Google Forms, Venmo, and a spreadsheet: when your lacrosse program has outgrown its setup

Most programs I meet are running on six tools that don't talk

Almost every client who comes to me with a few seasons under their belt (everyone except the ones starting from scratch) runs the business the same way: a Squarespace or Wix site, a Google Form for signups, Venmo or Zelle for payment, a spreadsheet to figure out who actually paid, a personal Gmail address, and Mailchimp or one pricey app that does exactly one thing.

Here's what that looks like from the parent's side. They find you on Instagram, land on your site, fill out a Google Form, get a text with a Venmo handle, and then a confirmation from an @gmail.com address. That's five tools before their kid touches a ball.

From your side it's worse. Every registration means checking Venmo against the form, updating the sheet, then copying emails into Mailchimp before the next camp push. It works, sort of, until the program grows and the owner spends Sunday night matching payments to names instead of planning practice.

We checked 40 lacrosse training websites, and half showed the duct tape

On November 6 we checked 40 lacrosse trainers, lesson programs, goalie schools and camps across 12 markets, all of them programs ChatGPT recommends to parents. For each one we looked at how a family signs up and pays, what email address the site lists and what the site is built on.

1 in 3 had no real way to pay online

13 of the 40 had no real online checkout. Six sent families to a Google Form, a Jotform, a Venmo handle or a PayPal link. The other seven had nothing to sign up with at all, just a contact form or an email address (one had no form and no email anywhere on the site).

The other 27 had a real registration or booking system, from LeagueApps and SportsEngine to booking apps like Acuity. That's better, though most of those tools still don't connect to an email list or a contact database.

1 in 4 listed a personal email address

10 of the 40 put a Gmail-style address on their site, and one listed four different personal Gmail addresses for four different coaches. Add those to the sites with no real checkout and you get 20 of 40, half the programs we checked.

Nearly half were built on a DIY site builder

19 of the 40 ran on Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy or Weebly. Plenty of good sites run on a DIY builder. It's usually the first piece of a setup that got pieced together one tool at a time and never connected.

A few had bigger problems than looks

One site had been hacked, with hidden links to casino and gambling sites buried in its pages. Another still listed its theme's placeholder email (info@website.com) along with the template's demo events, things like "Full Body Workout" and "Nutrition Guide." A third showed an "email@example.com" placeholder. Nobody was in those sites often enough to notice.

The juggling costs more than the subscriptions

The subscriptions add up on their own. As of November 2026, Squarespace's Core plan runs $29 a month billed annually, Jotform starts at $34, Mailchimp's Standard plan at $20, Calendly at $10 and Google Workspace at $7 a user. That's around $100 a month for tools that don't share a single contact.

The bigger cost is time. In a 2024 Slack and Salesforce survey of 2,000 US small-business owners, owners said they lose 96 minutes of productivity a day, and 17% named switching between apps as a top productivity killer. That survey isn't lacrosse-specific (and Slack sells a fix), but every program owner I've worked with recognizes the number.

Then there's how it looks. A parent comparing three programs sees the one with the branded email, the clean checkout and the confirmation that arrives in a second, and they see the one with a Venmo handle in a text.

My guess is most parents never put it into words. They just pick the one that feels more established.

Taking payments on personal Venmo breaks Venmo's own rules

This is the part almost nobody mentions. Venmo's user agreement says personal accounts "may not be used to conduct business, commercial or merchant transactions." Payments for lessons and camps are supposed to go through a business profile.

The fees differ too. As of November 2026, a Venmo business profile charges 1.9% plus 10 cents per payment, and a personal account receiving goods-and-services payments pays 2.99%. And a personal account mixes camp money with dinner splits, which leaves you no clean record when a parent asks for a receipt or a refund.

One thing to drop from the worry list: the tax-form scare from a few years ago. The 1099-K reporting threshold went back to $20,000 and 200 transactions in 2025, per the IRS. The reason to switch is simpler: it's how a real business takes money.

One system for under $25 a month replaces most of those tools

The fix I put almost every client on is HubSpot Starter. One login handles what those six tools were doing:

• website hosting and landing pages
• forms that drop every signup straight into the database
• a CRM, basically a digital rolodex of every player, parent and coach
• email marketing to lists you build from that rolodex
• payments with checkout and subscriptions, through HubSpot Payments or Stripe

HubSpot's pricing page lists the Starter Customer Platform at $20 a seat per month, and it's running a lower price for new customers right now. Card processing fees still apply, same as with any payment tool, so budget for those.

What matters is what that one system does for you. When a camp registration lands as a contact with the program attached, you stop matching payments to names by hand. You know who paid, who's on the waitlist and who registered last year and hasn't come back, and you can email exactly that group in two minutes.

We've moved First Class, Buku, Goaliesmith and more onto one system

I've set this up for Platform Lacrosse, First Class Lacrosse, MD3LAX, Buku Events, C7 Lacrosse, Goaliesmith and Team Tendy Lax, and the pattern is the same every time. The owners get their time back for the field, their players and their events, revenue goes up, and the bill for all those apps goes down.

First Class Lacrosse came to us with "a disjointed backend system. Multiple software solutions, countless subscriptions, and overlapping roles" (the First Class story). We pulled it all into HubSpot, and email subscribers grew 136%.

Buku Events moved off LeagueApps, Wix and Google Sheets, migrated 3,000 contacts and got 21 hours a week back (the Buku story).

Team Tendy Lax swapped WordPress, Mailchimp and weekly Excel exports for one system and grew from one facility to two (the Team Tendy story).

Deemer Class, founder of First Class Lacrosse, put it this way: "Our contacts, organization, and marketing efforts have been boosted immensely by Ryan's addition. He is professional, timely, proactive and a great communicator. As a growing business owner, running multiple segments, having someone like Ryan has been key."

And Mike Gvozden of Goaliesmith: "Ryan is simply put, in a league of his own. He knows how to translate website jargon for those who are not experts, while providing his clients with the opportunity to be hands-on in creating their website/hub spot systems. Working with him is not only improving the way we do business, but is very enjoyable. Highly recommended!"

You can check your own setup in five minutes

Pull up your site on your phone and ask yourself:

• Can a parent sign up and pay without leaving your site or opening another app?
• Does every email they get come from your own domain?
• If I asked you right now who paid for your last camp, could you answer without opening a spreadsheet?
• How many logins does it take to email last year's campers about this year's camp?

If two or more of those make you wince, that's worth a conversation.

How we ran the test

On November 6, 2026, we checked 47 lacrosse trainers, lesson programs, goalie schools and camps that ChatGPT recommended in our earlier test across 12 markets (the ChatGPT test). Seven didn't load or weren't real sites at the address we tried, which left 40.

For each site we read the homepage and up to 10 pages about signups, lessons, camps, contact and payment, ignoring the scripts that site builders load on every page. We hand-checked the 16 sites where nothing turned up, on the live page. "A real registration or booking system" means a family could book and pay online, whatever the tool.

Treat this as a snapshot of what parents see, not a ranking, and we didn't name any program. Prices were checked on each vendor's pricing page on November 6, 2026.

Sources: Slack and Salesforce small business survey (Aug 2024) · Venmo User Agreement · Venmo fees · IRS Form 1099-K FAQs (Oct 2025) · HubSpot pricing · Squarespace pricing · Jotform pricing · Mailchimp pricing · Calendly pricing · Google Workspace pricing

Want to see how your setup stacks up against the programs down the road? The $249 Competitor Analysis + Brand Audit lines your site up against three competitors, and the cost comes back as a credit if you start a retainer within 60 days.

Proof from client sites: First Class Lacrosse · Buku Events · Team Tendy Lax · From the blog: LeagueApps websites, tested