How many matches are in a single elimination bracket?

One less than the number of teams: 7 matches for 8 teams, 15 for 16, 31 for 32. Byes are not counted as matches.

How many teams can I enter?

From 2 to 128. Any count in between works — the bracket rounds up to the next size and fills the extra slots with byes.

Can I add a third-place match?

Yes, with at least 4 teams. The two semi-final losers meet once more, so more players leave having played a game.

Single elimination bracket generator

The classic knockout: one loss and you are out. Paste your teams, get a properly seeded bracket with the byes already placed, and export a sharp PNG.

BracketBee

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Editing is designed for desktop. On this screen you can view the bracket; open the tools below if you need to change something.

Teams 8Matches 7Rounds 3Results entered 0Scheduled 0/7Drag to pan · scroll to zoom

Click anywhere outside this panel, or press Esc, to close it.

Display

Show seed badgesScores, date and venue

Format

Seeds are spread so the strongest teams meet as late as possible.

Watermark

Watermark text

We never add a watermark to your image. Whatever you type here is what appears — placed against the corners of the exported image.

Opacity 45%

Leave empty for no watermark.

Teams

One team per line. Commas and tabs also work. Order = seed order.

Team count

Teams: 8
Bracket size: 8

Seed order

Show seed badges

Seeded bracket (1 vs last, 2 vs second last, …)

Seeds are spread so the strongest teams meet as late as possible.

Rethink the order? Shuffle the list at random. The draw is the list itself, so you can still tweak it afterwards.

Third-place match (3rd vs 4th)

Adds one extra match between the two semi-final losers.

1Team 01
2Team 02
3Team 03
4Team 04
5Team 05
6Team 06
7Team 07
8Team 08

Moving teams keeps first-round results; later rounds reset.

Share link

Anyone with the link sees the same bracket. No account, nothing uploaded to a server.

Everything stays editable: type your own team names, set scores and dates, then export the bracket as an image — a PNG in three sizes, no watermark.

What single elimination means

Every match produces one winner who advances and one loser who is out. A bracket of N teams needs exactly N − 1 matches: 7 for 8 teams, 15 for 16, 31 for 32.

It is the fastest way to finish an event, which is why it is the default for one-day tournaments — and the format that punishes a bad ten minutes hardest.

Byes, placed for you

Team counts that are not powers of two leave empty slots. BracketBee places those byes and gives them to the top seeds: in a 5-team bracket only one first-round match is played, because seeds 1, 2 and 3 go straight to the semi-finals.

Byes are not matches, so the match count on the bracket is the number of games that will actually be played — nothing to remove by hand.

Seeding, third place, and the other four formats

The order you type the teams in is the seed order. Standard seeding keeps the strongest teams apart (1 vs 8, 4 vs 5, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6 in an 8-team bracket), and a third-place match is one toggle away if the beaten semi-finalists deserve another game.

If a knockout is too unforgiving for your event, the same editor also runs double elimination, round robin, groups plus knockout and Swiss — switch the format and the bracket redraws without re-typing the teams.

Frequently asked questions

How many matches are in a single elimination bracket?: One less than the number of teams: 7 matches for 8 teams, 15 for 16, 31 for 32. Byes are not counted as matches.
How many teams can I enter?: From 2 to 128. Any count in between works — the bracket rounds up to the next size and fills the extra slots with byes.
Can I add a third-place match?: Yes, with at least 4 teams. The two semi-final losers meet once more, so more players leave having played a game.