Free to run your club. We earn when money moves.
Every feature, every member, every team — free forever, with no trial to expire and no card to enter. Spike only earns when a club collects money through it: 2.5% + 20p on each card payment for a session, 4% + 20p on each subscription payment, card processing included in both, and nothing at all on cash.
Set up your clubForever, for every club and every player. No member limit, no trial, no feature held back behind a paid tier.
Per card payment for a session, with card processing included — there is no separate Stripe bill. Subscriptions are 4% + 20p a payment. Cash is free, because Spike is not the one moving it.
This is not a starter tier
There is one plan and everyone is on it. The list below is not what you get before upgrading — it is the product, and a club of six uses the same thing as a club of sixty.
- Members, roles, teams and groups, with no cap on any of them
- Event scheduling with position claiming, waitlists and attendance
- Club and team chat, announcements, posts and polls
- A drills library and training plans, with animated court diagrams
- Player evaluation, your own skill matrix, and coach feedback
- Guardian accounts, consent controls and paying on a child's behalf
- Match scoring to the FIVB rules, touch-by-touch player stats and match reports
- A season planner, a tactics board, registration forms and a register for the door
- The iOS and Android apps for the club, its events, chat, payments, drills and session plans
What that costs in real money
The player pays the price the club set — Spike’s fee comes out of what reaches the club rather than being added at checkout, so nobody sees a service charge on top. Card processing is inside the fee: Stripe bills Spike, not the club. A club that would rather not absorb it can set a price that covers it, and Spike works out the one that leaves the club whole — a £7 session becomes £7.38.
| What the club charges | Spike’s fee | Why |
|---|---|---|
| £5 session, paid by card | 33p | 2.5% is 13p, plus the 20p fixed part |
| £10 session, paid by card | 45p | 2.5% is 25p, plus the 20p fixed part |
| £25 monthly subscription | £1.20 | 4% is £1.00, plus the 20p fixed part |
| £35 monthly subscription | £1.60 | 4% is £1.40, plus the 20p fixed part |
| £5 session, paid in cash | Nothing | Tracked, not processed — no money moves through Spike |
Both fees are the whole cost of taking the payment: Stripe’s processing is inside them, not billed to the club on top, and nothing is charged on cash. The same rates are published as plain markdown, for anything reading this page rather than looking at it.
Where Spike takes nothing
Cash at the door
Tracked in the same outstanding list as card payments, so the treasurer has one place to look. Spike takes a share of money it moves, and it does not move cash.
A club that never charges
Plenty of clubs run on a termly bank transfer and use Spike purely for scheduling and attendance. That club uses every feature and pays nothing, indefinitely.
Getting set up
No card to enter and nothing to cancel. You connect the club to Stripe only when it is ready to take its first payment — until then there is nothing to connect and nothing to pay.
Why not just charge per member
Because per-member pricing punishes the thing a club is trying to do. A committee that has to pay more every time someone joins starts leaving people off the system — the casual player, the parent, the second team — and a club roster that is deliberately incomplete is worse than no roster at all.
Taking a share of payments lines the two up instead. Spike earns more when a club collects more, and earns nothing from a club that is only using it to organise. That is a worse business on day one and a better one to be trusted with.
Who this suits
Volunteer-run clubs
The person choosing the software is usually a player who offered to help, spending their own evening on it. A subscription they have to justify to the committee is where that stops.
Clubs weighing up a switch
Nothing to migrate onto a trial and nothing to lose when it ends. Set the club up, run one session through it, and decide after.
Clubs that already collect fees
If money is already moving through a spreadsheet and a bank transfer request, moving it through Spike costs 2.5% + 20p a payment, card processing included, and removes the chasing.
Common questions
How much does Spike cost?
Nothing to run your club. Members, teams, events, attendance, chat, training plans, the drills library, player evaluation and feedback are all free, with no member limit, no trial and no card required to start. A club that never collects money through Spike never pays Spike anything.
So how does Spike make money?
From payments, and only from payments. Spike charges the club 2.5% + 20p on each card payment for a session and 4% + 20p on each subscription payment, with card processing included. That is the whole business model; there is no paid tier holding features back.
Does the player pay the fee, or the club?
The club. A player charged £7 for a session pays £7 — Spike's fee comes out of what reaches the club, so nothing is added to the player's bill at checkout, and the club receives £6.62. A club that would rather receive the full £7 can price the session at £7.38 instead; Spike works that number out for you when you set the price.
What about Stripe's fees?
Included. Stripe bills Spike for card processing, not the club, so the fee above is the whole cost of taking a card payment — nothing else comes off what reaches the club, and there is no second charge from Stripe. The club still has its own Stripe account, because that is where the money lands.
We collect cash at the door. What does that cost?
Nothing. Cash is tracked rather than processed — you mark who has paid and it shows up in the same outstanding list as card payments — and Spike charges only for money it actually moves. A club that runs entirely on cash uses Spike for free forever.
Is there a limit on members, teams or events?
No. The free plan is the only plan, so there is no member count that pushes you into an upgrade, no cap on teams or events, and no feature that unlocks later. Clubs on Spike today run from a handful of players to around fifty.
Why is there a fixed part as well as a percentage?
Because moving money has a fixed cost as well as a proportional one: a card payment costs the same few pence to process whether it is for £3 or £30. A percentage alone would quietly lose money on small payments, so the fee is 2.5% + 20p rather than a bigger percentage. On a £5 session that is 13p plus 20p, 33p in all; on a £25 subscription it is £1.00 plus 20p, £1.20.
What happens if we refund a player?
The player gets the full amount back and the refund is taken from the club, the same way Stripe handles it. Spike's fee on the original payment is not returned, so a refunded £10 session leaves the club 45p down. Worth knowing before you set a fee you expect to refund often.
Do you charge for the mobile apps?
No. The iOS and Android apps are free downloads with no in-app purchase and no premium version. They cover the club, its events, chat, payments, drills and session plans; match scoring, stats, the season planner, the tactics board, forms and the register are web tools, free as well.
Will the free plan stay free?
Yes — it is the business model rather than a promotion. Spike earns when money moves through it, which means the product only makes money if your club is genuinely using it to collect fees. Charging clubs a subscription to run a volleyball club is the thing this was built to avoid.
The rest of it
Set the club up and see
It takes a few minutes, costs nothing, and there is no trial clock running. Collect a payment through it only when you are ready to.
Set up your club