Build → showing up to pickleball
Doubles only works when four people show up. Lockin lets each player put money on the line for their own court reservation, geofenced to the club, so the group chat actually translates into people on the court every week.
Suggested starting contract
$5/day against missing your daily target of 1 court session per scheduled day.
Install the app on iOS or Android, create an account, and connect a payment method. The whole process takes under three minutes.
On the first screen of challenge creation, pick whether the contract is for you or for a doubles partner. If you choose For a Friend, you can either fund the stake yourself (sender_pays) or have your friend fund it when they accept (recipient_pays). Either way, the friend is the one whose GPS is verified at the court — each player runs their own contract, not a shared pool.
Set your weekly pickleball target — for example, one court session per scheduled day, with specific weekdays selected such as Wednesday and Saturday. Pick days that match your usual reservation pattern so the schedule mirrors what you already book.
Search for your pickleball club or court complex by name or address, confirm the location on the map, and Lockin saves the 50-meter geofenced perimeter. Each location contract is tied to a single venue, so pick the court you reserve most consistently.
Every Location contract has a per-day deadline by which the check-in plus the required 60-minute dwell time must complete. The default is 23:59 in your local timezone. Tap Set deadline in the wizard and use the 24h time picker to lock in an earlier slot — for example 8:00pm if your court reservation runs 6:00pm to 7:00pm. The deadline is set once at contract creation and cannot be edited mid-contract.
Decide how much money goes on the line per session — $5 per scheduled day is a common starting point. Then select a registered charity from Lockin's vetted list, organized by category — climate, mental health, animal welfare, digital literacy. This is where the bulk of your stake goes if you forfeit; a small platform fee covers payment processing and operations.
Review the terms, confirm your stake, and start the contract. From this point, when you arrive at the club you tap the check-in button on your contract card — Lockin shimmers the button once your phone is inside the geofence as a cue — which records the visit and starts the 60-minute dwell timer.
From Lockin's data
Among Lockin beta users running pickleball and other recurring social-sport contracts, those who pin specific weekdays at setup — for example Wednesday and Saturday at a fixed time — complete more sessions than those who leave the schedule open. Beta data also shows that pairs who each run their own Friend Challenge contract on the same court days flake less often than groups relying only on a shared chat thread.
"Our doubles group used to lose one player a week to last-minute cancellations. Once two of us put money on the line for the same Wednesday court, the flaking stopped — nobody wants to send $5 to charity when their partner is already at the club warming up."
— Anonymous beta user, pickleball Friend Challenge, 7 weeks active
Every Location contract has a per-day deadline by which the pickleball check-in and the required 60-minute dwell time must complete. The default is 23:59 in your local timezone — end of day. During contract setup you can tap Set deadline and pick any earlier time using a 24h picker, for example 8:00pm to protect an after-work court reservation. The deadline is set once at contract creation and applies to every scheduled day; it cannot be edited mid-contract. Earlier deadlines unlock higher Locks and XP rewards because they raise the difficulty.
Forfeited stakes go to a registered charity from Lockin's vetted list. You choose the charity from categories including climate, mental health, animal welfare, and digital literacy when you set up the contract. The bulk of your stake funds the charity; a small platform fee covers payment processing and Lockin operations. The forfeit is automatic — there is no appeal process, which is the point. Refer to the transparency page inside the app for charity-by-charity tallies.
Yes. On the first screen of challenge creation, pick For a Friend instead of For Myself. You then choose between two payment models: sender_pays, where you fund the stake on your friend's behalf, or recipient_pays, where your friend funds it themselves when they accept the challenge. Either way, your friend is the recipient — they are the one whose GPS is verified at the court, and the contract lives on their phone once accepted. Each player who wants their own accountability creates their own contract; this is not a joint pool, and you are not co-staked. The friend can accept or reject the invite, and the challenge moves through pending, active, completed, rejected, cancelled, or expired states. For a recurring weekly slot you pick the specific instance dates at creation. If you want to track your friend's progress on contracts you have sent, the sender's tracking dashboard for sent challenges is a Pro feature.
Lockin draws a 50-meter geofenced perimeter around your pickleball court or club when you set up the contract. When you arrive, the check-in button on your contract card shimmers to signal that your phone is inside the perimeter — tapping it is what records the visit and starts the 60-minute dwell timer. You must stay inside the geofence until the timer reaches the dwell threshold; if you leave the courts mid-session, the visit will not count. For sessions longer than two hours, Lockin prompts a re-check-in every two hours to re-verify the location. Airplane mode or disabled location services break the verification chain, so the session will not be logged. Lockin only accesses your location during active contract windows — it does not track your movements outside those periods, and you can revoke the permission in your phone's app settings at any time.
Free to download. You set the target, the stake, and the charity.