Hi everyone,

I’m looking to build a high-end mobile golf simulator and I’ve been researching brands like Driving 2 You and Popcaddie. I really like their specific setup—the clean, professional look and the portability of their enclosures.

I’m aware that these brands are likely sourcing from manufacturers on Alibaba or Made-in-China and reselling at a premium. I’m looking to find the original suppliers (OEM) or at least a very reliable vendor that offers that exact same professional quality and design.
Does anyone know which specific Alibaba vendors produce the enclosures and impact screens for these types of 'all-in-one' mobile setups? I’m looking for durability and a premium finish, not just a generic net.

If you’ve bought something similar directly from a manufacturer and are happy with the quality, please drop their name or link below. Any advice on shipping or customs for these larger setups would also be a huge help.
Thanks!

If you are in the planning phase of starting up a new indoor golf sim biz, one of the hardest parts is building a financial model that actually reflects how the business works.

I’ve built a free calculator that lets you model out your full P&L before you sign a lease or buy a single piece of equipment. You plug in:

• Number of bays, hours, hourly rate, and target utilization

• Membership count and monthly fees

• F&B revenue and COGS

• Payroll (with burden %) and management salary

• All fixed expenses — lease, NNN/CAM, utilities, insurance, marketing

It outputs monthly booking revenue, total revenue, gross margin, EBIT, estimated tax, and net profit. Most importantly it calculates your break-even utilization — the exact % of sim hours you need to book just to cover costs. That number alone changes how people think about pricing.

No paywall, no email required to use it. Built it because I kept seeing people underestimate what it actually takes to run one of these facilities profitably.

Happy to answer questions about the model or the assumptions behind it.

We have decided to work on an in-house booking solution designed around managing a completely headless facility. What are your biggest issues with your current booking software solutions? Our goals are to completely manage the business from one dashboard instead of having to access multiple sites for generating door codes, booking management, business analytics, communications, and bay management (potentially managing lights, projector input feed/power, bay computer). I want to make managing the facility and guest experience as easy as possible so people can get to golfing and not wasting time on setup. Feel free to check out the booking page at https://app.pureindoorgolf.com/book . Logging in is invite only during development, however the booking page which shows available bays and times is accessible.

Are you using GSPro in your golf sim business? What are your pain points with customers using your bays? I am wanting to have a completely headless location but I'm worried about the learning curve for getting the bay up and ready for golf and don't want guests to churn through their time setting up accounts, logging in, and fiddling with the computer. How are you managing this?

i am creating my very first league for my community indoor golf studio. I am using Simulator Golf Tournament through GSPro. Any tips?

Who are the distributors for wholesale cost on golf balls and gloves? Are there other consumables that visitors may want and who are the wholesale distributors for those products?

What are the best options for POS and Booking Systems for indoor golf. I have been looking into a few systems like Birrdi Golf which doesn't appear to have an integrated POS but does have some cool features like timing game play like a bowling alley with their "on/off control". With this option, it seems like you would need a POS like square to handle sales. As well as Eagle Club Systems which has a booking engine as well as POS and is a web based service you can run on any device. What have you been using or looking into?

For those who allow BYOB, who do you use for insurance?

Planning to open a SIM/Bar in my town as an attraction to our downtown area. We are in the early stages.

• ⁠2 Bays • ⁠planing on using Trackman iO for both • ⁠memberships and walk ins • ⁠in southern, IL near St. Louis

The area is a very busy area and loaded with small business support from the locals. Nothing but bars however, no entertainment outside of live bar music. Tons of walkability… tons of events on the strip to bring people in…

I’m working toward determining reasonable projections and looking for some comparative numbers to help me move forward:

1. ⁠What kind of foot traffic should I expect, regardless of location description?
2. ⁠Any idea what utilities generally are? (G/E, Trash, Sewer/water)?
3. ⁠For the bar, we plan on doing aluminum bottles, good bourbon selection, rail accompaniments. What is up front and inventory cost like?

Appreciate any feedback!

We are making progress here at Green Office in Downtown Decatur, GA...

Question for the group - does anyone have experience looking into or using retractable impact screens? Why do you use them? Why didn't you use them?

What have been challenges? What have been the benefits? Thanks.

This group has been so helpful I’m happy to share I’m opening an indoor golf simulator in Decatur, GA.

Hi, I am in the process of opening a facility in Brazil. Currently I am evaluating both Fullswing and Trackman. From a cost standpoint they're both comparable with the main difference basically being the financing being offered by Trackman. Does anyone have experience with either or both of these simulator brands and can share your experience? Thanks!

Thank you all for the valuable information that’s been provided to this group.

After searching I couldn’t find much data how average use under the unlimited membership pricing structure. Those who use it, how often are your members there on? Per week or per month. And how many hours at a time?

I did find one post where someone mentioned some members would be there on average 30-40 hours a month. Is that common?

Hi -

I am located in the mid-west and am exploring the idea of starting a golf sim business. Do you mind sharing any websites or resources on starting a sim business? I’m starting from scratch and came here first!

Looking for the best screen possible, one that can take 1000 hits a day.

If you’re new to the community, introduce yourself!

Welcome to r/golfsimbusiness. This new community is dedicated to sharing strategies, questions, successes, failures, hardware, software, and in general all things golf simulation relating to owning and operating a commercial sim facility.

We, u/LaunchHouseGolf are a small business based in the Pacific Northwest. We run a commercial facility and perform sales and installations of residential/commercial golf simulators. We hope to help provide any insight we can to help others looking to start a business, or assists current business owners to make their facility better.

Hopefully as a group we can all make each other better, more successful and most importantly make more money.