Market Pricing
The Question Every Club Director Asks at Least Once a Year
At some point usually right before the next season's registration opens, or right after a board member forwards a competitor's price sheet every youth sports operator asks the same question:
"Are we priced right?"
It's a harder question than it sounds. Youth sports pricing isn't like SaaS pricing, where you can pull up G2 or Capterra and see what everyone charges. It isn't like restaurant pricing, where margins are well-studied and published. Youth sports sits in a weird middle ground: high-touch services priced locally, sold family-to-family, benchmarked mostly by whatever the club across town is doing.
The result is that most clubs are flying blind. They know their fees. They know, roughly, what two or three peers charge. They have no idea whether they're sitting at the 20th percentile or the 80th percentile of the national market, and they definitely don't know whether their prices actually cover their true cost to serve an athlete.
This post tries to fix that. We're going to build a two-sided benchmark:
What does it actually cost to serve a youth athlete? Using labor market data specifically the geographic pay-band adjustments that firms like Carta publish for the broader economy we can back into a defensible floor for what a club needs to charge to cover costs in any given market.
What does the market actually charge? By sampling public registration portals across the major youth sports management platforms (PlayMetrics, LeagueApps, Baseline, Swift, and others), we can estimate median program fees by sport, age group, and geographic tier.
Lay those two sides next to each other and you get a benchmark worth acting on. A club in Denver charging $1,400 for a U14 soccer season isn't priced "high" or "low" in a vacuum it's priced against a cost floor and a market median, both of which we can estimate.
Here's the methodology, the model, and the numbers. Use them to sanity-check your own pricing for the 2026 season.
Part 1: The Cost Floor: What It Actually Costs to Serve an Athlete
Why Labor Is the Right Anchor
In youth sports, labor is the dominant cost. For a typical full-time club, the breakdown looks roughly like this:
Coaching and instruction: 45–60% of expenses
Facility / field costs: 15–25%
Administrative and support staff: 10–15%
Platform fees, insurance, equipment, marketing: 10–15%
Labor, coaches plus admin, accounts for somewhere between 55% and 75% of total operating cost at most clubs. And labor is the one cost category we have excellent external benchmarks for, because every serious tech and professional-services firm uses geo-adjusted pay bands.
The Carta Pay-Band Framework, Repurposed
Carta's Total Compensation product publishes geographic adjustment factors used by thousands of venture-backed companies to set salaries across markets. The logic is simple: the same role costs different amounts in different cities, and the differential is reasonably stable. For the purposes of this analysis we'll use a simplified five-tier version of those adjustments:
Tier | Representative Markets | Geo Adjustment |
|---|---|---|
Tier 1 | San Francisco, New York City | 100% |
Tier 2 | LA, Boston, DC, Seattle, Chicago, Northern NJ | 91% |
Tier 3 | Miami, Denver, Austin, Nashville, San Diego, Atlanta | 88% |
Tier 4 | Charlotte, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Tampa, Pittsburgh | 82% |
Tier 5 | Smaller Midwest, Southeast, and rural markets | 80% |
These percentages aren't about cost of living they're about what an employer actually has to pay to hire and retain staff in each market. That makes them a much better anchor for service-business pricing than something like a Consumer Price Index, which includes housing and consumer goods that don't directly affect a club's P&L.
Building the Cost-to-Serve Model
For a representative mid-sized club, we can model the annual cost to serve one athlete at a baseline market (Tier 1, for simplicity of anchoring) and then apply geo adjustments:
Baseline assumptions (Tier 1: SF/NYC):
Average coach fully-loaded compensation: $45 per training hour (a blend of paid head coaches, assistants, and benefits/payroll tax load)
Typical season: 24 weeks of programming, 3 training hours per week = 72 training hours
Average training group size: 14 athletes
Coaching cost per athlete per season: ($45 × 72) / 14 = $231
Admin/ops loading (scheduling, parent comms, tournament coordination, platform admin): approximately 25% of coaching cost = $58
Facility cost per athlete (indoor turf/court or premium outdoor): $180 per season
Tournament and travel coordination overhead: $75 per season
Platform, insurance, equipment, marketing allocation: $95 per season
Tier 1 total cost to serve per season: approximately $639
Now we apply geographic adjustments. Note that we don't apply the full Carta factor to every line facilities scale somewhat with geography but not perfectly (turf costs are closer than comp costs across markets), and fixed platform/software costs don't scale at all. A reasonable weighted adjustment blends the factors roughly 70% labor-sensitive, 20% facility-sensitive (less elastic), 10% fixed:
Tier | Geo Factor | Weighted Cost Factor | Cost to Serve / Season |
|---|---|---|---|
Tier 1 | 100% | 100% | $639 |
Tier 2 | 91% | 93% | $594 |
Tier 3 | 88% | 91% | $582 |
Tier 4 | 82% | 87% | $556 |
Tier 5 | 80% | 86% | $549 |
Adjusting for Age Group
Older athletes cost more to serve. Coaches with higher-level playing and coaching credentials command higher wages, session length tends to be longer, travel components are more expensive, and admin complexity grows (tournament logistics, college recruiting support, video review). A defensible age-group multiplier set:
Age Group | Cost Multiplier | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
U8 / 8U | 0.65× | Short sessions, lower-cost instructors, minimal travel |
U10 / 10U | 0.80× | Standard programming, moderate staff |
U12 / 12U | 1.00× | Baseline reference |
U14 / 14U | 1.15× | Higher-credentialed staff, longer sessions, some travel |
U16 / 16U | 1.30× | Significant travel, advanced instruction, recruiting overhead |
U18 / 18U | 1.40× | Highest-credentialed staff, recruiting, showcase travel |
A U16 club soccer athlete in Tier 3 (Denver) therefore carries a modeled cost to serve of approximately $582 × 1.30 = $757 per season. That's the floor the price below which the program is losing money before any profit, reinvestment, or scholarship funding.
Part 2: The Market Price…What Clubs Actually Charge
Methodology Note
This section combines two data sources:
Public registration portal sampling. A cross-platform sample of publicly accessible program listings on PlayMetrics, LeagueApps, Baseline, and Swift portals across multiple sports and geographies.
Published fee schedules. Many larger clubs publish their fee structures directly on their websites, particularly soccer clubs (which are more transparent due to league and federation requirements) and swim/tennis clubs.
The numbers below are modeled medians, they represent a best estimate of market rates based on available public data plus ecosystem knowledge. Actual figures will vary, and we've flagged the confidence level on each sport. Clubs using this benchmark should treat it as a directional reference, not a price ceiling or floor.
A critical caveat: posted program fees typically represent 60–75% of true annual family spend. Uniforms, tournament fees, private training, travel, and equipment add meaningfully to sticker price. The benchmark below is sticker price, not total family cost.
Median Program Fees by Sport, Age, and Geo Tier
Soccer (Club / Travel: Fall+Spring Season)
Data confidence: High (large public sample, transparent pricing norms)
Age Group | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Tier 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
U10 | $1,650 | $1,450 | $1,350 | $1,200 | $1,050 |
U12 | $2,100 | $1,850 | $1,700 | $1,500 | $1,300 |
U14 | $2,450 | $2,150 | $1,950 | $1,750 | $1,500 |
U16 | $2,850 | $2,500 | $2,250 | $2,000 | $1,750 |
U18 | $3,100 | $2,700 | $2,450 | $2,150 | $1,850 |
Baseball (Travel / Club: Full Year)
Data confidence: Medium-High (mixed portal transparency; tournament-driven cost variance)
Age Group | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Tier 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
10U | $2,200 | $1,950 | $1,800 | $1,600 | $1,400 |
12U | $2,850 | $2,500 | $2,300 | $2,050 | $1,800 |
14U | $3,500 | $3,050 | $2,800 | $2,500 | $2,150 |
16U | $4,200 | $3,650 | $3,350 | $2,950 | $2,550 |
18U | $4,800 | $4,150 | $3,800 | $3,350 | $2,850 |
Basketball (Club / AAU: Spring+Summer)
Data confidence: Medium (highly variable program structure; many hybrid models)
Age Group | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Tier 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
10U | $850 | $750 | $700 | $625 | $550 |
12U | $1,250 | $1,100 | $1,000 | $900 | $800 |
14U | $1,650 | $1,450 | $1,350 | $1,200 | $1,050 |
16U | $2,100 | $1,850 | $1,700 | $1,500 | $1,300 |
17U | $2,450 | $2,150 | $1,950 | $1,750 | $1,500 |
Volleyball (Club: Winter+Spring Season)
Data confidence: Medium-High (fairly standardized season structure)
Age Group | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Tier 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
12U | $1,850 | $1,650 | $1,500 | $1,350 | $1,200 |
14U | $2,650 | $2,350 | $2,150 | $1,900 | $1,650 |
16U | $3,350 | $2,950 | $2,700 | $2,400 | $2,100 |
18U | $3,850 | $3,400 | $3,100 | $2,750 | $2,400 |
Lacrosse (Club: Summer Travel)
Data confidence: Medium
Age Group | Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Tier 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
U12 | $1,950 | $1,700 | $1,550 | $1,400 | $1,200 |
U14 | $2,650 | $2,350 | $2,150 | $1,900 | $1,650 |
U16 | $3,350 | $2,950 | $2,700 | $2,400 | $2,100 |
U18 | $3,850 | $3,400 | $3,100 | $2,750 | $2,400 |
Part 3: The Benchmark…Are You Priced Right?
Now we can answer the question that started this post. For any given club, the relevant comparison is the ratio of your price to modeled market median and to cost-to-serve floor.
Three Diagnostic Ratios
1. Price vs. Cost Floor (gross margin proxy)
Ratio < 1.5×: You are likely under-priced. Either you have unusually low costs, or you are subsidizing programming and will struggle with reinvestment, coach retention, and scholarship capacity.
Ratio 1.5× – 2.2×: Healthy range for full-service clubs with full-time staff.
Ratio 2.2× – 3.0×: Premium positioning. Sustainable if brand and outcomes justify it.
Ratio > 3.0×: Likely elite/academy pricing. Requires a differentiated product (high-profile coaching, showcase access, college placement).
2. Price vs. Market Median (positioning index)
70–85%: Value positioning. Appropriate for access-oriented clubs and new market entrants.
85–115%: Market-rate positioning. Most established clubs should sit here.
115–135%: Premium positioning. Sustainable with a clear differentiator.
135%: Elite positioning. Must be backed by results and brand equity, not just stated intent.
3. Year-Over-Year Price Growth
Bonus ratio for multi-year view. Youth sports clubs historically under-index on price increases, compounding margin compression over time. A rough rule of thumb: if your input costs (labor + facility) grew X% year over year, your prices should grow at least 0.7 × X% to avoid silent margin loss. In recent high-wage-growth years, that has meant 4–6% annual price increases for most clubs.
Case Study: A Denver-Area U14 Soccer Club
Let's walk through the framework with a real-shaped example.
A Denver-area soccer club charges $1,850 for a U14 competitive season.
Geo tier: Tier 3 (Denver)
Modeled cost to serve: $582 × 1.15 = $669 per season
Market median (U14, Tier 3): $1,950
Price vs. cost floor: $1,850 / $669 = 2.77× (premium-healthy)
Price vs. market median: $1,850 / $1,950 = 95% (market rate)
Read: this club is priced at market, with healthy margin coverage. They are not leaving significant money on the table relative to peers, but they have some room to move to premium positioning (say, $2,050–$2,150) if their coaching and outcomes support it. If their costs are running hot, they've added a full-time director of coaching, they should be re-running this model annually to catch margin drift early.
Contrast that with the same club charging $1,400 for the same program:
Price vs. cost floor: 2.09× (borderline healthy, minimal room for reinvestment)
Price vs. market median: 72% (value positioning)
That's a club that either chose value positioning deliberately or is under-pricing accidentally. If it's accidental, the typical pattern is: no price increase for three years, wage inflation compounding, tournament cost inflation compounding, and a growing gap between perceived value and actual margin. The fix is structural, not gradual, most clubs under-index on their first corrective price increase and have to do it again a year later.
Part 4: Caveats and Honest Limitations
This framework is a starting point, not an answer. Some honest caveats before you use it:
This is sticker-price benchmarking, not all-in benchmarking. Two clubs charging the same posted fee can have wildly different total family costs depending on uniform packages, tournament inclusions, and mandatory add-ons. When comparing, always normalize to "all-in" annual cost.
Cost-to-serve varies enormously by operating model. A club renting facilities hour-by-hour has a very different cost structure than a club that owns its own facility. A parent-coach-driven club runs at a fraction of the labor cost of a full-time-staff club. The Tier 1 $639 baseline assumes a mid-sized, professionally staffed club; your numbers may vary by ±30% depending on model.
Age-group and geo are necessary but not sufficient. Sport, league affiliation (USL / ECNL / MLS Next for soccer, for example), and travel radius drive huge variance inside a single tier-and-age cell. The numbers above are medians. Your specific league tier matters a lot.
The market data is modeled, not exhaustively scraped. We're publishing this as a v1 framework and will be validating specific cells with deeper portal sampling over the coming months. If you're a club director with transparent pricing you'd like included in a future revision, reach out.
How to Use This Benchmark This Week
Three concrete moves for club directors:
Run your own three-ratio diagnostic. Take your flagship program fee. Identify your geo tier. Look up the relevant modeled cost-to-serve and market median. Calculate your two ratios. If either is materially out of the healthy range, you have an actionable finding for your next board meeting.
Stress-test your price with wage inflation. Pull your coaching and admin payroll numbers from the last three years. Calculate your compound annual growth rate. Compare it to your program fee CAGR over the same period. If the gap is more than 1.5 percentage points per year, you have silent margin loss and a case for a corrective increase.
Pick your positioning deliberately. Most clubs drift into whatever position they're in value, market, premium rather than choosing it. A 20-minute conversation among the leadership team, grounded in the ratios above, often forces a useful decision.
The goal isn't to raise prices. The goal is to know where you sit. Clubs that know where they sit make better decisions about wages, scholarships, reinvestment, and growth. Clubs that don't end up solving the same margin problem year after year.
This analysis was produced by The Futures App. If you operate a youth sports organization and want to see your actual revenue, margin, and program-level economics in one place not modeled, but your real numbers that's what we build.