TeamSnap vs SportsEngine vs Clubside (2026)

If you are choosing sports management software as a volunteer, you will almost certainly end up comparing TeamSnap, SportsEngine, and Clubside. They sit at different points on the spectrum from big-organization platform to lightweight club tool. This is a straight three-way comparison across the things that actually decide the bill: pricing model, processing fees, contracts, and who each one really fits. Where a number is not public, we say so rather than guess.

Pricing model

TeamSnap. Club and league pricing is no longer published; TeamSnap now quotes it custom, so you have to contact sales. Its last published club price was $199/month. Individual team plans are separate: a free tier capped at 15 members, Premium at $15.99/month, and Ultra at $21.99/month.

SportsEngine. Subscription tiers, based on third-party listings, run about $79/month (Express), $129/month (Premium), and around $2,199/year (Pro).

Clubside. Published and flat: free Starter (one team, 25 players), Club at $49/month, Pro at $99/month. No custom quote required.

One ownership note that belongs in this section, because it is public and it changes the shape of the list. 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 reported fact, not an accusation. But if your board thought it was shortlisting several independent vendors, in several cases it is now comparing brands with one owner, one roadmap, and one pricing committee.

Processing fees

Here is what each one charges on a single registration, as published:

TeamSnap: 3.25% + $1.50 per transaction, per its published payment-processing documentation.

SportsEngine: a management fee of 3.25% + $2.00 per transaction, per its published help documentation, charged on top of the monthly subscription.

Clubside: two separate line items rather than one blended rate. Card processing is Stripe's published 2.9% + $0.30, paid directly to Stripe on your own connected account with no markup from us. On top of that sits a Clubside platform percentage, listed by plan on clubside.io/pricing.

We show ours split in two on purpose. A blended rate hides which part is the card network and which part is the software, and a treasurer explaining a fee to a parent needs to be able to point at each piece.

One question to ask all three before you sign: what happens on a payment plan. On some platforms the fixed per-transaction portion of the fee is charged again on every installment, so a three-pay costs a family roughly triple the fixed fee for the same registration. Clubside never repeats a fee across installments, so two-pay and three-pay cost exactly what paying in full costs.

One decision applies to all three: whether your organization absorbs the processing fee or passes it to families at checkout. Passing it on is common and legal in most states, but families do notice, so make that choice deliberately rather than by default.

Contracts and commitment

TeamSnap. Club plans have historically required an annual commitment, and annual plans are non-refundable. Confirm current terms in your quote.

SportsEngine. Sold on annual terms, and some users report friction cancelling before the plan auto-renews. Read the renewal clause carefully.

Clubside. Month to month, cancel anytime, no setup fees. The free Starter plan has no credit card requirement at all.

One note on transparency that applies across the board: before you sign anything, walk your own registration form to the final checkout screen as a parent would and look at what the total says. A fee that only appears on the last screen is a fee your families will call you about. That is worth checking on every platform you consider, including this one.

Who Holds the Money

Pricing pages do not answer this one, and it is usually what actually bothers a treasurer.

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. Refund timing, chargeback handling, and payout timing are all decisions someone else makes, and if you ever leave, the payment history goes with the platform.

Clubside works the other way around. Your organization connects its own Stripe account and stays the merchant of record. A registration lands in your club's bank account 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.

For a multi-team club there is a second piece. 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 where their $200 went. Clubside routes each team's registration money to that team's own connected Stripe account at the moment of payment, so the head coach sees their team's balance and the board sees all of it without anyone reconciling by hand. Miami Valley Xpress, a ten-team Ohio travel fastpitch club, runs its season this way today.

Whichever platform you pick, ask the question in those words: who is the merchant of record, and whose bank account does a registration land in?

Best fit for each

Choose TeamSnap if brand familiarity and its communication tools and app matter most, or if you manage a single team and its free or low-cost team plans cover you. Its team-level product is genuinely strong.

Choose SportsEngine if you run a large sanctioned league that needs governing-body and eligibility integrations, a very deep feature set, and national-scale support. It is built for organizations far bigger than the typical volunteer club.

Choose Clubside if you run a volunteer club or league with roughly 1 to 50 teams, want to start free, want every fee published before a family reaches checkout, and want your organization to own the Stripe account underneath all of it. It concentrates on registration, payments, and rosters, and it routes each team's money to that team.

The Bottom Line

There is no single winner, only a best fit. Big sanctioned organizations get their money's worth from SportsEngine. Single teams do fine on TeamSnap. For the volunteer running a local club, the combination of a free tier, a published fee schedule, month-to-month billing, and a Stripe account the club actually owns is why clubs are moving to Clubside.

One practical point ties it together: the only one of the three you can price out completely today, without talking to sales, is Clubside. TeamSnap quotes club pricing custom and SportsEngine layers a management fee onto its subscription, so both take some digging to evaluate honestly. Whatever you choose, get the full number in writing before your families see a checkout screen.

Want the deeper one-on-one breakdowns? See our TeamSnap alternative post and our SportsEngine alternative comparison at clubside.io/compare/sportsengine-alternative. Ready to try it? Create your organization free at clubside.io/get-started, no credit card required.