A Spond alternative with a fixed price instead of a fee per payment
Spond is a popular free app for teams and clubs, paid for by a fee on every payment your members make. If your club collects regular monthly fees, ClubTide gives you a fixed subscription, no ClubTide fee on payments and your own Stripe, PayPal or Authorize.net account, along with ranks, family billing, documents and a parent portal.
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Free to use, paid per payment
Spond, made by Spond AS in Oslo since 2014, combines a free mobile app for events, replies and chat with Spond Club for memberships and payments. The app and Spond Club cost nothing; Spond earns from a mandatory fee on each payment made through Spond payments, which run on Stripe. The club covers that fee by default and can choose to pass it on to members.
ClubTide works the other way round. The club pays a fixed monthly or annual subscription that depends on its number of active athletes, and members pay into the club's own payment account without any fee from ClubTide. It focuses on running the club day to day: groups and coaches, attendance, belts and grades, invoices for families, documents with expiry dates, consents and a parent portal, in five languages.
Which model costs less depends on how much money your club collects through the app. The sections below show how to compare them fairly.
ClubTide vs Spond at a glance*
ClubTide prices are monthly, in your page's currency. Spond fees are shown as published for euro and US dollar payments.
| What you get | ClubTide | Spond |
|---|---|---|
| Software price | From $49 a month for up to 50 athletes | Free app and Spond Club |
| Fee on member payments | None from ClubTide | 2.5% + €0.20 or 3.29% + $1.00 per payment |
| What the payment fee covers | Your processor's standard rates, under your own agreement | Spond's fee includes Stripe's processing |
| Payment account | Your own Stripe, PayPal or Authorize.net | Spond payments, on Stripe |
| Mobile access | Parent portal on any phone, no app to install | Native iOS and Android app |
| In-app chat | Announcements with email and in-app notifications | Yes |
| Recurring membership payments | Weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual plans, autopay on a saved card | Monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly subscriptions |
| Attendance | Coaches on their phone and QR self check-in | Event replies and attendance, with export |
| Registration forms | Yes | Yes |
| Club website | On the roadmap | Optional add-on, €15 or $19.95 a month |
| Available for clubs in Romania | Yes | Romania not in Spond Club's country list |
| Data protection | DPA, data hosted in the EU (Germany) | Standard GDPR art. 28 DPA |
Spond information from spond.com and help.spond.com (product pages and the transaction costs article), checked in October 2026. Fees and features change; please confirm them on spond.com. Spotted something out of date? Write to [email protected]. Spond pricing page ↗
A percentage per payment or a fixed subscription
Spond's fee is 2.5% + €0.20 per payment in euros and 3.29% + $1.00 per payment in US dollars, Stripe's processing included. It grows with every fee you collect. For example, a club collecting $10,000 a month as 200 payments of $50 pays $529 a month in fees at the US dollar rate, and a club collecting €10,000 as 200 payments of €50 pays €290 at the euro rate.
With ClubTide you pay a fixed subscription, $79 a month for up to 100 active athletes, plus your processor's own standard rates, which you would pay with any software. To compare fairly, set the part of Spond's fee above your processor's rates against the subscription. For a club collecting regular monthly fees the percentage can come to more; for a club that collects little through the app, Spond's free model can cost less.
- No ClubTide fee on any member payment
- Money goes straight to your own Stripe, PayPal or Authorize.net account
- One price per size of club, with every feature included
Family billing and a parent portal
In ClubTide a family is the account holder: one parent or several, any number of children, one invoice with a sibling discount and one saved card for autopay on membership fees. Parents see each child's schedule, attendance, rank and invoices, pay online and sign consents in a portal that works on any phone. Adults who train for themselves get their own account.
- Several guardians per family, each with their own login
- Invoices, receipts and payment reminders
- Per-lesson billing and class packs next to memberships
Ranks, private lessons and paperwork in one place
ClubTide keeps the records a youth club builds up over the years: belts, grades or levels with promotion readiness and a rank history, private one-to-one lessons with conflict warnings, federation licences, medical certificates and insurance with expiry reminders, and versioned consent forms with PDF copies. Medical notes stay visible only to the staff who need them.
- Belts, grades and levels with exam fees on the family invoice
- Document expiry reminders for families and staff
- Consents, data exports and anonymization for GDPR
When Spond may suit you better
Spond is free to start, and its native app brings chat, availability requests, camps and courses, fundraising and an optional club website. It is used in 19 countries, so some parents and players may already have it on their phone. For a team or club that mostly organises events and collects few payments, those are strong reasons to stay.
ClubTide is a better fit when your club collects regular fees, wants to keep its own payment account without a fee per payment, and needs ranks, documents and family billing alongside attendance.
Bring your member list with you
ClubTide imports your members from a CSV file, for example a spreadsheet saved as CSV from Excel. It matches the columns to ClubTide's fields, shows a preview before anything is saved and skips duplicates. Groups, coaches and membership plans take a few minutes to set up in the app.
- Column matching for any spreadsheet layout
- Preview before saving, duplicates skipped
- Families and guardians from the same file
Move over in an afternoon
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1
Prepare your list
Put your members and parents in a spreadsheet and save it as CSV.
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2
Import and check
Upload it to ClubTide, match the columns, review the preview and confirm.
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3
Connect payments
Connect your Stripe, PayPal or Authorize.net account and invite families to save their card.
More comparisons
See how ClubTide compares with other software clubs use, or explore the features in depth.
Questions about switching from Spond
Still have questions? Email us and we will get back to you.
Spond is free. Why would a club pay for ClubTide?
Spond earns from a fee on every payment, 2.5% + €0.20 in euros or 3.29% + $1.00 in US dollars, Stripe included. ClubTide charges a fixed subscription and no fee on payments. A club that collects regular fees through the app can end up paying less with a subscription; a club that collects little may not.
Does ClubTide take a cut of member payments?
No. Members pay into your club's own Stripe, PayPal or Authorize.net account, and you pay only that processor's standard rates under your own agreement.
Can I import my members from Spond?
ClubTide imports a CSV file of your members, for example a spreadsheet saved as CSV from Excel. It matches the columns, shows a preview and skips duplicates. There is no dedicated Spond import.
Will my members' saved cards move over?
Saved cards cannot be moved between payment providers. Families save their card again in the ClubTide parent portal, either when they pay their first invoice or from the payments page.
Does ClubTide have an app with chat like Spond?
No. ClubTide has a parent portal that works in the phone's browser, with email and in-app notifications and announcements to groups or the whole club, but no native app and no chat.
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