Here is what changed in 2026, what the published fee schedules actually say, and what it looks like when your club owns the Stripe account instead.
Most boards do not go shopping for registration software. They go shopping after something specific happens: a fee schedule shows up that nobody can explain to a parent, a payment plan costs a family more than paying in full did, or the treasurer realizes the club cannot see its own money until a disbursement lands.
If that is where you are, this page is the honest version. It uses published numbers, it names its sources, and it does not claim we are the cheapest option. We are not, and that is not the argument.
In May 2026, PlayMetrics, Stack Sports (which owns Sports Connect, Blue Sombrero, and GotSport), and SportsEngine came under a single private-equity owner. That is a public, reported fact, and it is worth stating plainly because it changes the shape of the market rather than any one product.
Three of the largest names a youth club would have shortlisted are now one company. If your board thought it was comparing three vendors, in several cases it is now comparing three brands with one owner, one roadmap, and one pricing committee.
That is not an accusation. Consolidation happens, and scale can be good for a product. But it does change the answer to a question boards should be asking anyway: if this platform raises its take next season, what is our actual alternative, and how hard is it to leave?
SportsEngine HQ sits around $799 per year for the club tier, with a tiered take on payments that lands roughly between 3.2% and 4.5% plus a dollar or two per transaction, per its published fee schedule and the fee schedules clubs publish to their own families. Those are their numbers, not our estimate of their numbers.
The part most boards miss is what happens to a payment plan. Per SportsEngine’s published fee schedule, a $100 registration split into three payments carries an effective fee of 9.25%, because the fixed per-transaction portion of the fee is charged again on every installment. Same registration, same total, roughly triple the fixed fee.
The families who choose installments are, almost by definition, the families for whom the number matters most. A fee structure that charges them the most for that choice is worth understanding before you sign, whichever platform you end up on.
Clubside never repeats a fee across installments. Two-pay and three-pay cost a family exactly what paying in full costs. That is a product decision, not a promotion, and it is written on our pricing page.
On most club platforms, the platform is the merchant of record. Registration money is collected into the platform’s account and disbursed back to your club on the platform’s schedule, minus its fees. Your club sees a payout, not a payment. Chargebacks, refund timing, and payout timing are all decisions someone else makes.
Clubside works the other way around. Your organization connects its own Stripe account and stays the merchant of record. Money from a registration lands in your club’s bank on Stripe’s schedule. Nobody holds it in between, and nobody has to release it back to you. If you leave Clubside, the Stripe account and its history stay yours, and you can export your data on the way out.
This is the whole positioning in one sentence: we would rather be a piece of software your club can fire than a place your club’s money lives.
Travel clubs do not run on one pot of money. The 12U team has its own budget, its own tournament entries, and its own parents asking what happened to their $200. Most platforms pool everything into one organization account and hand the treasurer a spreadsheet problem.
Across the ten platforms benchmarked in July 2026, none offered per-team payout routing. Clubside routes each team’s registration money to that team’s own connected Stripe account, at the moment of payment. The head coach sees their team’s balance. The board sees all of it. Nobody reconciles anything by hand.
Miami Valley Xpress, a ten-team Ohio travel fastpitch club, runs its season this way on Clubside today.
If you are a state association or a national governing body that needs sanctioning, background-check infrastructure, and a compliance suite that ties into a larger ecosystem, SportsEngine is built for that and Clubside is not. We are not pretending otherwise.
If you need scorekeeping, live stats, or streaming, use GameChanger and keep using it. We do not compete there and have no plans to.
Clubside is for a club that wants registration, documents, invoicing, and payment plans to work correctly, and wants to own the bank account underneath all of it. If that is not your problem, we are not your answer.
The honest version: about a week of calendar time and a couple of hours of yours. You send me your team list, your age cutoff date, and last season’s registration form in whatever format you have it, including a PDF or a Google Form. I build the registration inside Clubside and send it back ready to open.
Your head coaches connect their team Stripe accounts, which takes each of them about ten minutes. Then you open registration. There is no data migration project, because rosters come over as a file and payment history stays wherever it already lives.
Clubs usually switch between seasons, which is also when this is easiest. If you are mid-season, wait. It is not worth the disruption.
Their column reflects their own published figures. Ours reflects what is on our pricing page. We are not the cheapest option in this category, and we do not claim to be.
| SportsEngine | Clubside | |
|---|---|---|
| Software cost | About $799 per year for the club tier, per its published fee schedule | Free Starter, $49 per month for Club, $99 per month for Pro, all listed publicly |
| Take on payments | Tiered and bundled, roughly 3.2% to 4.5% plus $1 to $2 per transaction | $3.50 per registration paid by the family and capped at $7 per family per season, plus a platform percentage by plan |
| Card processing | Bundled into the rate above | Stripe’s published 2.9% + $0.30, paid directly to Stripe on your own account, no markup from us |
| Payment plans | Per its published fee schedule, a $100 three-pay carries an effective 9.25% because the fixed fee repeats per installment | Same cost as paying in full. Fees are never repeated per installment |
| Merchant of record | The platform | Your organization, on its own Stripe account |
| Per-team payout routing | No | Yes, per payment, to each team’s own connected account |
| Pricing visibility | Partially published, club tier typically quoted | Every fee on clubside.io/pricing |
| Ownership | Part of a single private-equity-owned group since May 2026 | Independent, founder-run, and answering its own email |
Sources: Figures for SportsEngine come from its published fee schedule and from fee schedules clubs publish to their own families, verified July 2026. Clubside’s figures are the ones published on clubside.io/pricing. Consolidation reporting refers to the May 2026 combination of PlayMetrics, Stack Sports, and SportsEngine under one private-equity owner.
Your organization connects its own Stripe account and stays the merchant of record. Registration money lands in your bank, and the account stays yours if you leave.
Each payment lands in the paying player’s team account at the moment of the charge. Head coaches see their team’s balance. Nobody reconciles a pooled account by hand.
$3.50 per registration paid by the family and capped at $7 per family per season, a platform percentage by plan, and Stripe’s published rate paid straight to Stripe.
What we are not: a scorekeeping or streaming app, a website builder, or a governing-body compliance suite. If that is what you need, buy that instead. Clubside is registration, documents, invoicing, and payment plans on an account your club owns.
It depends on what is driving the switch. If you want your club to be the merchant of record on its own Stripe account, with money routed to each team and every fee published, Clubside is built for exactly that. If you need governing-body compliance tooling, SportsEngine is still the stronger fit.
Per its published fee schedule, SportsEngine HQ runs about $799 per year for the club tier, with a tiered take on payments in the range of 3.2% to 4.5% plus $1 to $2 per transaction. Club-tier pricing is often quoted rather than listed, so ask for your number in writing.
On platforms that charge a fixed per-transaction fee, yes. Per SportsEngine’s published fee schedule, a $100 registration split into three payments carries an effective fee of 9.25%. Clubside does not repeat fees across installments, so a payment plan costs a family the same as paying in full.
That is not the claim we make, and the answer depends entirely on your registration volume, your plan, and who bears the fee. Both sets of numbers are published, ours on clubside.io/pricing, so run them for your own club. What we do claim is that your organization owns the Stripe account, money routes to each team, and no fee is hidden from you or from your families.
You can, but we usually tell clubs not to. Switch between seasons. Rosters import from a file, registration setup takes about a week of calendar time, and head coaches each need about ten minutes to connect their team Stripe account.
The demo is a real club with real data and no login. Or start free and I will help you set up your registration myself.