From cash in an envelope to Stripe, Square, dedicated platforms, and everything in between — here's an honest breakdown of every option, what it costs, and when each one makes sense.
Every season, thousands of travel sports directors Google "how to collect fees online" and get a bunch of generic results about Venmo, PayPal, and Square. They pick one, set it up, and discover three months later that they've created more work than they saved — or that they're paying more in fees than they expected, or that they're still doing manual tracking in a spreadsheet because the tool they picked doesn't actually handle team fee collection.
This guide is different. It's not going to tell you "here are your options" and leave you to figure out which one fits your situation. It's going to walk through exactly what each option costs, what it can and can't do, and what type of organization it's actually right for.
If you run a travel baseball, soccer, basketball, softball, lacrosse, or hockey program and you need to collect season fees from families, this is the most complete resource you're going to find on this.
Cost: ~0% (minus your time and the occasional bounced check fee)
A lot of programs still do this. You'd be surprised. Coach collects envelopes at practice, takes them to the bank, manually tracks who's paid. It works in the literal sense — money changes hands.
What it costs you beyond the fee: Time. Probably 4-8 hours per season per 20-player team, spread across collection, tracking, depositing, and follow-up. Cash gets lost. Checks bounce ($30-35 fee, plus the awkward conversation). You can't set up payment plans. There's no paper trail beyond what you create yourself.
Right for: Very small programs (under 10 players) where everyone knows each other personally and the total collection is under $5,000. For anything larger, the operational cost exceeds what you'd pay for any digital solution.
Cost: $0 in fees on most transactions, but see the fine print
Free, fast, and everyone has it. The appeal is obvious. The problems are less obvious until you're in them. We wrote an entire piece on the real cost of Venmo for team fee collection — the short version is: no tracking, no payment plans, potential tax exposure from the IRS's 1099-K rules, and the occasional payment that goes to the wrong person entirely.
Venmo does charge 1.9% + 10¢ on business transactions (if you're using a business profile, which you should be). Personal accounts that receive money classified as goods/services are also subject to that rate. The rate is lower than most alternatives, but you get no tools in return.
Right for: One-off payments between people who know each other. Not for season fee collection from 20+ families over multiple months.
Cost: 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction (online/invoice) | 2.6% + 10¢ (in-person/card swipe)
Square is a solid general-purpose payment tool. If you already use Square for in-person payments, you can send invoices through it. The fee structure is competitive and transparent.
The limitation is that Square is designed for businesses, not team fee collection specifically. You can send invoices, but you'll create them manually. You can collect payments, but you'll track them yourself. There's no concept of "payment plans for 30 families with automatic installments" built into Square's standard product.
Square has a "Subscriptions" feature that can simulate payment plans, but it requires manual setup per family and doesn't integrate with any kind of roster or player management.
Cost on $50,000 collection: ~$1,480 in processing fees. No platform fee.
Right for: Small programs that are comfortable with manual tracking and just need a professional way to send invoices. Also good if you already have a Square account for other business purposes.
Cost: 3.49% + 49¢ per transaction (standard) | 2.99% for invoices sent to PayPal users
PayPal has name recognition and most parents already have an account. That's the main thing it has going for it in this context. The fees are higher than most alternatives for the same general-purpose payment tools. Like Square, there's no team-specific functionality — no roster, no cleared-to-play, no payment plan automation.
Friends and Family transfers are fee-free but violate PayPal's terms of service for business payments, expose you to no buyer protection, and can trigger the same 1099-K issues as Venmo.
Cost on $50,000 collection: ~$1,970 in processing fees. No platform fee.
Right for: Honestly, not much in the team fee context. If everyone already has PayPal and you want a one-time simple collection, fine. For ongoing season management, there are better-suited options.
Cost: $9.99-$24.99/month per team + 3.25% + $1.50 per transaction + up to $3.50/player/month platform fee
TeamSnap is the best-known sports management platform and the one most coaches have at least heard of. It's genuinely useful for scheduling, attendance, and team communication. The payment collection side is functional but expensive compared to alternatives.
We broke down the full math in our TeamSnap pricing breakdown. The short version: a 50-player org collecting $75,000/season pays roughly $4,000-$4,500 in TeamSnap-related fees annually, compared to $2,200-$2,300 on platforms with lower processing rates and no per-player fees.
Cost on $50,000 collection: ~$2,500-$3,500 including platform fees and processing, depending on plan tier.
Right for: Programs that genuinely need the scheduling and communication features and are willing to pay more for an all-in-one system. Not right for programs that primarily need payment collection and don't want to pay a premium for bundled features they might not use.
Cost: Free plan with 3% + 30¢ | Paid plans from $10/month with 2.5% + 30¢
Cheddar Up is specifically built for groups collecting money — teams, clubs, PTAs, schools. It's closer to what travel sports programs actually need than general payment tools. You can create payment forms, track who's paid, send reminders, and collect multiple items in one transaction (registration + uniform deposit + tournament fee, for example).
The limitation is that it doesn't have the sports-specific layer: no roster management, no cleared-to-play status tied to payment, no installment plans that tie to a player record. It's a step up from Venmo, but a step below purpose-built platforms.
Cost on $50,000 collection: ~$1,530-$1,780 depending on plan, if paying by credit card.
Right for: Programs that need more structure than Venmo but don't need roster management or cleared-to-play tracking. Also good for one-time collections (end-of-year banquet, equipment orders) alongside a separate system for season fees.
Cost (RosterPay): $0 platform fee | 2.9% + 30¢ credit card | 0.8% (capped at $5) ACH
This category — platforms built specifically for travel sports fee collection — is the newest and fastest-growing. The advantage is obvious: every feature is designed for exactly this use case.
What a purpose-built platform includes that general tools don't:
RosterPay is free to set up and has no monthly subscription — revenue comes from processing fees, which are standard Stripe rates. For organizations that want to offer ACH, the cost difference is significant: 0.8% capped at $5 vs. 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction. On a $1,200 season fee, that's $9.60 vs. $35.10. Multiplied across 50 players: $480 total ACH fees vs. $1,755 in card fees.
Cost on $50,000 collection (all ACH): ~$400 total. (All cards): ~$1,480.
Right for: Any travel sports program with 15+ players that collects season fees on a recurring basis. The features match the use case exactly, the pricing is transparent, and there's no monthly fee risk if you have a slow season.
Here's a quick checklist for evaluating any platform for team fee collection:
Ready to stop collecting cash and chasing Venmo payments? Here's how to do it:
The programs that do this right stop talking about payment collection by week two of the season. It just runs. That's the goal.
No monthly fee. Set up your season in 20 minutes. Payment plans, cleared-to-play tracking, and automatic reminders — built for travel sports programs.