SportsEngine alternative · checked 2026-09-07
SportsEngine HQ is $79 a month billed monthly ($67 on an annual plan) plus a 3.25% + $1.50 processing rate on registrations, and since May 2026 it belongs to PlayMetrics, its third owner. EasyChamp runs the whole season free — fixtures, live tables, single and double elimination, online registration, a public league site — with payments into your own Stripe account and no EasyChamp transaction fee. What it does not have is a background-check program or built-in streaming; if those are why you pay SportsEngine, keep paying.
The ledger
The SportsEngine column is the product's own wording from sportsengine.com/pricing, its help centre and its owner's announcement on the date shown. The EasyChamp column is read from the plan registry that prints /pricing.
| Topic | SportsEngine | EasyChamp |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | SportsEngine HQ: “$79 billed monthly” or “$67/month, billed annually” (“SAVE 16% WITH ANNUAL”). Motion (swim/track meets): “Get started for just $295” with “No monthly subscription fees”. Play Creator Studio: “$1,500/year”.checked 2026-09-07 · sportsengine.com/pricing | Free $0 · Club $29/mo · Event Pass $39 once. Flat. The Free plan runs a full season. |
| Registration fee | HQ: “Preferred Processing Rate - 3.25% + $1.50”. The help centre works every example at 3.25% + $2.00 per instalment: a $100 order is “$5.25” paid in full, “$7.25” over two instalments, “$9.25” over three; the formula is “(net order amount * percentage rate) + (number of transactions * fixed rate)”.checked 2026-09-07 · sportsengine.com/pricing · help.sportsengine.com/en/articles/6310814 (updated Aug 6, 2026) | No EasyChamp transaction fees. Payment processor fees apply separately. |
| Free tier | No free HQ tier is priced on the page. Play: “Can I stream to my fans for free? Yes, you have the flexibility to stream for free for all live video.”checked 2026-09-07 · sportsengine.com/pricing | Unlimited competitions and players on every plan. Free goes live with up to 8 teams per competition; Club lifts that for every competition. No card to start. |
| Tournaments and brackets | SportsEngine Tourney, “formerly Tourney Machine”: “9x faster tournament scheduling”, “1M+ games scheduled annually”. Pricing by quote: “Contact us now for pricing”, with a sales address on tourneymachine.com.checked 2026-09-07 · sportsengine.com/tourney · tourneymachine.com | Round robin, group stage, single and double elimination: all four on the Free plan. |
| Ownership | “PlayMetrics has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets of SportsEngine from Versant Media Group” — May 1, 2026; “SportsEngine customers can expect the same great service they rely on today.”checked 2026-09-07 · home.playmetrics.com › blog | EasyChamp, Inc. — the same owner since it was founded. The price is on the page, and the fee schedule is versioned in the product. |
| Background checks, streaming | Background checks: Essentials “$15.00/check”, Advanced “$21.00/check”, Complete “$32.50/check”, “APS added to each package for an additional $2.9999/screening”. Streaming through SportsEngine Play.checked 2026-09-07 · sportsengine.com/pricing | Not offered. EasyChamp has no background-check program and no streaming product; a match can embed a YouTube or PLSN broadcast on its match page. |
| Public site and domain | Not verified on 2026-09-07. We print only what we read. | A public league site at your own easychamp.com address. Free on every plan, Free included, live the minute you publish. Nothing to install, no hosting, no card. Serving the same site from an address you own is a concierge setup we do by hand with you, on top of a paid plan: not a self-serve toggle, and not part of any plan's price. Tell us the hostname and we quote the setup. |
| Install base | “45,000+ organizations” (the claim SportsEngine prints on tourneymachine.com).checked 2026-09-07 · tourneymachine.com | We publish no install-base number. We publish the fee, the plans and a live league we run ourselves at dcfc.easychamp.com. |
What you get
“$79 a month for a league that only runs in the fall.”
There is no monthly bill to run a competition. Unlimited competitions and players on every plan. Free goes live with up to 8 teams per competition; Club lifts that for every competition. Club at $29/mo is for the season you outgrow eight teams, and you can stop paying when the season ends.
“The fee changed depending on how the parent chose to pay.”
No EasyChamp transaction fees. Payment processor fees apply separately.
“The bracket product is a separate quote.”
Single and double elimination, round robin and group stages are one engine on the Free plan; a group stage can feed straight into a bracket in the same competition.
“Registration money should land in my account.”
Entry fees settle to the organizer's own connected Stripe account. Stripe's processing fees apply separately; EasyChamp charges no transaction fee.
Switching
Keep SportsEngine if your organization depends on its background-check program, its streaming product or a governing-body distribution deal: EasyChamp has none of the three and does not pretend to.
There is no direct SportsEngine importer. Export your roster as a spreadsheet and bring teams and players into the console from CSV, then pick the format and generate the fixtures. Schedules and results history do not come across; a Club App Pro engagement includes migration done by us.
Publish the fee before the season opens. It is printed on the entry page, and the same sentence appears on /pricing, so a parent who compares the two reads the same number.
Questions
Free tools
The generators run in your browser with no account. When the bracket is right, save it as a live competition.
Free plan, every format, your own Stripe. The paid part is printed.