their group. Configure courts, max players, and waitlist type — including lottery and take-turns modes that eliminate click racing. Set up staggered auto-invites to different subgroups, let players declare or request fixed partners, assign booking jobs, enable afterparty RSVPs, and send shame notices when players drop out last minute. Players can RSVP and interact via email link without needing an account.
Q.33 What is Attending Events Mode?
Attending Events Mode is a personal dashboard view for players showing all upcoming events across every group and organizer. View your schedule as a list or calendar, see your RSVP status, and click through to respond to invitations and interact with event details.
Q.34 Can I set up recurring events?
Yes, the Scheduler supports recurring leagues. Toggle "recurring" when creating an event, choose which days it repeats, set a date range, and all occurrences are created automatically with the same settings.
Q.35 How does the Take Turns / Lottery waitlist work?
When you create a scheduled event, you can choose a Lottery or Take Turns waitlist type. All RSVPs during a configurable grace period are treated equally — no click racing advantage. After the grace period ends, winners are selected randomly (Lottery) or by turn order, and remaining spots fill first-come-first-served.
Q.36 What are shame notices?
If a player drops out of an event at the last minute, the scheduler can notify the group with a shame notice so everyone knows what happened and can plan accordingly. It encourages accountability and helps organizers manage late changes.
Q.37 Can I stagger invites to different subgroups?
Yes. Auto-Invite lets you send invitations to different subgroups at different intervals — for example, invite your core group 7 days before the event, then open it up to everyone else 3 days before.
Q.38 Can players request fixed partners for events?
Yes. Players can declare or request other players as their partner directly from the event page using a mutual selector — both players pick each other, removing the awkwardness of one-at-a-time asks and back-and-forth messaging. Organizers can also control whether direct declarations require confirmation from the other player.
Q.39 What is the All Players Dashboard mode?
The Players Dashboard supports an All Players view where you can see, filter, and edit players across multiple groups at once. Sort by group (flat row view) or by name (tree view). Access it by changing the group filter drop-down to "All Players".
Q.40 What are Ladder Leagues?
Ladder Leagues let organizers run structured, multi-division competitive leagues with automatic promotion and relegation. Players or teams compete within their division, and at the end of each cycle the top performers move up while the bottom move down — keeping every division competitive. See how ladder leagues work for the full walkthrough.
Q.41 How does promotion and relegation work?
At the end of each cycle, the organizer triggers the promotion/relegation process. The top players or teams in a lower division promote up, while the bottom of a higher division are relegated down. The number of movers is configurable, and start ratings in the new division are calculated from the existing field so movers land at a competitive position.
Q.42 What happens to inactive ladder players?
Inactive players or teams gradually lose visible standing through a decay system, preventing stale names from holding top positions. The hidden rating is never lost — when a player returns and plays a game, their full rating is instantly restored.
Q.43 Can I use spares from other divisions?
Yes. You can invite a spare from another division to fill in for an event. Sparing down (a Div A player in a Div B game) is a no-op for tier ownership — the spare keeps their home-division standing and just gets a temporary rating in the lower division for that game. Sparing up (a Div B player in a Div A game) auto-promotes the player on their first game in the higher division — they become officially part of that higher division from that point and participate in its standings and cycle movements. Organizers control which directions spares can be pulled from, and which events auto-invite from which divisions.
Q.44 Can I run multiple divisions at the same time?
Yes — all from your phone. Each division has its own independent mixer session. Select a division from the group dropdown, launch its session, mix the first game, and publish it. Then switch to the next division and do the same. You can hop between divisions at any time to advance whichever ones are ready for their next game.
Q.45 Can players enter scores from their own phones?
Yes. Enter Scores gives each session a private link; players open it on their own phone — no app install and no player account — and submit their court's result. The organizer watches results arrive live, ratings update automatically from recorded scores, and the same flow powers ladder leagues. See the score tracker.
// 05 Privacy & pricing
Q.46 Is PickleMixer really free?
Yes — the mixer itself is completely free with no signup and no card: type names, set the number of courts, and mix up to 150 players in your browser, even offline. A free account adds saving players, ratings, and cross-device sync; the free plan covers one group of up to 19 saved players, and paid plans — Lite, Pro, and Club — lift those limits for larger rosters, clubs, or commercial use.
Still have questions?
See Why PickleMixer for the pitch in one page, the About page for detailed feature docs, or ask on the community forum — feature requests, bug reports, and questions welcome.
// In pictures
What it looks like.
Ready to try it?
No signup, no credit card. Type a few player names, set the courts, press Mix. Your first round is on the screen in milliseconds.