Let's start where most comparisons wouldn't: Spond's core app is genuinely free, and it's genuinely good at what it does. If you're weighing $0 against $79 a year, that deserves a straight answer rather than a sales pitch. So every statement about Spond below is quoted from their own help center and linked (retrieved August 11, 2026), and everything about TeamLoop is what our pricing page already tells anyone.
Their help center is equally direct about whether you can turn them off. Asked if users can opt out, the answer is: “No. Ads are designed to be subtle and relevant, ensuring a seamless user experience.”
— About Spond Brand Partnerships, retrieved August 11, 2026. The app stays free, in their words, “supported by brand partnerships, payment processing fees and fundraising revenue.” To their credit, they also say only brands “aligned with grassroots sports” are featured.
No ads. Not on any plan, not during the trial, not in the app your players open, and there is no version of TeamLoop where a brand appears in front of a 13-year-old. Coaches pay us, so advertisers never have to — that's the whole business model.
It's the honest trade: we charge the team $79 a year instead of showing your families to advertisers. Whether that trade is worth it is exactly the question this page is trying to help you answer.
— Payments Costs in the Spond App, retrieved August 11, 2026.
Charges run on your team's own Stripe account. TeamLoop's cut is 0% — you pay Stripe's published standard rate of 2.9% + 30¢ directly, with nothing added on top by us. Bank payments (ACH) are cheaper still.
Take a $240 season fee. Spond's published rate takes $8.90of it; Stripe's standard rate takes $7.26. That's $1.64 a payment — and across a 25-player roster, about $41 a season.
We're not going to tell you that pays for TeamLoop. For one season it doesn't — but it covers more than half of it. TeamLoop is $79 a year, so what Spond's processing rate costs you over a single season pays for most of ours, and a team that collects fees for two seasons in the same year has covered all of it. If your team collects money at all, “free” and “$79 a year” are much closer together than they look — and the difference buys everything below.
| Team | $79 / year | One team, everything unlocked — registration included |
| Program | $449 / year | One price for every team, plus a club website and program-wide admin |
One price a year — never per player or per family. Program covers your whole club for a single price, however many teams you run. 14-day trial, no credit card to start.
A free app with millions of users didn't get there by being bad. If your team mostly needs scheduling, attendance and a group message — and especially if you don't collect money through the app at all — Spond does that well and costs nothing, and you should not pay us $79 a year out of loyalty to a comparison page. Where we think we're the better answer is the team whose season involves dues, paperwork and a public face, and who would rather no advertiser was ever in the room with their families.
All Spond quotations were retrieved from help.spond.com on August 11, 2026 and are linked where they appear; Stripe's rate is from stripe.com/pricing, same date. Spond is a trademark of Spond AS. TeamLoop is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Spond. Fees change — check both sources before deciding. If something quoted here has since changed, we'll correct it: accuracy is the entire point of this page.