The Job You Are Actually Trying to Solve
If you run a hockey team, your phone never stops. Someone has dropped out for Saturday. Three players still have not paid match fees. The fixture has been moved to a different astro and half the squad missed the message in a chat that is 200 notifications deep. None of this is coaching - it is admin, and it is the reason so many volunteers burn out after a couple of seasons.
The encouraging news in 2026 is that the tools to take this off your plate are genuinely good and genuinely free, at least at the size most clubs operate. This guide compares the realistic options: Teamo, Spond, Pitchero, and the timeless WhatsApp-plus-a-spreadsheet baseline. We will be straight about where each one wins and where it does not.
A disclosure up front: 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 and to tell you plainly where a rival is the better choice. Read the recommendation with that in mind, and try a couple before you commit.
What to Look For in a Free Hockey App
Before comparing names, it helps to know what actually matters. "Free" covers a lot of ground - some tools are free for a single team but charge a club, some are free but ad-funded, some are free up to a member limit. Use this checklist to judge any option against what your team or club really needs.
The Free-App Checklist
- Availability & selection: Can players RSVP to training and matches in one tap, and can you build a team sheet from who's in? This is the single most useful feature for a captain or coach.
- Group communication: A proper team chat that keeps important notices separate from the chatter - not just another WhatsApp scroll.
- Fixtures & results: Hockey lives and dies by the fixture list. Does it pull fixtures, venue changes and results automatically, or are you re-typing them from England Hockey's system by hand?
- Payments: Can it collect subs and match fees, send reminders automatically, and ideally take recurring Direct Debit (cheaper than card for regular subs)?
- Ads or no ads: A free tier funded by adverts shown to your players and their parents is not really free - it is paid in attention. Check this.
- Member limit: Is "free" capped at a number of members, and what happens when you cross it?
- One team or a whole club: Do you need a single-team chat, or whole-club tools - multiple teams, a treasurer, online registration, a website?
- Safeguarding & data: For junior hockey especially, who can message whom, and is the platform built with child-protection in mind?
With that lens, here are the options worth your time.
1. Spond - Brilliant for a Single Team
Spond has become the default free scheduler for grassroots teams across the UK, and for good reason. Its core - availability, scheduling and group chat - is free, ad-free, and crucially has no member cap for a single team. If you run one hockey side and all you want is to ask "who's in on Saturday?" and message everyone in one place, Spond does that beautifully and costs nothing.
Where Spond wins: A clean, well-designed RSVP and chat experience that players and parents pick up instantly. No member limit on the free team tier and no adverts. To be fair, its free Spond Club admin also covers multiple teams and a treasurer view at any size, so that part is not paid either. For a setup that will never take payments, it is arguably the best free choice available.
Where it falls short: Spond grew up as a team app. The paid part is Spond's public club website builder; on payments it is card and digital-wallet only at about 2.5% + 20p, with no Direct Debit for recurring subs. There is no branded club app of your own, no Gift Aid, and - the one that bites hockey clubs - no automatic fixture sync from England Hockey, so your fixtures and venue changes are re-typed by hand. For one team none of that matters; for a club building one community, it is exactly what people end up missing.
2. Pitchero - Strong for a Club Website and League Pages
Pitchero has been a fixture in grassroots club software for years, and its real strength is the public face of a club. If your priority is a polished club website, news pages, team pages and tidy league tables that a passer-by can find on Google, Pitchero does that job well and has a free tier to start from.
Where Pitchero wins: club websites and league pages. For a club that mainly wants a credible online presence - somewhere fixtures, results and news live publicly - it is a genuinely strong option and we would not pretend otherwise.
Where it falls short: the day-to-day, in-your-pocket experience is less the focus, and payments are card-based rather than offering the cheaper Direct Debit route for recurring subs. As with the others, it is not the official record either - England Hockey affiliation and GMS remain that. If a public website is your main need, Pitchero deserves a look; if it is weekly selection, payment-chasing and fixtures syncing themselves, weigh it against the club-first apps.
3. Teamo - Free for the Whole Club, Made by Sportplan
To repeat the disclosure plainly: Teamo is made by Sportplan, the company behind this site. So weigh what follows accordingly. What makes Teamo different is that it was built club-first - 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 rather than a set of groups: your own branded club app with a single Club Newsfeed, one membership register, a treasurer Payment Centre, multiple teams, online registration, and a free club website - the public shop window a club would otherwise pay separately for. It is mobile-first - around 90% of use is on a phone, so you can run the whole club from your pocket with no desktop. Above 25 members you choose a paid plan (from around £9.99 a month) or an ad-funded free plan.
The standout for hockey specifically is fixtures. Teamo offers automatic fixture sync from England Hockey's Game Management System (GMS): fixtures, time and venue changes and results pull through on their own, so you are not re-typing the league's data into a second place every week. For a sport where the fixture list is the whole organising principle of a Saturday, this is the genuine hockey win.
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, an option Spond and Pitchero (both card-based) do not offer. But the real differentiator is collection. Teamo builds live payment status straight into the team-selection views captains already use each week, so unpaid balances surface at the point of selection rather than in an awkward chase - which is how clubs using it collect the large majority of the subs they are owed. And it does it privately: managers see only a treasurer 'traffic-light' health indicator, never who individually has or hasn't paid. For the treasurer specifically, autopay bundles subs, match fees and events into one payment (saving the fixed 20p per extra charge), and payments post automatically to Xero, so there is no spreadsheet to reconcile. There is also Gift Aid automation: Teamo files the HMRC Gift Aid claim for you via a partner integration. Separately - and this is a different thing entirely - Teamo Rewards, its fundraising extension, can earn a club around £10 to £15 per adult member per season.
It also carries a safeguarding pedigree that matters for junior hockey - it was nominated best safeguarding app by England Athletics' Head of Safeguarding, with child-safe chats kept under guardian visibility - and because it comes from Sportplan, the coaching drills library behind this site sits naturally alongside the club admin. If a small club's free tools are worth a closer look, you can see how Teamo runs the whole club from one app.
Where Teamo wins: a branded club app and newsfeed, a free club website, England Hockey GMS fixture sync, Direct Debit, autopay bundling, Xero, Gift Aid automation and a safeguarding record - the whole-club features the others either charge for or do not offer.
Where it falls short, honestly: the 25-member free cap is real - a busy club will cross it and face a choice between a paid plan or ads. And for a single team that only wants a chat and a scheduler and will never take a payment, Teamo is more platform than you need; Spond's lighter, uncapped free team tier may simply suit you better.
4. WhatsApp + a Spreadsheet - The Free Baseline
Let us not pretend the apps invented team admin. For decades the default was a group chat and a shared spreadsheet, and for a brand-new team it is still a perfectly reasonable start. WhatsApp handles the chatter, a Google Sheet tracks who has paid and who is available, and the whole thing costs nothing and needs no sign-ups.
Where it wins: truly free, universal - everyone already has WhatsApp - and zero learning curve. For a team's first season while you find your feet, it is hard to argue against.
Where it falls short: everything is manual. The spreadsheet will not chase a single unpaid sub or send a single reminder; that is you, every week, in person. Availability means re-asking the whole group and counting thumbs-up emojis by hand. Fixtures and venue changes get copied across from the league site one at a time. Important notices vanish into the scroll. And mixing parents, players and coaches in one open chat raises real safeguarding questions for junior squads. Most teams outgrow it within a season or two - but there is no shame in starting there.
One Thing No App Replaces
Whichever tool you choose, be clear about what it is not. None of these apps is your governing-body record. England Hockey affiliation and the Game Management System (GMS) remain the official system of record for fixtures, results and registration. A club app complements those - it handles your day-to-day communication, money and membership, and in Teamo's case pulls the GMS data through automatically so you are not duplicating it - but it does not replace your affiliation or GMS itself. 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 most need:
A Quick Decision Guide
- One team, no payments, never paying a penny: Spond. Free, ad-free, uncapped, and excellent at the core job.
- A public website and league pages above all: Pitchero is genuinely strong here and worth a look.
- A whole club building one community - a shared club app, a free website, Direct Debit subs, Gift Aid and fixtures that sync from GMS: a club-first 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 brand-new team finding its feet: WhatsApp and a spreadsheet. Free, instant, and fine until the manual chasing wears you down.
The admin tool is only ever half the job, of course. Once who-is-paid and who-is-available runs itself, the evenings go back into coaching. If you want help there, our guide to setting hockey subs and match fees covers the money side in detail, and the how to run a junior hockey team guide walks through the whole season. When you are ready to plan a session, browse the full Hockey drills library for hundreds of practices sorted by skill.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a free hockey team app?
Yes - several. Spond gives a single team free scheduling, availability and group chat with no member cap and no ads, which is plenty for one team that will never need payments or accounts. Teamo, the club app from the Sportplan team, is free for up to 25 members with no ads and adds your own branded club app, a free club website and Direct Debit collection from day one, plus automatic fixture sync from England Hockey's Game Management System. And the oldest free option of all still works for a small squad: a WhatsApp group plus a shared spreadsheet costs nothing, though you will be chasing payments and reminders by hand.
What's the best free app for a hockey club?
For a one-team setup that only needs a group chat and a way to ask "who's available Saturday?", Spond is hard to beat - free, ad-free and no member limit. If your priority is a public club website and league pages, Pitchero is genuinely strong. The moment you want one club community - your own branded club app, a free website, Direct Debit subs, Gift Aid and fixtures that pull straight from England Hockey's GMS - a club-first platform earns its place. Teamo includes all of that and is free up to 25 members, which is why we suggest it for small hockey clubs; but be aware we make it, so weigh that and try a couple before you commit.
Is Spond, Pitchero or Teamo better for hockey?
It honestly depends on what you run. Spond is excellent and arguably better if you are a single team that wants a free, ad-free scheduler and chat and never expects to take payments. Pitchero is strong if a polished public website and league pages are your main need. Teamo (made by Sportplan, the company behind this site) suits a whole-club community because it adds your own branded club app, a free website, Direct Debit subs, Gift Aid and - the standout for hockey - automatic fixture, venue and result sync from England Hockey's Game Management System. None of the three replaces England Hockey affiliation or GMS itself - those remain the official record that a club app complements.
Do free club apps charge for payments?
The app itself is usually free, but taking money carries a processing fee whichever platform you use. On card, Spond and Teamo are identical at 2.5% plus 20p, and Pitchero is also card-based. The real difference is Direct Debit: Teamo offers it at 2% plus 20p, a lower percentage that is cheaper for recurring subs, while Spond and Pitchero are card-based. Teamo also builds payment status into its team-selection screens, which is how clubs collect the large majority of what they are owed. Fees are approximate and change over time, so check current rates before you decide.
Can I just use WhatsApp and a spreadsheet instead?
Absolutely, and for a brand-new team it is a perfectly sensible start. A WhatsApp group handles chat and a shared spreadsheet tracks who has paid and who is available. It costs nothing. The catch is that everything is manual: you send the reminders, you reconcile the payments, you re-ask availability every week, and important messages get lost in the scroll. Most teams outgrow it within a season or two, but there is no shame in starting there.
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