OfficePoolGolf offers four commissioner tiers — Par, Birdie, Eagle, and Albatross — and the tier you pick determines how big the pool can grow, what rules you can configure, and which host tools you have access to. The pricing model is consistent across every tier: players never pay OfficePoolGolf anything. Par is always free for commissioners too. Higher tiers may carry a flat one-time setup fee per pool that scales with capacity and feature scope. This guide walks tier by tier through what each one actually unlocks.
Pick the smallest tier that gives you the features you actually want. Most office pools fit comfortably inside Birdie or Eagle.
How tiers work
A tier is set per pool, not per commissioner. The same host can run a Par pool for the PGA Championship and an Eagle pool for the next major without any cross-pool effect. The tier is chosen in the wizard before the pool publishes, and it can be changed up to one hour before the entry deadline as long as the new tier's capacity is not below the current entry count.
Every tier gets the full live-scoring experience. Score updates run on a roughly five-minute cadence across every tier; nothing about how the leaderboard refreshes is gated. Per-player score-to-par is visible on every tier; the floor of basic transparency does not change with price.
What the tiers gate, in plain language: how many entries the pool can hold, how much rule customization the wizard offers, how many co-admins can help run the pool, and how rich the host's tooling is for handling entries, payments, and communication.
Par — the bragging-rights tier
Par is built for a small group running a single, no-frills pool. Up to ten entries; one entry per person; a fixed five-player roster; three payout positions; one cut rule (worst_active); no tiebreaker rule (the default split applies). The wizard skips most decision screens because the values are pinned. The host has the basics: a payment-info card that displays a payment handle (so entrants know where to send their fee, if there is one), and the live leaderboard.
What Par does NOT have: payment ledger, individual reminders, setup checklist, bulk actions, post-lock roster editing, password protection, or co-admins.
Who Par fits: a five-to-ten-person group at one office, one tournament, no expectation of recurrence. The kind of pool where the host knows everyone by name, collects payment in person on Monday, and never needs a second screen of host tooling.
Birdie — the everyday tier
Birdie is the workhorse. Up to twenty-five entries; up to three entries per person; roster size becomes a commissioner choice (one to five counting golfers); one to five payout positions; the full set of cut rules and tiebreaker rules opens up. The host gets a one-time post-lock roster edit per entrant (useful for fixing a withdrawn golfer); custom entry deadlines; one co-admin; copy-pool-from-previous; draft mode; house-rules free text on the pool page.
Commissioner tooling on Birdie: payment ledger (a table where the host marks each entry as unpaid / submitted / confirmed); entrant self-report ("I paid on Tuesday" — entrant marks the row, commissioner confirms); individual reminders (one-click "your entry fee is outstanding" to a specific entrant); setup checklist; results broadcast (the commissioner can send a one-shot final-standings email at completion).
Who Birdie fits: a fifteen-to-twenty-five-person group, a paid pool with real money moving, a host who wants the ledger without the bulk-action overhead. This is the most common tier in active use.
Eagle — the serious tier
Eagle covers the cases where Birdie runs out of room. Up to one hundred entries; up to five entries per person; roster size up to ten counting golfers; up to ten payout positions; the predict-the-winner tiebreaker unlocks here. Password-protected pools become available (the join page requires the password before showing the wizard). Late entry is allowed (entrants can join after the lock, with a clear "late entry — no R1 scoring" affordance). Post-lock roster edits up to five per entrant. Three co-admins. One hundred invite slots managed inside the platform.
The host tooling on Eagle expands materially: bulk payment actions (mark every submitted entry as confirmed in one click), a commissioner dashboard with pool-level health indicators, lifecycle emails (automatic pre-lock warnings to unpaid entrants), payout tracking (a table that shows who has been paid out and who has not).
Who Eagle fits: a fifty-to-one-hundred-person pool, often across multiple offices or a regional group, with a host who wants automation rather than per-entry manual touches. Multi-pool commissioners running a year-round series often default to Eagle.
Albatross — the unlimited tier
Albatross is for pools at scale. Up to five hundred entries; ten entries per person; twenty counting golfers; twenty payout positions; twenty value bands. Every feature toggle in the platform opens here. Live tournament alerts; pool analytics; broadcast announcements; commissioner stats; post-round summaries; indefinite archive retention; five co-admins; five hundred invite slots; full leaderboard exports.
Who Albatross fits: a corporate pool covering several hundred entrants across many offices; a multi-region group running an annual season-long competition; any commissioner who wants the dial cranked all the way up. The leap from Eagle to Albatross is real but smaller than the leap from Birdie to Eagle.
The feature comparison
| Feature | Par | Birdie | Eagle | Albatross |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum entries | 10 | 25 | 100 | 500 |
| Entries per person | 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 |
| Roster size range | 5 (fixed) | 1–5 | 1–10 | 1–20 |
| Payout positions | 3 (fixed) | 1–5 | 1–10 | 1–20 |
| Cut rule options | worst-active only | all three | all three | all three |
| Tiebreaker options | none | four rules | five rules | five rules |
| Co-admins | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Post-lock roster edits | none | 1 | 5 | 10 |
| Password protection | — | — | yes | yes |
| Late entry | — | — | yes | yes |
| Payment ledger | display only | yes | yes | yes |
| Bulk payment actions | — | — | yes | yes |
| Commissioner dashboard | — | — | yes | yes |
| Payout tracking | — | — | yes | yes |
| Lifecycle emails | — | — | yes | yes |
| Pool analytics | — | — | — | yes |
| Live tournament alerts | — | — | — | yes |
| Broadcast announcements | — | — | — | yes |
How to pick
The decision is almost always about capacity first and tooling second. Count the people who will plausibly enter, add a buffer for late joiners, and pick the smallest tier whose maximum-entries number comfortably exceeds that count. If the pool is paid and the host wants the ledger, that is the second filter — Par has display-only payment info, while Birdie and above carry the full ledger.
Most commissioners over-spec their first pool and downgrade later. The downgrade path is open as long as the current entry count fits the new tier's capacity, so erring large on the first pool and shrinking next year is a reasonable strategy.
If the goal is to run more than one pool a year, the copy-pool feature (available from Birdie up) saves real time on the second one — every rule, value band, and payout structure from the prior pool is pre-filled in the new wizard.
Want the host's daily workflow? Read The Commissioner Guide. Building your roster? Read Picking Your Roster.