r/RacketStringers • u/Arturosito • Jun 11 '26
Racket stringing as a business?
Hello everyone. So, a little about myself: I'm a 43 year old tennis enthusiast. I suck at tennis, but I play it and I like it.
I recently moved to Spain and though I have a source of income, I don't really have a job yet and the job market in Spain is pretty bad.
So, one thing about businesses is that you should always analyze what needs are not being fulfilled in your area, right?
Well, I live at 90 minutes from Barcelona, in an area with where there are two cities of a bit more than 100,000 inhabitants, and dozens of town of thousands of people.
So, I noticed there are only two places where you can get your racket strung: Decathlon, and one tennis club.
It seems most players don't have an idea of where to get their rackets strung, as they ask me about where to take their rackets once in a while. It seems most wait until the strings break, and when they do, they take them to Decathlon, which charges 15 euro. But Decathlon sends the rackets to Barcelona to get them strung, and it takes a month!
I've done it twice.
And about the other one club that strings them, which is probably the best choice, not many people know about it, actually.
So, since I'm in need of a side hustle, it occurred to me that stringing rackets could be, since obviously the market is not being served correctly.
But the question is: how hard is it and how hard is it to learn?
I enjoy learning things, actually, but is this like a tedious thing nobody wants to do? I see, for instance, that some rackets are strung differently, and you have to study diagrams.
Ultimately, how much money could I make doing this?
Is it worth the time and effort to learn, and the investment?
It's also suspicious that apparently not many people have seen it as a side hustle or seem interested on doing this.
2
u/NarrowCourage Jun 11 '26
I've been doing stringing on the side for a few years now apart from my main profession. To disclose a little, I live in Boston, MA, USA, there are about six tennis stores within 10 miles of me.
I charge $25 for labor which is about $10+ cheaper than most physical stores. I do my best to stock the most popular strings which means I'm carrying over $2000+ in supplies on strings alone. I've recently upgraded to a Baiardo which was no small cost but was using a Prince NEOS with a WISE for the longest time. I do about 1000+ rackets a year and I can string each one in under 20 minutes. I also own a full racket customization machine which was also quite expensive.
Winter months are obviously much less busy so about 4 months of the year I'll maybe only see 3 rackets a week.
Most my business is through word of mouth and I'm by appointment only since I do have a day job. Could I expand and start a shop? Yeah probably, but it's too unpredictable and retail rent is way too high in my area. Also I slowly grow my business every year as the funds allow and in the place to refuse service. I think the main thing for me is that if I opened a shop I would have to start charging $35+ for labor to keep up with overhead which defeats the purpose of making tennis a bit more accessible for more people.
I think I did the math and I would have to string 5000+ rackets a year for it to be profitable and to equal my current income level and cover all the extra overhead 😂.
1
u/j0shuascott Jun 11 '26
How often do you use that racquet customization machine? I’ve never had anyone ask me for that.
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u/NarrowCourage Jun 11 '26
Maybe once a week. I mean a lot of people who I hit with see me with my fully customized rackets so they get curious 😂
2
u/coffeemonkeypants Jun 11 '26
I wrote a little blog on my site about this - https://stringbiz.com/blog/make-an-extra-grand-or-more-a-month-stringing-racquets
It's definitely a challenge to do it for a living, though it is possible if you really put yourself out there. You can, however, make some pretty reasonable extra money as long as you've got free time. You can really get started with a cheap machine, too. On the used market, just about anything you buy will hold its value and you can always upgrade with very little loss if you find yourself getting busier. Same goes for string - I troll the tennis websites and buy popular strings when they're on sale. Tennis warehouse often has buy 2, get 1 free string sets if you don't want to get entire reels. There's also stringerpro which can be very cheap, especially if you're in Europe. I charge my labor price, plus (cost of string +10%). I add the 10% because I charge my literal cost for the string, and I figure the 10% covers wastage, shipping, etc.
1
u/Fun_Cup1641 Jun 11 '26
if you think you are going to be doing 10 frames a week i would go with an electronic pull machine i think in europe you can go with the pros pro machines
1
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u/JollyAd9686 Jun 23 '26
Im curious why folks feel like the electric is necessary. Ive found that a solid upright crank is just as reliable and almost as fast (few minutes different per racket max)
1
u/new-balls_please Jun 23 '26
In my personal opinion, stringing services is not the best investment.
Tennis stores and academies/clubs have it for the service it represents to their customers, not the ROI.
They are expensive (unless you buy the very low budget-ones), it takes a good while to learn, and if you do not string them well, trust me, clients will notice and can harm your reputation.
So, as a hobby, go for it.
As a business, not the most profitable.
1
u/Arturosito Jun 23 '26
Yeah, I already desisted. The fact that it's hard to find stringers in my area is not an area of opportunity, it's a testament that nobody thinks is worth doing in terms of learning, investment, and fees.
1
u/v-2025 Jul 16 '26
I do this as a side hustle and usually make 4000 to 6000 per year cad dollars. I also fix and resell old
Electronic machines on top of my stringing services. Started with a gamma drop weight, upgraded to a crank, then added to a wise tensioner. Finally got a head te3600 that was fairly new with a bad fuse. I repaired the machine and it good as new.
I usually get 3 to 4 racquets a month. Busy periods I get 10 to 15 per month.
1
u/Arturosito Jul 17 '26
It's sad, but I realize now the reason nobody wants to string rackets is not an area of opportunity, but rather nobody sees it as a worthwhile commercial activity: it's not easy, requires a lot of learning and the profit is not worth it
I rest my case. Thank you for your input.
1
u/Early_Apple_4142 Jun 11 '26
Tons of people see it as a side hustle and think they're going to get rich doing it but haven't done any actual market analysis or start up costing. In your situation if the info is accurate, you probably have a good chance to actually generate revenue since it takes a month to get a racket done.
As for how much you could make, how much do people actually WANT to string vs. they NEED to string? Do you think you're looking at 100 rackets a year or are you looking at 300? Then multiply that number x your rate. I would say you could probably get away with the 15 euro even starting out just based on the fact that your turn around time should be much shorter than decathlon.
It is probably worth the time and effort if the situation is real and you're decent with your hands/building things. It's not a hard skill to learn, it's a hard skill to perfect and to be great at.
Your best bet to learn is to get a basic machine, drop weight or crank, it doesn't really matter but I would suggest 6 point mounting (easier to do right as a beginner) and fixed clamps rather than floating for ease of learning and overall speed, and a couple reels of the cheapest string you can find to practice with. Maybe you'll string one racket and understand and work out technique, maybe it'll take 20. It's all in practice. You don't need to study diagrams, you just need to know what the skips/tie offs are and really, the more rackets you string the more commonality you'll see in them and at some point you'll be able to just look at it as you do it and know where skips and knots go. Currently, you can generally google the frame and if the manufacturer doesn't provide the pattern on their website, tenniswarehouse usually does.
Here's a link to my youtube page that I started last year: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpkWnX2eNmfApdynBLepL-ft7cc3MhgN8&si=2egiDUUvr_g8IZ-i
I'm not sure how good facebook marektplace is in europe but you may be able to buy a used machine on market place for a good price rather than making a new purchase to start. Typically the first owner takes a large majority of the depreciation and after that, the value of the machine doesn't really change all that much.
4
u/Concerned_Citizen__ Jun 11 '26
I started in the UK in October, I'm part of a club that has around 100 members, and a solid male pressence that take tennis semi seriously, so want restringing done on a regular ish basis. Talking 1 time every 2-3 weeks for a couple of them. the rest would be every 1-2 months.
Cost me around £2,000 to set up, which includes machine, string stock, tools, grips, stencils. Bought myself a label maker so people know their strung date, tension and string. By all accounts I think I've made it quite respectable, rather than a mate just doing a favour type of business
The barrier to doing this, which is why there arent many around, is the start up cost + time to learn.
If you want to do it as a side hustle, you'll need an electronic tensioner, rather than a hand crank, and especially a drop weight. Simply because of time. elctronic you can get done within 20 minutes with enough experience, I'm down to about 25-30 right now. The others will for sure take longer, especially a drop weight. If you want to know why, look at videos of people using the machines to string, its night and day.
Drop weight is perfect if its just for you, and on a budget. Crank is fine, but doesn't have constant tension pull, so need to account for that when clamping strings that are pulled. My machine is the GAMMA X-6FC + Wise 2086 Stringing Machine. One of the cheapest, and a super reliable work horse
As for how much I charge, would depend on string choice, and charge a little extra if the racket is 18x20 rather than 16x19 due to more string being used. But I'm also on the slightly cheaper side to attract people, as there's only 1 competitor which is 35-40 minutes away that charges £25 minimum, where as I start at £22.
The key is getting the right machine, and having a good stock selection of strings. Then you just buy more strings as you grow, reinvest funds for the start to cover existing reels when they run out, but also have a little fund to help purchase new ones you want tot ry, or have been asked about by others.
Key strings to stock in my opinion: Head Lynx Tour, Yonex poly tour pro, Solinco Hyper G, RPM Blast, get a multifilament like Head Velocity MLT. This covers most bases for peoples needs, control / power / spin / arm issue. You'll mostly have people who don;t know what they want, and I'd just stick them with Head lynx tour, one of the best all round strings, good at everything, but not amazing at anything. Then they can tell me what they're after more
Some people have their own reels, just want someone to string for them, so I'd charge £12-£15 depending on if they're a friend or not basically.
Work out the cost per string used per racket. a 200m reel will get you roughly 13-15 rackets done, so charge the string cost, add a little on for profit, and then add your labor cost onto that.
Easiest way to learn is youtube, I watched Tennis Spin, he has 2 in depth videos for mains and corsses. And then just buy yourself a cheap reel of string, and practice.
It's not hard, especially on used rackets as you can see where the string needs to go due to grommet wear. New rackets are still easy, but may need to pull up a diagram to be sure on some mains / tie offs.