Youth sports registration software that runs on your club's own Stripe account

When a family pays, the money either lands in your club's own Stripe account or in the vendor's. It makes more difference than the price does. Here's what "your own Stripe account" means in practice, and why we built mysports.io that way.

Two ways a platform can take payments

Through the vendor. The platform holds a merchant account; your families pay the platform; the platform pays the club out on a schedule, minus its fees. Refunds, disputes and payout timing are the vendor's rules. If you leave, your payment history leaves with the vendor.

Through your own account. The club has its own Stripe account (most already do: Stripe is behind the donation page, the gala tickets, the spirit-wear store). The platform connects to it, and each registration payment is charged directly into it. The club sees every payment in its own Stripe dashboard, can refund from there, gets paid out on Stripe's standard schedule, and keeps the account when it leaves.

What changes for the treasurer

• The rate. In your own account you pay Stripe's published rate, 2.9% + 30¢ in the US. There's no second company in the middle to add 0.3–0.6% and a dollar.
• Payouts. Stripe pays out to the club's bank account on its own schedule (two business days is typical in the US). No waiting for a vendor's month-end.
• Refunds. Refund from the registration page, or from Stripe directly; either way it's the club's money moving back, and both show up in the same ledger.
• Reconciliation. Every registration payment carries a Stripe transaction id. The Stripe export and the roster export agree because they're describing the same transactions.
• Leaving. Disconnect the platform; the Stripe account, its history and its bank link are still yours.

How mysports.io connects

An admin clicks Connect your existing Stripe account, signs in to Stripe with their usual login, picks the club's account and clicks Allow. That's Stripe's own connection flow; mysports.io never sees a password or an API key. From then on, each parent's card payment is a direct charge on the club's account, with the club's name on the statement. If the club has never used Stripe, the same page can create an account for it, with Stripe asking for the club's details and bank account.

We charge nothing on the transaction, and we never store a card number: payment details are entered on Stripe's hosted form, not on our server. What we store is the Stripe reference, the amount and who it was for.

Cash and check still exist

A card is one way to pay. Any season can also allow cash or check, families are told so, and the admin records the payment when it arrives. Those show in the same roster and the same totals as card payments, so the treasurer has one picture.

Who else does this

A few smaller platforms connect to the club's own Stripe account (Regystra is one; some charge about 1% on top). The large platforms, TeamSnap, SportsEngine, Sports Connect and LeagueApps, run payments through their own merchant accounts and set their own rates; that's where their per-transaction revenue comes from, and why the model is unlikely to change.