Most village hall booking software costs between £130 and £300 a year for a single hall. That is the short answer. The longer answer is that the headline price is rarely what leaves your bank account, and the differences are big enough to be worth ten minutes of a committee meeting.
This guide sets out what the main systems actually charge, what the price pages do not mention, and what a hall should realistically budget.
What the main systems cost
Prices below were checked in August 2026 from each company's own pricing page. Software prices change, so confirm before you commit.
| System | Entry price | VAT | Free trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| Village Hall Hub | £129/yr, or £12.99/month | Excluded | 30 days |
| Hallmaster | £195/yr booking only, £279/yr with invoicing | Included | 90 days |
| LemonBooking | From £195/yr | Reverse charge | 30 days |
| MIDAS | From $341/yr cloud hosted, or $649 one-off self hosted | Varies | 30 days |
Because VAT is quoted differently by each of them, here is the same thing again as the number a hall that is not VAT registered actually pays in year one. This is the comparison most committees want and almost nobody publishes.
| System and plan | Actually payable per year |
|---|---|
| Village Hall Hub, Community | £154.80 |
| Hallmaster, Booking System Only | £195 |
| LemonBooking, Bronze | £195 |
| Hallmaster, Booking & Invoicing | £279 |
| Village Hall Hub, Standard | £298.80 |
| Village Hall Hub, Professional | £478.80 |
We should be straight about where we sit in that list. Our cheapest plan is the cheapest way in, but it is limited to two rooms and three committee logins. Our Standard plan, which is the one most halls end up on, costs a little more than Hallmaster's equivalent. What you get for the difference is the compliance side: reminders, a Martyn's Law wizard, DBS tracking, grants. If you do not want that, do not pay for it.
The costs that are not on the price page
VAT
The single biggest source of confusion. Some vendors quote inclusive of VAT and some exclusive, and 20 per cent on £250 is £50. Most village halls are not VAT registered, which means VAT is a real cost to you rather than something you reclaim. Always ask which way a price is quoted before comparing two of them.
Add-on modules
Some systems price the core cheaply and charge separately for the parts you assumed were included. Hallmaster, for example, charges £30 a year each for online payment integration, accounting software integration, heating control and door access. A hall wanting card payments and Xero is adding £60 a year to the headline figure. That is not a criticism, it is a different way of pricing, but you have to add it up yourself.
Card payment processing
Separate from the software entirely. If you take payments online, the payment processor takes a percentage - typically around 1.5 per cent plus 20p per transaction for UK cards through Stripe or similar. On £10,000 of hire income a year that is roughly £170. This applies whichever booking system you use, and it is not the software company's fee.
Setup and per-room charges
Watch for one-off setup fees on multi-venue plans, and for systems that charge per room or per user once you pass a threshold. A hall with a main hall, a committee room and a kitchen is three bookable spaces, not one, and on some pricing models that matters.
Your own time
Not a cash cost, but the real one. Budget two evenings to get set up on any of these systems: one for rooms, rates and regular hirers, one for forward bookings.
What a hall should budget
- Single-room hall, bookings only: £150 to £200 a year, all in.
- Typical village hall, two or three spaces, wanting invoicing: £250 to £300 a year.
- Busy hall wanting compliance and grant tools as well: £300 to £480 a year.
- Multi-venue trust or several halls under one committee: £500 upwards, and ask about setup fees.
Add roughly 1.5 per cent of your online hire income on top if you take card payments.
Monthly or annual?
Most systems in this market bill once a year and that is the only option. Village Hall Hub also offers monthly billing, at £12.99, £24.99 or £39.99 depending on the plan.
Paying annually is cheaper across the board: twelve months at £12.99 is £155.88, against £129 paid in one go. So annual saves you roughly two months. The argument for monthly is not the money, it is the cash flow and the exit. A hall that has just paid for a new roof may prefer £12.99 a month to £129 in March, and a committee that is not yet sure the software will stick may prefer to be one month from stopping rather than eleven.
Whichever you choose, check what happens if you leave mid-term. Annual plans are rarely refunded pro rata anywhere in this market, which is another argument for using the full free trial before you commit.
Systems that do not publish a price
Some booking systems, particularly those aimed at schools and larger community trusts, quote on application rather than listing prices. BookingsPlus is one that comes up in village hall discussions.
Quote-based pricing is not a red flag by itself, but it does mean you cannot compare from an armchair, and it usually signals a product built for a bigger organisation than a village hall. If you ask for a quote, ask for it on the same basis as everything else: per year, including VAT, for your actual number of rooms, with any setup fee and any per-user charges stated separately.
Questions worth asking before you sign
- Is that price including or excluding VAT?
- What is not included that I am likely to want? Card payments, accounting links, extra rooms, extra logins.
- Is there a setup fee?
- Does the price rise after the first year?
- Can I export my bookings, hirers and invoices if we leave?
- What does support cost, and is it email only?
The last one catches people out. Phone support included in the price is worth a surprising amount to a committee where the person doing the bookings is 74 and would rather ring somebody than raise a ticket.
Is it worth it?
The honest way to answer that is to price what you are doing now. A hall taking £12,000 a year in hire fees and losing two or three bookings a year to a slow reply, a double booking, or an enquiry that went to a volunteer on holiday is losing a few hundred pounds. That is the software paid for before you count anybody's time.
The other half is the part that does not show up in the accounts until it goes wrong: a missed insurance renewal, an expired electrical certificate, a fire risk assessment nobody can find when the parish council asks. Those are cheap to prevent and expensive to explain.
That said, if your hall takes four bookings a month and the diary lives happily on the noticeboard, software is not compulsory. Plenty of halls run beautifully on paper. The question worth asking is not whether the software is cheap, but whether the job it removes is one your volunteers are quietly getting tired of.
How to compare fairly
- Get every price to the same basis: including VAT, per year, for the number of rooms you actually have.
- Add the modules you need. If card payments or accounting links are essential to you, price them in.
- Check the trial length. 30 to 90 days is normal and none of the main systems ask for a card up front.
- Check what happens to your data if you leave. You should be able to export bookings, hirers and invoices.
- Try two of them properly with your own real bookings. An hour of that beats any comparison table.
If you want the feature-by-feature view rather than the money, we have written a full comparison of UK village hall booking software, a head to head with Hallmaster, and one with My Hall Wizard. Our own plans are set out in full on the pricing page.