FAQ
Real questions. Honest answers.
Including what we haven't built yet.
Pricing
Pricing & Billing
Yes. Pawn is completely free and includes up to 30 members, unlimited events, attendance tracking, and email notifications. No credit card required, and it stays free forever — no time-limited trial.
Nothing locks. We'll prompt you to upgrade to Rook ($4.99/month) for unlimited members, but your existing members and data remain intact. The Billing & Subscription guide walks through the upgrade flow end-to-end.
Yes — every Pawn club gets one 14-day free trial of Rook with no card required. Start it from Settings → Billing; when the trial ends the club soft-falls back to Pawn unless you upgrade. The Billing guide covers the exact flow.
Self-serve from Settings → Billing inside the app — Cancel Subscription in the Current Plan card footer, or Manage Billing to cancel from the Stripe portal. You'll keep Rook features through the end of your current billing period, then automatically drop to the free Pawn tier — your members, events, and history stay put. See the Billing guide for the full picture.
No automatic refunds, but if something went wrong (a billing error, accidental charge, anything you need to talk to a human about), email support@rookready.com and we'll work it out.
Yes — Rook is available monthly or annually. Annual billing is two months free vs. monthly (a ~17% discount). Toggle between the two on the pricing page, or pick your cadence in Stripe Checkout when you upgrade (see the Billing guide).
Yes. From Settings → Billing → Manage Billing you're sent to the Stripe portal where the cadence toggle lives. Switching from monthly to annual takes effect on your next renewal; switching from annual back to monthly takes effect at the end of the current annual term so we don't pro-rate refunds. Full flow in the Billing guide.
If we ever raise prices, existing customers will be grandfathered at their current rate. No surprise increases. (As we get bigger we'll formalize this in the Terms — for now, that's the founder's commitment.)
Yes, anytime from Settings → Billing. Upgrades give you immediate access to the new features. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period. The Billing guide covers the full upgrade flow including the Stripe Checkout handoff.
All major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover) through Stripe. All payments are encrypted end-to-end.
Yes — email support@rookready.com with a quick note about your club (school chess program, registered non-profit, scholastic league, etc.) and we'll send you a single-use promo code you can apply at checkout. We handle these one at a time for now, so expect a same-day or next-day reply. The Billing guide has the same details.
Sometimes. If you're a beta tester, an early adopter at a club we know personally, or a tournament organizer with a special ask, drop us a note at support@rookready.com. No public launch codes right now — every discount is one-on-one until we ramp up marketing.
Getting Started
Getting Started
Click "Get Started Free" and create an account — the whole process takes about two minutes. The Getting Started guide walks you through signup, terminology, and your initial profile setup in detail.
Three ways: add them one at a time, bulk-import a CSV, or send email invitations and let them fill in their own profile. The Adding Members guide walks all three flows in detail.
Yes. The CSV importer auto-matches common column headers (First Name, Last Name, Email, USCF ID, …) and lets you map the rest manually before anything is written. The Adding Members guide covers the column-mapping step and what each target field means.
Features
Features & Usage
On Pawn: tournaments, lessons, practice sessions, workshops, meetings, and casual play — out of the box. On Rook, you can also define custom event types specific to your club. The Your First Event guide walks through creating and configuring one end-to-end.
When running an event, you can mark each registered member as Present, Absent, Late, or Excused. Bulk actions are available for quickly marking multiple members. Attendance history is saved per event and per member. The Recording Attendance guide covers the full mark-and-save flow.
You can link contacts (parents, guardians, emergency contacts) to member profiles. Linked contacts can receive event notifications. This is especially useful for youth chess programs. The Adding Members guide includes the guardian-invitation flow.
Custom fields let you add club-specific data to member profiles — USCF ratings, school grade, skill level, dietary restrictions, or any information relevant to your club. Pawn includes up to 5 custom fields; Rook unlocks unlimited. Define and permission them in the Custom Fields guide.
Yes, on Rook. You can customize the system emails (welcome messages, event reminders, registration confirmations) with your club's branding and messaging.
Privacy
Privacy & Security
We use industry-standard SSL/TLS encryption for all data in transit, and store data on encrypted servers. We don't share or sell your information to third parties.
Only club administrators (you and anyone you designate) can see detailed member information. Members see their own profiles and public club information, but not other members' private details.
CSV export is on the roadmap. Until it ships, email support@rookready.com and we'll pull a CSV of your members, events, or attendance history on request — usually same day. Your data is yours.
Honest answer: we've built with GDPR principles in mind — encrypted in transit and at rest, no third-party data selling, and we honor deletion requests. We haven't pursued formal GDPR certification yet. If you have specific compliance requirements (DPA, processor list, etc.), email support@rookready.com and we'll get you what you need.
Support
Support
I am — Geoff Lanotte. I'm the founder, and right now I'm the entire team. Rook Ready is built out of frustration with running my own chess club out of a spreadsheet. If you email support@rookready.com, your reply comes from me.
Email support@rookready.com. You'll usually hear back the same day. Rook customers get priority — replies prioritized on the order they came in, with paying clubs ahead of free.
Yes — the Guides section covers Getting Started, Adding Members, Your First Event, Recording Attendance, Sending Announcements, Custom Fields, Registration Forms, and Billing & Subscription. For anything not yet covered, email support@rookready.com — we'd rather walk you through it than punt to a doc.
Yes please — email support@rookready.com with what you need and how you'd use it. Pre-launch is the best time for your feedback to shape the product.
Please report it — email support@rookready.com with what you saw, what you expected, and (if you can) which page you were on. We take all reports seriously and fix things as quickly as we can.
Still Curious?
Talk to a human.
Email goes straight to Geoff — usually a same-day reply.
Ready?
Run your club without the spreadsheet.
Free for clubs up to 30 members. No credit card.