RunYourPool alternative

The RunYourPool alternative where the commissioner is not the one paying

Somebody in your group has been quietly covering the hosting bill for years, and everyone else has no idea. Pooldit is a free, play-money home for the same football pools: players never pay, and running a straight-pick NFL, College Football or MLB pool is free to you as well, up to 3 at a time.

Start a free pool

Play money only. Pooldit is not a gambling site — no entry fees, no prize pot, nothing deposited or cashed out.

In their own words

What RunYourPool says it is

Their home page describes itself as a place to “Organize contests and play your friends”, and offers a choice: “You now have more ways to play. Continue playing for entertainment only, or let us collect entry fees and pay out the winners for your private contest.”

On the money half of that choice: “We will hold the prize pot, score the contest and pay out winners quickly and securely”, and “When players join, we will give them the option to enter the contest via debit or credit card, ACH, Paypal or Venmo (coming soon).” On cost, the one thing their front page states outright is “Run your pool for free through the first week of the season.”

On breadth, they claim more of it than we do, and it is a real advantage for some groups: “Choose from 8 different NFL football pool formats.” If the game your office has run since 2009 is squares, that sentence is the one that matters and this is a short comparison.

Quotes are verbatim from the RunYourPool home page at runyourpool.com, read 2026-09-02. Their pricing page redirects into an app host we could not read, so no figure for what they charge appears anywhere on this page — only what their own front page says.

Who pays

Free through week 1, versus free through the season

“Free through the first week of the season” is a trial, and it is an honest way to run a business. It is also the sentence that turns into a renewal notice in September, addressed to one person in a group of twenty who never asked to be the one holding the invoice.

Here, playing is free in every pool and every format, permanently — no per-player fee, no charge to your players, and no card details in the join flow. Running a straight-pick pool is free too: NFL, College Football and MLB, up to 3 at a time, with automatic scoring, kickoff locks, live standings and a chat board included rather than sold as an upgrade.

And because there is no pot, there is nothing for anyone to collect, hold or distribute. What your group settles between yourselves stays between yourselves, exactly as it did before there was a website in the middle of it.

Pooldit is in open beta and every feature is free for everyone through October. From November 1, commissioners will pay $5 a month for unlimited pools across every league and format — one price, not per pool and not per player. Billing has not opened; every button on this page creates a free account today.

Five formats, one engine

Fewer formats, and every one of them on live lines

Five formats rather than eight, and the trade is deliberate: every one of them runs on the same automatic sportsbook feed, the same automatic scoring and the same autopick, and every one of them can mix NFL and College Football in a single pool — full slates from both, or only the games you curate out of them.

  • Pick’em

    Free tier

    One point a correct pick, straight up or against the spread. The format most office pools are, and free to run here.

  • Confidence

    Weighted picks

    Rank the slate by how sure you are. A 7-6 week can beat a 9-4 week, which is why nobody in a confidence pool is ever quiet.

  • Survivor

    NFL or college

    One team a week and no repeats — now on College Football as well as the NFL, which is not a common combination.

  • Allowance

    Play-money bankroll

    A weekly budget of nits — that pool’s own play-money currency — spent across moneylines, spreads and totals at real prices.

  • Pick X Parlay

    Carries or cascades

    Every selection has to land. When nobody manages it, the commissioner decides whether it carries over or cascades down.

  • Picking agents

    Autopick, then some

    Autopick so a missed deadline costs nothing — or a strategy you write yourself in plain English and keep all season.

Switching

What does not come with you

Be clear-eyed about this before you spend the minute: there is no import tool. Your rosters, your past standings and your pool’s history do not transfer, from RunYourPool or from anywhere else, and we are not going to imply otherwise on the page where you are making the decision.

What does transfer is the group. Create the pool, choose the format and the leagues, send one invite link into the group text you already have, and your players join free. From that point the season history builds here — results, weekly winners, standings and a season that rolls over on its own.

Splash Sports, RunYourPool and OfficeFootballPool are trademarks of their respective owners; Pooldit is not affiliated with them, and nothing here is endorsed by them.

Straight answers

Is Pooldit cheaper than RunYourPool?

We will not quote a number for what anybody else charges, because their pricing page redirects into an app host we could not read, and a made-up figure about a competitor is worth less than no figure. What their own home page says is "Run your pool for free through the first week of the season." What we can say about ours: playing is free in every pool and every format, forever, and running a straight-pick NFL, College Football or MLB pool is free too, up to 3 at a time. Compare that against your own renewal notice rather than against our summary of it.

Do my players have to pay anything?

No — not a per-player fee, not a service charge, and not a card number to join. RunYourPool’s home page describes the other model plainly: "When players join, we will give them the option to enter the contest via debit or credit card, ACH, Paypal or Venmo (coming soon)." Nothing like that exists here, because Pooldit never takes, holds, or moves real money in the first place.

Does Pooldit have as many pool formats?

Fewer, and they are deeper. RunYourPool’s home page offers "Choose from 8 different NFL football pool formats", including squares and several playoff-specific games we simply do not have. Pooldit runs five — pick’em, confidence, survivor, allowance and Pick X parlay — every one of them on live sportsbook lines, with automatic scoring and autopick, and any of them able to mix NFL and College Football in one pool. If your group’s game is squares, we are the wrong site and would rather say so here than after you have signed up.

What happened to RunYourPool and OfficeFootballPool?

Per Splash Sports’ own published transition guide, "RunYourPool and OfficeFootballPool have officially merged into a single home: Splash Sports", and OfficeFootballPool "will be fully retired after the NFL season". That was their published position as of August 2026. If that is what brought you here, the OFP alternative page on this site covers the retirement in more detail and cites the archived statement directly.

Before the renewal notice

Nobody in your group should have to expense the pool.

Set one up free, send the link, and let the site do the lines, the locks, the scoring and the standings for the whole season.

Start a free pool

Pooldit © 2026 · not a gambling site