caddi vs squabbit.
Choosing a tool
There are plenty of golf scoring apps, and Squabbit is one of the best. It’s free to start, with 4.9 stars from more than 5,000 ratings on the US App Store and 4.8 from about 450 on the Australian one.
But if you’ve organised a golf trip, you know the scorecard isn’t what keeps you up at night. It’s getting sixteen blokes to commit, chasing their details and their money, working out who’s paid by bank transfer, keeping everyone in the right place for four days, and splitting the bar tab at the end. Then the scoring on top.
Caddi is built around that whole job. Here’s how the two compare, in the order organisers tell us it hurts. We make Caddi, so weigh it accordingly. Where Squabbit is better, we’ve said so.
1. getting people to commit
How it usually goes: a “who’s in?” in the group chat, a string of maybes, and the organiser holding a booking for people who haven’t said yes.
In Caddi: each player gets an invite link. The organiser can see who’s opened it, who’s confirmed, who’s pulled out, and who’s paid and who hasn’t. Set a cap, and once the roster is full anyone else goes straight onto the waitlist.
In Squabbit: self-registration with caps and waitlists (both are on their homepage). We couldn’t find invite tracking on their site.
2. registration and details
How it usually goes: a spreadsheet, filled in from twenty private messages. Handicaps, shirt sizes, dietary needs, flight times, who’s sharing a room.
In Caddi: players register once, with their Golf Australia handicap index, which the organiser approves. Forms collect the rest (sizes, dietary needs, arrivals, rooming preferences) and polls settle the decisions, like where to eat on the Saturday. It all lands against the player, not in a chat thread.
In Squabbit: players self-register, with custom registration fields, and polls run inside the group chat. Both are on their homepage.
3. herding cats on the trip
How it usually goes: the itinerary goes out as a PDF, changes twice, and the organiser spends four days answering “what time’s the bus?”
In Caddi: the trip is laid out day by day in one link that’s always current: tee times, groups, rooming, transfers with passenger lists, dinner bookings and notes. FAQs sit alongside, so the dress code and the meeting point are written once. When a tee time moves or the groups change, the players it affects get a notification. If the itinerary already exists as a PDF, a spreadsheet or a photo, it’s read in within a minute or two rather than retyped, and each trip has its own email address for forwarding booking confirmations.
In Squabbit: group chat, push notifications, tee time preferences and printable tee sheets. There’s no itinerary for rooms, transfers or dinners, and no FAQs.
4. payments and knowing who’s paid
How it usually goes: the organiser puts the deposit on their own card, then matches bank transfers against a spreadsheet for weeks.
In Caddi: each player pays their share of the trip through the trip link, by card. Players who pay by bank transfer can mark it, and the organiser sees who’s paid by card, who says they’ve transferred and who hasn’t paid, in one list.
In Squabbit: fee management through Stripe, with balance tracking.
5. splitting the costs
How it usually goes: a Splitwise group, or a lot of IOUs on the drive home.
In Caddi: any player can add an expense they’ve paid, so the organiser isn’t the one entering every receipt. Costs are split against the same player list, and each player sees what they owe on their own dashboard. The organiser stops being the middleman.
In Squabbit: expense splitting, and it settles side bets straight from the scorecards. On side bets, Squabbit is ahead.
6. scoring and the live leaderboard
This matters too. Nobody wants to add up Stableford points at the bar.
Both apps do live scoring and leaderboards, in a browser or the app, and both keep saving scores when the signal drops. Caddi plays Stableford, stroke, match play, Ambrose, best ball and team sides, with nearest the pin, longest drive and skins, and shows net, gross and skins side by side. Handicaps are worked out daily for the course and tee each player is on, using Golf Australia’s formula (or WHS anywhere else in the world), and they lock when the trip starts so nobody adjusts their number on the Saturday night.
Squabbit has more formats, a GPS and Apple Watch scoring. Caddi leaves GPS out on purpose. Everyone already has a rangefinder they trust, and GPS is what flattens a phone battery before the round’s over.
at a glance
| The organiser’s job | Squabbit | Caddi |
|---|---|---|
| Getting people to commit | ||
| Invite link, no account needed | Yes | Yes |
| See who’s opened, confirmed, pulled out | Not on their site | Yes |
| Cap and waitlist | Yes | Yes |
| Registration and details | ||
| Registration | Yes | Yes, with Golf Australia handicap index |
| Forms for sizes, dietary needs, arrivals, rooms | Custom registration fields | Yes |
| Polls | In group chat | Yes |
| Herding cats | ||
| Day-by-day itinerary with rooms, transfers, dinners | Not on their site | Yes |
| Trip FAQs and notes | Not on their site | Yes |
| Told when a tee time or group changes | Push notifications | Yes |
| Import the itinerary from PDF, spreadsheet or photo | Not on their site | Yes |
| Your group’s own branded page | Event website, free. Sponsor logos on Host Pro | Yes, included |
| Ads | Player Pro listed as ad-free | None, ever |
| Payments | ||
| Players pay through the app | Yes, via Stripe | Yes |
| Card, bank transfer and unpaid in one list | Balance tracking | Yes |
| Splitting costs | ||
| Expense splitting | Yes, settles bets from scorecards | Yes, and any player can add an expense |
| Scoring | ||
| Live scoring and leaderboards | Yes | Yes |
| Golf Australia daily playing handicaps, locked at trip start | WHS, app-calculated | Yes |
| Cost, 16 players, 4 days, everyone ad-free | About A$147 (US$104.99) | Free to set up, then A$240, GST included |
Competitor details from their own websites, checked 22 September 2026. Check them yourself before you decide; products change.
where Squabbit is better
It’s free to start, it has more scoring formats, a GPS and Apple Watch scoring, and it settles side bets from the scorecards. It also runs leagues and seasons with 50-plus stats, which Caddi doesn’t. For a weekly comp or a club league, it’s the better tool. Squabbit is a golf scoring and tournament app, and it’s very good at that job. It just isn’t built to run the trip.
what it costs
Squabbit is free to start. Its paid tiers are in US dollars: Player Pro, which Squabbit lists as ad-free, at US$5 per event, and Host Pro for the organiser at US$29.99 per event, which includes Player Pro.
| 16-player trip | US$ | About A$ |
|---|---|---|
| Squabbit, organiser on Host Pro, players free | US$29.99 | A$42 |
| Squabbit, everyone ad-free | US$104.99 | A$147, before your bank’s foreign transaction fee |
| Caddi, everything included | Priced in A$ | Free to set up, then A$240, GST included |
Caddi is free to set up too: you can build the whole trip before paying anything. Once the group’s invited, it costs more, about A$6 a player more than an ad-free Squabbit trip. Every Squabbit plan is a scoring plan. None of them adds invite tracking, a day-by-day itinerary, rooming and transfers, trip FAQs or a single list of who’s paid. That’s what the difference buys. If the scorecard is your only problem, stay with Squabbit.
questions
Isn’t Caddi just another scoring app?
No. Caddi does live scoring and leaderboards, and the parts of a trip that take the organiser the time. Across more than 70 interviews with golf trip organisers and tour operators, a typical buddies trip took 15 to 40 hours to organise. That time goes on getting people committed, registered and paid, keeping everyone on the same itinerary, sorting the presentation night and splitting the costs. Most organisers run it on WhatsApp and a spreadsheet that don’t talk to each other. Caddi puts the whole job in one place.
Why pay for Caddi when Squabbit is free?
Caddi is free to set up as well. You only pay, A$15 a player, when you invite the group in. Squabbit covers the golf scoring side of things. Caddi covers the trip, from idea through to settling up on the drive home. If you only need the golf scored, Squabbit (or any of the other free scoring apps out there) is for you.
Can Caddi tell me who’s actually paid?
Yes. One list shows who’s paid by card, who’s marked a bank transfer and who hasn’t paid. What we find is organisers spend hours manually reconciling payments from the blokes who say “yeah, I’ll transfer it tonight” but never pay.
Does Caddi have GPS?
No, on purpose. Everyone already has a rangefinder or GPS app.
Which is better for a sixteen-player, four-day trip?
If you’re organising the travel, chasing the money and fielding “what time are we teeing off?” from a group that’s like herding cats, Caddi. If someone else has all that sorted and you only need a way to score, use a paper card or one of the free scoring apps.