New Report: America Now Has 3,849 Indoor Golf Venues, with Median Simulator Sessions Costing $40 Per Hour

AUSTIN, Texas – July 13, 2026 – GolfSim.co, a free directory and data platform tracking the U.S. indoor golf market, today released the inaugural State of Indoor Golf in America report — a data-driven snapshot of one of the fastest-growing segments in golf. The report tracks 3,849 live indoor golf venues across all 50 states and 838 markets, alongside companion studies benchmarking hourly pricing in 45 states and comparing 11 franchise and chain brands.

Key findings, according to the State of Indoor Golf in America report from GolfSim.co:

• The national median price for an hour in a simulator bay is $40, based on 794 venues with a published hourly rate. The middle half of venues charge between $25 and $55 per hour, while a premium long tail — 44 venues charge $150 or more — pulls the national average up to $51.
• South Carolina is the most expensive state for simulator golf, with a median rate of $90 per hour, followed by Nevada ($63) and Oklahoma ($58). Maryland and Vermont tie for the lowest median at $25 per hour. Among metros, Henderson, Nevada tops the list at a median of $87 per hour.
• Indoor golf is still overwhelmingly a small-business industry. Roughly four in five venues (3,184, or 82.7%) have no known franchise affiliation, versus 665 venues affiliated with a tracked chain. The largest chains by live directory listings are The Back Nine Golf (196), GOLFTEC (132), and X-Golf (102).
• TrackMan dominates the technology race, appearing in 63.2% of venues that disclose their simulator technology, followed by Full Swing at 17.6%.
• The typical venue is compact: among the 255 venues that publicly list a bay count, the average is 5.9 simulator bays and the median is just 4 — a footprint closer to a boutique studio than a big-box entertainment center.
• Katy, Texas is America’s densest indoor golf market, with 22.76 venues per 100,000 residents among cities with confident Census population data, ahead of Mequon, Wisconsin (15.69) and Duluth, Georgia (15.46).
• Simulators cluster in educated, middle-to-upper-income markets: across the 1,778 covered cities with Census data, the median market has a household income of $76,953 and 34.3% of residents holding a bachelor’s degree or higher.

‘The numbers tell a different story than the franchise headlines. More than 80% of America’s indoor golf venues are independents, the typical facility runs just four bays, and the median session costs $40 — this is a Main Street business, not a big-box one. Indoor golf is scaling the way coffee shops did, one small operator at a time,’ said Steven Shen, founder of GolfSim.co.”

The companion Indoor Golf Franchise Landscape study finds that 8 of the 11 tracked brands currently offer franchising, with published total initial investments ranging from roughly $125,000 at the low end (GOLFTEC) to $4.33 million at the high end (Five Iron Golf), per public franchisor disclosures.

About the data

Findings are drawn from GolfSim.co’s directory of live U.S. indoor golf venues, aggregated exclusively from public data. Hourly rates are auto-extracted from each venue’s own website (last checked July 2, 2026) and treated as approximate; states and metros with fewer than three priced venues are omitted rather than estimated. Bay counts reflect only the venues that publicly list one. Franchise fees and investment figures come exclusively from publicly available franchisor disclosures, with each source linked. Demographic context uses U.S. Census Bureau data (Population Estimates Program and American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates). Full methodology and attribution are published at golfsim.co/data-sources.

The complete reports are free to access and update continuously:

• State of Indoor Golf in America: https://golfsim.co/research/state-of-indoor-golf/
• Golf Simulator Pricing — Hourly Rates by State: https://golfsim.co/research/golf-simulator-pricing/
• Indoor Golf Franchise Landscape: https://golfsim.co/research/franchise-landscape/

Journalists and researchers are welcome to cite figures from the reports with attribution and a link. Custom data cuts by state or metro are available on request.

About GolfSim.co

GolfSim.co is a free directory and research platform for indoor golf, tracking simulator venues across the United States along with pricing, technology, and franchise data. The site helps golfers find simulators near them and publishes aggregate market research on the indoor golf industry.

For media inquiries please contact: Steven Shen [email protected] https://golfsim.co

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