Hallmaster, Village Hall Hub and HallMatch, compared honestly

The short answer

What each one is

Hallmaster

An online booking and invoicing system for halls and venues, based in Poole, Dorset. Hallmaster says it is used in more than 1,500 venues, and that ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England) chose it to promote as the preferred booking system for village halls. Its calendar goes on your own website, where hirers can make provisional bookings at any hour. It links to Sage, Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, Liberty and ClearBooks, and can switch the heating on for a booking and control RemoteLOCK door access. Telephone and online support, 9 to 5. A 90-day free trial.

Village Hall Hub

A newer UK system that does bookings and invoicing and then goes on into the rest of a committee’s paperwork: compliance reminders, DBS and safeguarding records, a Martyn’s Law wizard, meeting minutes, a grant directory, and on its top plan spending, budgets, management accounts and help writing grant applications. Hirers can pay by card through your own Stripe account on every plan, and there’s an app for iPhone and iPad. Village Hall Hub says hundreds of venues use it. A 30-day free trial with no card, and monthly or yearly billing.

HallMatch

A national directory that sends enquiries to the halls hirers choose, with a free diary to take them in: rooms, regular hirers, term dates, holds, a calendar for your own website and reminders for the paperwork with a date on it. No invoices, payments, accounts or integrations, and no trial because there’s nothing to pay.

More than 12,000 halls are listed, and 346 have been claimed by the people who run them.

The diary is new in 2026, and only a handful of halls keep theirs here so far.

Price, like for like

About VAT. Hallmaster shows its prices including VAT and Village Hall Hub shows them excluding it, so the headline numbers aren’t comparable as they stand. Most halls aren’t VAT-registered. Village Hall Hub’s pricing page says VAT is added if your venue is VAT-registered, and its own comparison with Hallmaster adds 20% for a hall that isn’t, so ask Village Hall Hub what your hall would actually pay before you compare.

Checked on 24 September 2026 on hallmaster.co.uk/pricing and villagehallhub.co.uk/pricing. Hallmaster says its current prices apply from 1 January 2026. Prices change; check before you commit.

Side by side

Some things only one of them lists. Village Hall Hub’s pricing page lists compliance reminders, DBS and safeguarding records, a Martyn’s Law wizard, meeting minutes, grant tools and an app for iPhone and iPad. Hallmaster’s lists telephone support, 9 to 5. Where one company’s pages don’t mention something, we’ve left it out of the table rather than guess. HallMatch’s own extras, paperwork reminders and new hirers from a national search, are described above.

When Hallmaster is the better choice

• You want bookings to flow into Sage, Xero or QuickBooks without a spreadsheet in the middle.
• You have smart heating or a RemoteLOCK keypad, or you’re fitting one, and want bookings to drive it.
• You’d like to be able to ring someone during office hours.
• You want the system many halls already know: Hallmaster says it is in more than 1,500 venues, and ACRE promotes it.
• You want a long trial: Hallmaster gives 90 days.

When Village Hall Hub is the better choice

• Your treasurer wants the accounts, budget and cashflow in the same place as the bookings.
• You’re chasing grants and want a directory, deadline reminders and help writing the application.
• Compliance keeps trustees awake: insurance, fire, electrics, DBS, safeguarding, and Martyn’s Law if your hall holds 200 or more.
• You’d rather pay monthly, or by bank transfer when the committee’s signatures are ready.
• You want an app on the iPad at the hall.

When HallMatch is enough on its own

• You take bookings by email and phone, keep the diary in a book or a spreadsheet, and don’t need software to send invoices.
• You want more one-off hirers: parties, children’s parties, classes, wakes. What hirers ask for.
• You want it free: no card, no trial, no renewal.

Using HallMatch alongside Hallmaster or Village Hall Hub

Halls that use HallMatch with another system do three things, and none of them touches the other system:

1. 1Claim the listing, so enquiries reach the right person rather than an old address.
2. 2Put your website on the listing, so hirers who’d rather use your own booking page can find it.
3. 3Answer enquiries from the email. “Yes, it’s free”, “Sorry, not then” or “I’ll ring” them: one tap, no login. Answering is what moves a hall up our search results.

What doesn’t happen: HallMatch doesn’t connect to Hallmaster or Village Hall Hub, and doesn’t copy your diary from either. If you want hirers to see your free dates on HallMatch, you’d keep them in two places. Most halls with a system don’t bother, and just answer.

How we checked

Every price and feature above for Hallmaster and Village Hall Hub comes from their own websites, read on 24 September 2026: hallmaster.co.uk/pricing, hallmaster.co.uk/about, hallmaster.co.uk/website-integration, villagehallhub.co.uk/pricing, villagehallhub.co.uk/for/community-centres and Village Hall Hub’s own comparison with Hallmaster. A row goes in the side-by-side table only when both companies’ own pages say something about it. HallMatch’s own figures are from our database on the same day.

If we’ve got something wrong, tell us and we’ll correct it and change the date at the top.

Questions