Two Good Apps - and Why Clubs Still Go Looking
If you run basketball in the UK, you have almost certainly met TeamStats and Spond. Both are deservedly popular, both have generous free tiers, and for a large number of teams they are all the technology you will ever need. So let us be fair before we get to alternatives: neither is a bad choice, and this is not a takedown of either.
TeamStats is a genuinely good, free team-management app. It handles player stats, fixtures, availability and lineups, and it does so cleanly - which is why so many basketball teams reach for it. If your priority is tracking performance and organising matches for a single team, it is excellent. Spond, meanwhile, is outstanding free scheduling and group chat. Its "who's available Saturday?" RSVP and its team chat are about as good as grassroots software gets, and Spond Club admin is free on top of that. For a single team that just wants to organise and communicate, Spond is hard to beat.
So why do clubs go looking for something else? Almost always because they stop being a team and become a club - several squads, a committee, a treasurer, an annual registration round and real money moving every month. At that point the honest gaps start to show, and they are the same gaps in both apps: each is built around a team rather than a whole club. On payments, Spond's public club website is a paid add-on and it has no Direct Debit; TeamStats is stats-and-fixtures-first rather than a whole-club payments, membership and compliance system. Neither leads on collecting subs by Direct Debit, on a branded club app of your own, on a free club website, or on Gift Aid. None of that makes them bad - it just means they were built for a different job from the one a growing club now has.
A disclosure up front: one of the alternatives below, Teamo, is built by Sportplan Ltd - the same company behind this website. We have an obvious interest in you liking it, so we have tried hard to be fair to TeamStats and Spond and to tell you plainly where each of them is the better choice. Read the recommendation with that in mind, and try a couple before you commit.
What a Whole-Club App Needs to Do
Before comparing alternatives, it helps to be clear about what changes when a team becomes a club. The job stops being "organise one squad" and becomes "run one community". Use this checklist to judge any option against what your club - not just your best team - actually needs.
The Whole-Club Checklist
- One membership register: every member, every team, in one place - not a separate group per squad.
- Subs by Direct Debit: recurring subs collected automatically, with reminders, rather than chased by hand. Direct Debit is cheaper and more reliable than card for regular payments.
- A branded club app: your club's own app and newsfeed, so members feel part of one community rather than scattered across group chats.
- A free club website: a public shop window for new members and parents, without paying a separate web bill.
- Gift Aid: if you are a charity or CASC, can the platform help you reclaim Gift Aid on eligible subs and donations?
- Safeguarding & data: for junior basketball especially, who can message whom, and is the platform built with child protection in mind?
- Fees that suit you: ads or no ads, member limits, and the percentage taken on each payment - small differences add up across a season.
With that lens, here are the alternatives worth your time.
1. Teamo - Whole-Club from Day One
To repeat the disclosure plainly: Teamo is made by Sportplan, the company behind this site, so weigh what follows accordingly. What makes it different from TeamStats and Spond is that it was built whole-club from day one - your own branded club app with a single Club Newsfeed, one membership register and a free club website - rather than starting life as a team app and adding a club layer later.
Teamo is free for up to 25 members with no adverts. Within that free tier you get the things that make a club feel like one community: your own branded club app and Club Newsfeed, one membership register, online registration with GDPR consents, multiple teams, a treasurer Payment Centre and a free club website - the public shop window a club would otherwise pay separately for. Above 25 members you choose a paid plan (from around £9.99 a month) or an ad-funded free plan.
On payments, Teamo runs TeamoPay. Card is 2.5% + 20p - identical to Spond's card rate - while Direct Debit is 2% + 20p, a lower percentage that is cheaper for recurring subs and, notably, something neither Spond nor TeamStats offers. But the real difference is collection. Teamo builds live payment status straight into the team sheet coaches use at selection, so an unpaid balance surfaces at the point of selection rather than in an awkward chase - this "no-pay-no-play" visibility is how clubs using it collect the large majority of the subs they are owed. And it does it privately: team managers see only a treasurer "traffic-light" health indicator, never who individually has or hasn't paid. For the treasurer, auto-pay bundling packages subs, session fees and events into one payment - saving the fixed 20p on each extra charge - and payments post automatically to Xero, so there is no spreadsheet to reconcile. Fees are quoted at the time of writing and change over time, so check current rates before deciding.
There is also Gift Aid automation: Teamo files the HMRC Gift Aid claim for you via a partner API. Separately - and not to be confused with Gift Aid - Teamo Rewards, its fundraising extension, can earn a club around £10 to £15 per adult member per season. Teamo is also mobile-first, with roughly nine in ten members using it on a phone, and it carries a safeguarding pedigree that matters for junior basketball: it was nominated best safeguarding app by England Athletics' Head of Safeguarding, and its chats are child-safe with guardian visibility. Because it comes from Sportplan, the coaching drills library behind this site sits naturally alongside the club admin. If your club has outgrown a single-team app, you can explore how Teamo runs the whole club.
Where Teamo wins: a branded club app and newsfeed, a free club website, Direct Debit, auto-pay bundling, Xero, Gift Aid automation and a safeguarding record - the whole-club features TeamStats and Spond either charge for or do not offer.
Where it falls short, honestly: it is a bigger system than a single team needs. The 25-member free cap is real, and a busy club will cross it and face a choice between a paid plan or ads. And to be plain: a single team that just wants to track stats may prefer TeamStats, and a single team that just wants a scheduler and chat may prefer Spond. Pick the tool that fits the job you actually have.
2. Staying with TeamStats - and When It Is the Right Call
It is worth saying clearly: for a lot of teams, the right alternative to switching is not switching at all. TeamStats is a strong, free team-management app, and if your need really is "track our players' stats and organise our fixtures for one team", it does that well and you may not need anything more.
Where TeamStats wins: player stats and performance tracking, fixtures, availability and lineups, all in a clean free tier that basketball teams genuinely like. For a single team focused on the on-court side, it is an easy recommendation.
Where it falls short for a club: it is stats-and-fixtures-first, not a whole-club payments, membership and compliance system. It does not lead on collecting subs by Direct Debit, a branded club app, a free club website or Gift Aid. The moment your treasurer is chasing subs across several teams, or you want one membership register and one public website, you have outgrown what it was built to do.
3. Staying with Spond - and When It Is the Right Call
The same fairness applies to Spond. If you coach one team and all you want is to ask "who's in on Saturday?" and message everyone in one place, Spond is superb and free, and Spond Club admin is free too. Do not move off it for the sake of it.
Where Spond wins: clean, instantly understood scheduling, availability and group chat, free and ad-free for a single team, with free Spond Club admin on top. For a one-team setup that will never take a payment, it is arguably the best free choice there is.
Where it falls short for a club: on payments it is card and digital-wallet only at around 2.5% + 20p, with no Direct Debit for recurring subs, and its public club website is a paid add-on rather than part of the free tier. There is no branded club app of your own and no Gift Aid. For one team none of that matters; for a club building one community, it is exactly what people end up missing.
4. All-in-One Club Platforms in General
Beyond the named apps sits a wider category of all-in-one club platforms - membership, payments, registration, websites and communication bundled together. Teamo is one of these; there are others aimed at clubs of every size. As a category they make sense once you are unmistakably a club rather than a team: several squads, a committee, a treasurer, an annual registration round.
The trade-off is consistent across the category. You gain a single system that replaces the spreadsheet, the separate website and the manual subs-chasing - but you take on a little setup time, and you should check the free-tier limits and whether the "free" plan carries adverts. The honest rule of thumb: a single team rarely needs this; a multi-team club almost always benefits from it.
When to Move to a Whole-Club App
You do not have to switch the moment you have two teams. But there are clear signals that you have outgrown a single-team app, whichever one you are on. If several of these ring true, it is time to look at a whole-club platform.
Signs You've Outgrown a Team App
- More than one team: you are running separate groups per squad and nobody sees the club as one community.
- A treasurer chasing subs: someone is manually reconciling payments across teams and re-sending reminders every month.
- You want recurring subs: termly or monthly subs would be far easier on Direct Debit than card-by-card.
- You need a public face: new members and parents have nowhere to find you, and you do not want to pay for a separate website.
- You're a charity or CASC: there is Gift Aid sitting unclaimed on eligible subs and donations.
- Safeguarding is on the committee agenda: junior teams need child-safe messaging with guardian visibility, not an open group chat.
If only one or two apply, stay where you are - TeamStats or Spond is likely still the right fit. If most apply, a whole-club app will pay back the setup time within a season.
A Note on Fixtures and Affiliation
Whichever tool you choose, be clear about what it is not. None of these apps is your governing-body record. Basketball England affiliation, club registration and your league's official results and standings remain the system of record. A club app complements those - it gives you a shared calendar, availability and reminders for your own fixtures and training, and handles your day-to-day communication, money and membership - but it does not sync with or replace your league's results platform. Keep both running and do not confuse the two.
So Which Should You Pick?
Strip away the detail and it comes down to scale and what you actually need:
A Quick Decision Guide
- One team, mainly tracking stats and fixtures: TeamStats. Free, capable and built for exactly that.
- One team, mainly scheduling and chat, never paying a penny: Spond. Free, ad-free and excellent at the core job.
- A club building one community - a branded club app, a free public website, Direct Debit subs, Gift Aid: a whole-club platform earns its place. Teamo adds those on top of multiple teams and a treasurer, free to 25 members - just remember we make it, and try a couple.
- A larger or growing club: compare all-in-one platforms on member limits, ads and payment fees, and budget for a paid tier as you grow past the free caps.
The admin tool is only ever half the job. Once who-is-paid and who-is-available runs itself, the evenings go back into coaching. If you want to dig deeper, our roundup of the best free basketball club apps compares the wider field, the guide to setting subs and session fees covers the money side in detail, and our fixtures and league scheduling guide walks through organising your season. When you are ready to plan a session, browse the full Basketball drills library for hundreds of practices sorted by skill.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is TeamStats free?
Yes, TeamStats has a genuinely useful free tier and is popular with basketball teams for good reason. It handles player stats, fixtures, availability and lineups well, and for a single team that mainly wants to track performance and organise matches it does the job at no cost. Its paid options remove adverts and add extras, but the core team-management features most squads use are free. Where it stops short is whole-club admin - it is built around a team and its stats rather than collecting subs by Direct Debit, running a branded club app or giving the whole club one membership system.
Does Spond support Direct Debit?
No. Spond is excellent free scheduling and group chat, and Spond Club admin is free too, but on payments it is card and digital-wallet only, at around 2.5% plus 20p per transaction. It does not offer Direct Debit, which is the cheaper and more reliable way to collect recurring subs. Spond's public club website is also a paid add-on rather than part of the free tier. For a single team that just wants to schedule and chat, none of that matters; for a club collecting termly or monthly subs it is exactly what people end up wanting.
What's a good alternative to TeamStats or Spond for a basketball club?
If you have outgrown a single team and want one system for the whole club, look at a club-first platform. Teamo - made by Sportplan, the company behind this site, so weigh that accordingly - is built whole-club from day one and adds the things TeamStats and Spond do not lead on: Direct Debit subs, a branded club app, a free club website, one membership register and Gift Aid automation. It is free up to 25 members with no ads. But be honest about fit: a single team that only wants stats may still prefer TeamStats, and a single team that only wants a scheduler and chat may still prefer Spond. Try a couple before you commit.
Can I move my club to another app?
Yes, and most clubs do it between seasons. Export your member list and payment records from your current app, then import or re-enter them in the new one and invite members to join. Plan the switch for the close season so there is no live fixture list or collection running mid-changeover, give parents a couple of weeks' notice, and keep the old app read-only until everyone has moved across. None of these apps locks your data away - your members and your records are yours to take with you.
