Do we need our own Stripe account?

With a platform built on Stripe Connect, your club gets its own connected account so payouts go straight to you and you control your payment data — without managing the full Stripe integration yourself. Avoid platforms that pool funds and pay you out on their schedule.

What's a reasonable total fee to pay?

Think in effective take rate, not headline numbers. Card processing alone is ~2.9% + 30¢. A fair platform adds a small, transparent fee on top — landing in the ~1.5–2% added range — with no per-registrant uplifts, volume minimums, or surprise dispute fees.

Can we pass fees on to parents?

Many clubs add a small service fee at checkout to offset processing costs. Whether that's allowed and advisable depends on your processor's rules and local regulations — disclose it clearly either way so families aren't surprised.

Payments

How to collect online registration payments for a sports club (Stripe, fees, payouts)

Taking money online should be the easy part of running a club. Too often it's where the most money quietly leaks — through stacked platform fees, slow payouts, and refund rules that work against you. Here's how online registration payments actually work, and what to watch.

How online payments work, briefly

When a parent pays, a payment processor (Stripe is the industry standard) authorizes the card, moves the funds, and deposits them into a connected bank account. Most registration platforms sit on top of a processor and add their own platform fee. So the parent's card payment passes through two layers: the processor's cut and the platform's cut.

Processor fee: typically ~2.9% + 30¢ per transaction for cards.
Platform fee: whatever the registration software adds on top — sometimes a flat %, sometimes a per-registrant charge, sometimes both.
Payout: how and when the money lands in your account (instant, daily, or held).

The number that matters: effective take rate

Headline pricing is marketing. The number that actually determines what you keep is the effective take rate — total fees divided by total registration revenue, once you stack subscription, per-transaction, per-registrant, and dispute fees. Two platforms advertising '3%' can have wildly different effective rates once the extras are added.

Watch for 'captive payments' — platforms that force their own processor and a marked-up rate you can't change. Over a season at scale, the difference between ~1.6% and ~5% effective can be thousands of dollars.

Payouts: whose money is it, and when do you get it?

Prefer a model where funds settle directly to your club's connected account (e.g. Stripe Connect) on a predictable schedule, rather than being pooled by the platform and released later. Direct payouts mean better cash flow and no wondering where the money is.

Refunds, disputes, and the fine print

Refunds happen — injuries, schedule conflicts, changes of heart. Two questions decide whether refunds hurt: do you get the platform fee back when you refund a registration, and is there a separate dispute (chargeback) fee? Platforms that keep their fee on refunds, or charge $15+ per dispute, turn ordinary churn into a cost center.

Write a clear refund policy and show it before checkout.
Prefer platforms that refund their own fee when you refund a registration.
Confirm whether disputes carry an extra fee on top of the lost payment.

Frequently asked questions

Do we need our own Stripe account?: With a platform built on Stripe Connect, your club gets its own connected account so payouts go straight to you and you control your payment data — without managing the full Stripe integration yourself. Avoid platforms that pool funds and pay you out on their schedule.
What's a reasonable total fee to pay?: Think in effective take rate, not headline numbers. Card processing alone is ~2.9% + 30¢. A fair platform adds a small, transparent fee on top — landing in the ~1.5–2% added range — with no per-registrant uplifts, volume minimums, or surprise dispute fees.
Can we pass fees on to parents?: Many clubs add a small service fee at checkout to offset processing costs. Whether that's allowed and advisable depends on your processor's rules and local regulations — disclose it clearly either way so families aren't surprised.

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