March Madness 2026
Your March Madness Bracket Pool, on Autopilot
64 teams, 63 games, zero spreadsheets. Set up your pool in minutes and let the app handle the rest.
Trusted by 4,312+ players across 1,093+ pools
Sound Familiar?
Printing blank brackets, collecting picks through email, and scoring 63 games by hand
You're collecting brackets from 20 people through texts and emails, reformatting them, and praying nobody sends a duplicate. The tournament starts and two people still haven't submitted.
63 games across 6 rounds, each with different point values. One wrong cell in your spreadsheet and the entire leaderboard is off.
Everyone wants to know who's winning, but you're still manually updating scores from yesterday's games. By the time you post standings, another round has started.
How It Works
Up and Running in Minutes
Create Your Pool
Name your pool, assign point values per round, and share an invite link. Everyone joins and fills out their bracket online.
Fill Out Your Bracket
East First Round
10 pts / Pick
Pick winners for all 63 games from the First Round to the Championship. The bracket is interactive — click a team to advance them.
Watch the Madness
Scores and standings update automatically after every game. No manual work required.
Loved by Pool Commissioners
Real feedback from real users on Reddit.
“Cool, our group is going to give your app a try this year. Logged into RunYourPool for the first time in a while and can't understand what they've become lol. Tough to navigate now.”
My family and I are very grateful for this app! It's so user-friendly. Thank you for making this!!
I appreciate all the work you've put into this so far. It's shockingly hard to find a good playoff pick'em…
Just wanted to say my group has really enjoyed the site thus far. Will keep thinking of improvements. Another obvious use would be March Madness.
I recommend it for a straightforward and easy to use March madness style bracket challenge! Great job!
Thank you for doing this! Doing a fun money challenge with the boys! Gotta get that fantasy money back somehow hahaha
Thanks for sharing! Was just looking for something to setup a playoff bracket with friends.
Guide
How March Madness Bracket Pools Work
The March Madness Tournament Format
The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament — better known as March Madness — is a 68-team single-elimination tournament. After the First Four play-in games, 64 teams are seeded into four regions (typically named after the host cities). Each region has seeds 1 through 16. Teams play through six rounds: the First Round, Second Round, Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four, and the National Championship. Because it's single elimination, every game is win-or-go-home, which is what makes upsets so common and brackets so hard to predict.
What Is a March Madness Bracket Pool?
In a bracket pool, every participant fills out the full 64-team bracket before the First Round tips off. You predict the winner of all 63 games, from the opening round through the Championship. After each game, you earn points for every correct pick. Most pools assign increasing point values per round — for example, 1 point in the First Round, 2 in the Second, 4 in the Sweet 16, and so on — to reward bold picks that survive deep into the tournament. The person with the most points at the end wins.
Why Scoring Gets Complex
With 63 games spread across 6 rounds, each with different point values, manually scoring a March Madness bracket pool is genuinely tedious. One wrong cell in a spreadsheet can throw off the entire leaderboard. Multiply that by 20 or 30 participants and you're spending more time calculating than watching games. That's where automated scoring shines — every game result is applied instantly, and standings update in real time so everyone in your pool knows where they stand.
Upset Potential and Strategy
Part of what makes March Madness bracket pools so fun is the tension between picking favorites and predicting upsets. Every year, a handful of double-digit seeds knock off top-seeded teams. Picking too many upsets can tank your bracket, but playing it safe means you'll have the same picks as everyone else. The best bracket pool strategies balance both: pick the obvious favorites in most spots, but sprinkle in a few educated upset picks where you see value.
Features
Your Pool, on Autopilot
Full 64-Team Bracket
All four regions, all six rounds, from the First Round to the Championship. Everyone fills out their bracket in one place.
Custom Scoring Per Round
Weight later rounds more to reward bold picks, or keep every round equal. You set the rules for your pool.
Live Standings
Scores update after every game. No waiting for the commissioner to post results — everyone can check the leaderboard anytime.
Full Bracket or Round by Round
Let everyone fill out the entire bracket upfront, or open each round as the matchups are set. Your pool, your rules.
Built by a Commissioner, for Commissioners
I run a playoff pool with my family. Everyone used to email me their picks and I'd enter them into a spreadsheet. Every year it was the same story: chasing people for their picks, updating scores after every game, and manually fixing brackets when things went wrong.
So I built Playoff Pick'Ems to be the tool I wished existed. Just a simple way to run a bracket pool with the people you care about.
Simple, Transparent Pricing
Start free, upgrade when you need more. No hidden fees.
Free
Perfect for trying things out
- Host 1 pool
- Up to 10 members in your pool
- 1 entry per user
- Manual entries for offline players
Season Pass
Everything you need to run your pool
- Host unlimited pools
- Unlimited members per pool
- Multiple entries per user
- Manual entries for offline players
- One-time payment. No subscription
Lifetime Access
Pay once, use forever
- Everything in Season Pass
- Never pay again
- Lifetime updates
- One-time payment. No subscription
Per tournament. Only pay for the tournaments you use.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have questions?
Your March Madness Pool, simplified.
Running a pool is fun, but managing it can be a headache. Skip the tedious stuff and just enjoy the playoffs with your friends.