Core concepts
A quick tour of the ideas Matcheo is built on. You rarely need to think about them directly — the agent handles the details — but knowing the model helps.
Matches
A match is a game or activity you set up with other players at a place and time. Any player can create one, and the creator is automatically part of it. When you create a match you name its potential players, its activity, and where it happens. For some activities, a match is simply called a game.
Players
A player is anyone who can take part in a match. There are two kinds:
- Private players — people you add yourself, visible only to you. A private player just needs a name and either an email address or a phone number.
- Global players — registered Matcheo users. They’re either public (visible to everyone) or restricted (visible only to the users they choose).
Names and handles
Every player has a display name, and names don’t have to be unique — several people can share one. To tell them apart, every global player also has a handle: a unique identifier they choose, shown next to their name in search and within a match. Private players have no handle, since they exist only for you.
Identity
A person is identified by a unique email address or phone number. When you add a private player, you provide at least one of these. If it matches an existing global player, your private player points to that user instead of creating a duplicate.
Activities
Every match has an activity — what the match is for, like tennis or board games. Activities are free-form, so you can enter anything and Matcheo won’t block something unusual. Known activities are recognized, so matches for the same activity can be grouped and found together.
Skill levels
A match can carry a skill level — how strong the players should be. Because every activity names skill differently (pickleball alone has DUPR ratings and words like beginner or intermediate), skill levels are free-form text: use whatever your activity uses.
You can record your own level for an activity, and a match inherits yours by default — you can override it per match. Even though levels are free text, Matcheo compares them for relative strength, so matches can be ranked easier or harder and different systems reconciled against each other.
Skill levels guide, they don’t filter: players closer to a match’s level are contacted first, but you can still accept players of a different level.
Locations
Every match has a location, which is either:
- Custom — a spot specific to a single match, entered when you create it.
- Shared — a named, well-known place you can reuse across many matches.
No venue booking is involved — a park, a driveway, or a known venue all work.
Invitations and communication
Matcheo reaches players by SMS or email. People you invite don’t need an app or an account to be part of a match — they just respond. A private player can later be asked to become a full Matcheo user; when they do, they provide a location, which can be a full address or something as simple as a city name.
Price
Matcheo is free for players. Because communications and AI tokens cost money, some limits may apply, and paid plans could offer higher limits for heavy organizers such as club owners. You can also support Matcheo with a donation, which mainly covers token and development costs for a one-person team.