Make fair teams in seconds
Picking teams by hand is slow and always feels a little unfair. This free team picker takes your list of names and splits them into random, balanced groups instantly — no more "you go with them" arguments. It's perfect for PE class, pickup sports, group projects, party games, hackathons, secret santa groups, or any time you need to divide people fairly and quickly.
Two ways to split
- By number of teams — say how many teams you want (2, 3, 4…) and everyone gets distributed as evenly as possible across all groups.
- By team size — say how many people per team, and the picker creates as many teams as needed to fit everyone.
Always balanced — never uneven by more than one
When the numbers don't divide evenly (say 11 people into 3 teams), the extra people are spread out one per team rather than piled onto one group. So you might get teams of 4, 4, and 3 — never 5, 5, and 1. The assignment is fully random each time you shuffle, so it's genuinely fair and nobody can accuse you of stacking a team.
How the randomness works
The team picker uses a Fisher-Yates shuffle — a well-known algorithm that guarantees every possible ordering of names has exactly equal probability. It's backed by your browser's cryptographic random number generator (the same source used for secure passwords), so the result is unpredictable and can't be gamed. Each click of "Make teams" produces an independent, fresh shuffle with no memory of previous results.
Real-world use cases
The most common uses: PE teachers splitting a class into teams for a game, coaches making practice squads from a roster, friends picking sides for a board game or party game like Pictionary or trivia. But people also use it for less obvious things: splitting a work team into breakout groups for a brainstorm, assigning secret santa partners, dividing volunteers into shifts, randomising which group presents first, or even making fair chore rotations at home. Anywhere you need to divide a list of people without it feeling biased, this tool does it in under five seconds.
Tips for getting the most out of it
Paste your names one per line — first names are fine, full names work too. Use "Remove duplicates" if you've accidentally entered someone twice. If you want to keep one particular pairing together, just treat them as one entry (e.g. "Alex + Sam") and split the rest. After generating, use the "Copy teams" button to paste results straight into a WhatsApp group, Slack channel, or classroom management tool. If the first split doesn't feel right, tap "Shuffle again" as many times as you like — it's free and instant.