Best club management software for football clubs: real 2026 pricing compared
Most comparisons of club software list features and skip the question that actually decides it: what will this cost your club per year once transaction fees are stacked on top of the subscription? We fetched every vendor's own pricing page and did the math.
Short answer
Best free option: Spond — no subscription, full team tools; it earns from a 2.5% + £0.20 fee on payments you collect through it.
Best all-in-one for UK multi-team clubs: Pitchero — website + membership + payments at £38–£99/month per club, plus payment fees.
Cheapest for collecting subs: SportMember Basic — free software, 1% + £0.35 per transaction.
Best for charity/CASC-status clubs: myClubhouse — £1.60 + VAT per member/year, and it adds no markup on payment processing.
The comparison table
Every figure below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, fetched on 2 September 2026. "Quote-based" means the vendor does not publish the price — which matters, because a volunteer treasurer comparing options in an evening can't get a quote in an evening.
| Platform | Software cost | Payment fees | Free tier — what's really included | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spond | £0 — no subscription tiers | 2.5% + £0.20 /transaction | Everything: teams, messaging, availability, events. The fee on collected payments is the business model. | Grassroots & youth clubs that want zero fixed cost |
| Pitchero | £0 / £38/mo / £99/mo | from 2.42% + 17p (Standard); from 1.67% + 15p (Pro) | 1 team, with third-party ads and no online payment collection | UK clubs wanting website + membership + payments in one place |
| TeamSnap | $0 / $9.99 / $17.99 per team/mo; club tier quote-based | Not published for consumer plans | Single team, basic scheduling and rosters | Individual team managers; US-leaning |
| SportMember | £0 (Basic) / $0.21 per user/mo, $25/mo min (PRO) | Basic: 1% + £0.35; PRO: 3% + $0.50 | Member management, calendar, parent profiles, basic comms | Multi-team clubs that mainly need cheap subs collection |
| Heja | $0 (ad-supported) / from $8.33 per team; Max quote-based | Not disclosed — payments appear to be tracked, not processed | Schedule, RSVP, messaging, docs — with ads shown to members | Youth teams prioritising simple comms |
| SpielerPlus | Free tier; Premium from €2.99 per player/mo or €9.99 per team/mo | Not published | Events, team management, carpooling, team treasury, chat | Clubs in Germany, Austria, Switzerland (German-language) |
| myClubhouse | £1.60 +VAT per member/yr (not-for-profit, min £256); £3.20 commercial; capped at 800+ members | None added — Stripe/PayPal/GoCardless pass through at their own rates | No free tier | Charity/CASC clubs wanting full membership admin, bookings, shop |
Currency note: TeamSnap, SportMember (PRO) and Heja publish prices in USD even for UK visitors, and SportMember's page mixes GBP and USD across sections. Confirm the billed currency before committing — it's a fair question to ask any vendor that can't state your price in pounds.
What a 300-member club actually pays per year
The honest comparison isn't the subscription price — it's subscription plus payment fees on the money you collect. Take a realistic club: 300 members, each paying £120 in annual subs, collected online in one transaction each (£36,000 total through the platform).
| Platform & plan | Software /yr | Payment fees /yr | All-in /yr | The arithmetic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SportMember Basic | £0 | £465 | ~£465 | 300 × (£120 × 1% + £0.35) |
| Spond | £0 | £960 | ~£960 | 300 × (£120 × 2.5% + £0.20) |
| myClubhouse (not-for-profit) | £576 incl. VAT | Stripe's own rates | ~£576 + processor fees | 300 × £1.60 × 1.2 VAT; no platform markup on payments |
| Pitchero Standard | £456 | £922 | ~£1,378 | £38 × 12, plus 300 × (£120 × 2.42% + £0.17) |
Three things jump out. First, "free" platforms are not free — Spond costs this club nearly a grand a year, taken invisibly from collected subs. Second, the cheapest collector (SportMember Basic) is roughly a third of the cost of the most expensive option here. Third, Pitchero's premium isn't waste if you actually use what it bundles — a club website, lottery and fundraising tools, ticketing — but you should price that bundle against what you use, not against "free".
Fees can usually be passed on to members instead of absorbed by the club (Spond supports this explicitly). That doesn't make the cost disappear — it moves it onto parents — but it changes whose budget it hits.
Each platform, honestly
Spond — the default free choice, with an invisible price
The full team toolkit — availability, messaging, events, club-wide admin via Spond Club — carries no subscription at all, and its GDPR posture is a genuine strength for youth clubs. The trade-off is budgeting opacity: there is no published subscription to compare, because the economics sit in the 2.5% + £0.20 taken from every payment you collect. Fine at small scale; worth doing the math above once your club collects serious subs volume.
Pitchero — the UK all-in-one
Per-club (not per-member) pricing: free for one team, £38/month for up to 20 teams, £99/month unlimited. What the free tier conspicuously lacks is online payment collection — the thing most clubs come for — and it carries third-party ads. The Standard plan's payment fee (from 2.42% + 17p) stacks on the subscription, which is why it comes out most expensive in our worked example. What you get for it: a proper club website, membership, lottery, fundraising and ticketing in one login.
TeamSnap — fine for one team, opaque for a club
Free to start for a single team, $9.99–$17.99/month per team beyond that. The problem for clubs: the whole-organisation tier is quote-based, and payment processing rates aren't published for consumer plans. If you're a twelve-team club, per-team pricing multiplies fast and you can't compare costs without a sales call.
SportMember — the cheap collector
Basic is free software with the lowest published collection fee here (1% + £0.35). PRO adds features at $0.21 per user/month with a $25/month floor — note that floor makes small clubs pay proportionally more. The pricing page mixing GBP and USD is sloppy; confirm your currency.
Heja — comms first, payments unclear
Clean free tier for youth-team communication, but it's ad-supported — the ads show to your members, not just admins. "Payments" in the paid tier reads as payment tracking rather than processing, and neither the top-tier price nor any transaction fee is published. Good comms tool; not a subs-collection tool on current public information.
SpielerPlus — if you're in the DACH market
The amateur-football market leader in Germany/Austria/Switzerland (4m+ users). Free tier is generous — including a team treasury feature — with Premium from €2.99 per player or €9.99 per team monthly. German-language first; not a serious option for UK clubs.
myClubhouse — pay per member, keep the payment fees
The opposite philosophy: no free tier, £1.60 + VAT per member/year for not-for-profits (minimum £256 + VAT, capped once you pass 800 members) — but it adds zero markup on payments, passing Stripe/PayPal/GoCardless through at cost. For a charity or CASC club collecting significant subs, the transparent flat licence plus raw processor fees can beat every "free" platform above. It's also the fullest membership-admin system here: bookings, competitions, shop, access control. One more thing worth knowing: it runs a referral scheme (8% of a referred club's licence credited to your renewal), which tells you how it grows — treasurer word of mouth.
How to choose: five questions before you commit
- What's the all-in cost of collecting our subs? Subscription + per-transaction fee × your actual payment volume, and decide who absorbs the fee. Run our 300-member table with your own numbers.
- Does it handle youth members properly? Parental consent flows, under-18 data controls, safeguarding record storage. Most grassroots clubs are majority-youth; this is not optional.
- Can a volunteer parent run it? Volunteer turnover is high and support lands on the secretary. If the platform needs training, it needs re-training every season.
- Per member, per team, or per club? Per-team pricing multiplies against a growing club; per-member pricing scales smoothly; per-club flat rates favour big clubs.
- Is the price published? Quote-based club tiers (TeamSnap's club level, Heja's top tier) mean you can't comparison-shop. Treat unpublished pricing as a cost in itself.
FAQ
Is free club software actually free?
No platform is free once you collect money through it. Spond takes 2.5% + £0.20 per transaction; SportMember Basic takes 1% + £0.35; Pitchero's free tier simply doesn't let you collect payments online. The only question is whether you pay via subscription, via transaction fees, or both.
What does club management software cost for a small club?
A one-team outfit can genuinely run on £0 software cost (Spond, Pitchero Free, TeamSnap Free) and only pay transaction fees when collecting money. A 300-member club should budget roughly £450–£1,400 per year all-in depending on platform — see the worked table above.
Which platform is best for a club with lots of teams?
Avoid per-team pricing (TeamSnap, Heja) — it multiplies. Pitchero Standard covers up to 20 teams for one £38/month fee; SportMember and myClubhouse price per member, which scales with club size rather than team count.
Can we pass payment fees on to members?
Often yes — Spond explicitly supports charging the fee to the payer instead of the club. Check the setting before your first collection run, and tell parents in advance; a surprise 2.5% surcharge generates more committee email than it's worth.
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Sources
All vendor pricing fetched directly from vendor pages on 2 September 2026:
- Spond — pricing
- Pitchero — pricing
- TeamSnap — pricing
- SportMember — club subscriptions
- Heja — pricing
- SpielerPlus — Premium
- myClubhouse — pricing
Vendors change prices without notice; if you spot a discrepancy, the vendor's page wins and we'd like to know. This guide contains no paid placements; if that ever changes, placements will be labeled.