A Spond alternative built only for volleyball
Spond is a good general-purpose team app and it is genuinely free. We know, because we ran our club on it. This page is about the half of a volleyball club it was never built to cover — and about the fees, where Spike is cheaper at every amount.
Set up your clubWe built this because we were on Spond
Not as a business plan. We were running a volleyball club, Spond handled the logistics competently, and every week we worked around the same gaps. The app knew twelve people were coming; it did not know that nine of them were hitters. Session plans lived in a notebook. Player development lived in a spreadsheet next to the app, which is to say it mostly did not happen.
None of that is Spond doing a bad job. It is what happens when one app serves football, netball, hockey and volleyball at once: it can only afford to know the things every sport shares. Everything below is the part that gets left out.
What is the same
Most of it, honestly. Both apps are free to run a club with no member cap and no paid tier, both take payments into the club’s own account, and both cover scheduling, attendance, chat and roles. If that is all you need, Spond does it well and there is little reason to move.
| Feature | Spike | Spond | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free to run your club | Yes | Yes | No member limit or paid tier in either |
| Scheduling and RSVPs | Yes | Yes | |
| Attendance tracking | Yes | Yes | |
| Group chat, posts and polls | Yes | Yes | |
| Teams, sub-groups and roles | Yes | Yes | |
| Collecting fees and subscriptions | Yes | Yes | Into the club's own account in both |
| Guardians paying for a child | Yes | Yes | |
| Every sport, one app | No | Yes | Spike is volleyball only |
| Club website builder | No | Yes | Spond charges monthly after a trial |
| Claiming a position, not just a place | Yes | No | Setter, libero, outside — seen before the session |
| Drills library with animated court diagrams | Yes | No | |
| Session plans attached to an event | Yes | No | |
| Player evaluation against your own skill matrix | Yes | No | |
| Coach feedback carrying a drill to work on | Yes | No |
The four things that made us build it
Each of these is ordinary in volleyball and absent from a general-purpose app, because there is no version of them that works for every sport at once.
A player claims a position, not a place
Twelve yeses tells you the hall is full. It does not tell you nobody has claimed libero. In Spike a player picks the position they are coming to play, so the shape of the session is visible on Tuesday afternoon rather than at seven o’clock when everyone is already there.
A drills library that knows what a drill is
Instructions, coaching points, the equipment it needs, the number of players it wants — and an animated court diagram showing the movement, rather than a paragraph describing it. Filterable by skill and intensity, so “fifteen minutes of blocking for eight players” is a filter rather than a memory test.
A session plan that lives on the session
Sequence drills into a plan, time the blocks against the hall you have booked, and attach it to the training event. Players see it before they arrive, the second coach can run it, and next October it is still there.
Evaluation against a matrix your club wrote
You define what each level of passing, setting and blocking means at your club, score players against it, and give feedback with a drill attached to the thing they need to work on. In a general-purpose app this is a spreadsheet nobody opens twice.
Fees, in both directions
Both apps are free to run. Both earn on payments. Spond charges 20p plus 2.5%; Spike charges 2.5% with a 20p minimum — which is less at every amount, by 2.5% of the payment below £8 and by a flat 20p above it. The club bears the fee in both, and Stripe’s own processing charge is separate in both.
| On this payment | Spond takes | Spike takes |
|---|---|---|
| £5 session | 33p | 20p |
| £10 session | 45p | 25p |
| £40 session | £1.20 | £1.00 |
| £35 monthly subscription | £1.08 | 88p |
| Cash at the door | n/a | Nothing |
Spond’s rate is the one published in their own help centre for GBP, checked in August 2026. Ours is on the pricing page.
When you should stay on Spond
If your club runs more than one sport, stay. Spike is volleyball only and always will be, so a club with a netball section would be running two apps to save one. Stay too if you use their website builder, or if what you need from an app is scheduling, attendance and payments — Spond does those well, and switching for a coaching side you are not going to use is work for nothing.
Move if the volleyball part is where your time goes: if you are planning sessions, tracking who is actually improving, or trying to work out on Tuesday whether Thursday has a setter.
Moving across
Export your members from Spond and upload the file on your club’s members tab. Spike reads CSV, Excel and JSON, works out which column is the email and which is the name without being told, and shows you the mapping before anything happens. There is a template to download if you would rather start from that.
It then checks every row against people already on Spike. Anyone who has an account gets an invitation in the app; everyone else gets one by email. Nobody is signed up without asking them, which is the part that matters when half your list is parents and under-18s. You see who matched before you send anything, and you get a count of what went out and what failed afterwards.
Most clubs should not move everything at once anyway. Run one night a week on Spike while the rest stays where it is. Both are free, so a month in parallel costs nothing but having two apps on your phone.
Common questions
Is Spike free like Spond?
Yes, and in the same way. Both are free to run your club, with no member limit and no paid tier — neither charges you to schedule sessions, track attendance or message your squad. Both earn only on payments you collect. Anyone telling you Spond costs money to use is wrong.
Which is cheaper on payments?
Spike, at every amount. Spond charges 20p plus 2.5%; Spike charges 2.5% with a 20p minimum. On a £10 session that is 45p against 25p, and on a £35 monthly subscription £1.08 against 88p. Below £8 the difference is 2.5% of the payment; above £8 it is a flat 20p every time.
What does Spike do that Spond does not?
The volleyball-specific half. Players claim a position rather than just a place, so you can see you have four setters and no libero before the session rather than during it. There is a drills library with animated court diagrams, session plans you build from it and attach to an event, and player evaluation against a skill matrix your club defines, with written feedback that can carry a drill. Spond is built for every sport at once and does not carry any of that.
What does Spond do that Spike does not?
Spond covers every sport, so if your club also runs netball or football it is one app instead of two. It has a website builder, which Spike does not, and it is a larger and older product with a bigger support operation behind it. If what you need is scheduling, attendance, chat and payments for a multi-sport club, Spond does that well and switching would gain you little.
Why was Spike built if Spond already existed?
Because we ran our own club on Spond and kept hitting the same wall. General-purpose team apps handle the logistics of any sport competently and none of the specifics of one. Nothing knew what a libero was, there was nowhere for a session plan to live, and player development happened in a spreadsheet beside the app. Spike is the parts we could not get.
Can we import our members from Spond?
Yes. Export your members from Spond and upload the file on your club's members tab — Spike reads CSV, Excel and JSON, and detects which column holds the email, the phone and the name rather than making you map them by hand. It matches rows against people already on Spike, invites those in the app, emails the rest, and shows you all of it before you send. If your export is an awkward shape, send it to us through the contact page and we will sort it out.
Do we have to move everything at once?
No, and most clubs should not. Run one team or one night a week on Spike while the rest of the club stays where it is. Both apps are free, so a parallel month costs nothing except the mild annoyance of two apps, and you will know quickly whether the volleyball-specific parts are worth the switch.
Where does the money go in each?
To the club, in both cases, through the club's own payment account rather than a balance you withdraw from. Spike uses Stripe Connect and Stripe's own processing charge is separate and paid to Stripe. Neither app sits on your money.
Have a proper look first
Try it on one night a week
Set the club up, run a single session through it, and keep Spond for everything else while you decide. It costs nothing either way, and there is no trial to run out.
Set up your club