Sporty makes available a free website and member management system for every sports organisation and school within New Zealand and Australia. The free services include some limitations in functionality compared to the paid ("VIP") version of services. This article explains the main differences. To learn more about pricing for the VIP options, please refer to the Sporty home page or complete this contact request form.
Free Website
Home Page
The website builder (CMS) lets you have sections on a page, where each section can contain one or more columns of content. See how a page is structured here. Free websites are allowed up to 2 sections of content on the home page, in addition to the Header section and the Footer section. Each of these 2 sections is limited to having only one content item ("widget") per column within the section.
Figure 1 - showing a page with two sections.
Figure 1 shows a home page with 2 sections where the top section which has been set with two columns (a narrow column with Contact details on the left, and a wider column with Text on the right). Since each column already contains the maximum of one content "widget", you are unable to add additional content widgets to these two columns. However, if you wish, you could set the section to have additional columns or you could replace the content widgets with other widgets instead.
The bottom section in Figure 1 is currently set to only be one column wide and has no content added yet. You could click the section settings "cog" button on the left of that section to change the number of columns. You can also click the + ADD CONTENT button to add a content widget into the column(s) within this section.
You are unable to add additional sections under the free service. If you upgrade to subscription plan, this all becomes unlimited - i.e. you would be able to add as many sections as you wish and add as many content widgets within each column as you want.
Note that the free sites may also display advertising banners from Sporty or its affiliates at the bottom of each page.
Underlying Pages
The explanation above applies to the Home page (only) for free websites. There are approximately 100 other pages of content available with a free site and each of these pages only allows 1 section per page (in addition to the Header section and the Footer section). The 1 section has the same limitations as above for free sites, meaning that you are limited to having only one content item ("widget") per column within the section. These restrictions are illustrated in Figure 2 below:
Figure 2
Your Sporty site also has unlimited document and image storage, the ability to send eNewsletter, post news on your website, integrate with social media and many more fantastic features.
Online Forms / Databases
The Sporty platform provides a powerful web form builder and database system that allows clubs/schools to build web input forms with whatever question fields you like, so that people can complete your form online for things such as your membership registration/renewal or for holiday programmes or other purposes. Whenever people submit an online form, their record is automatically added to your database associated with that form. This database is then available to you for management and communication purposes, and also becomes visible in your SuperCRM member management system.
Clubs that are only using free services are limited to 2 Online Forms/Databases. This limit is removed to become unlimited for clubs that upgrade to a subscription plan.
SuperCRM member management system
Clubs that are only using free services from Sporty are able to have 2 logins to SuperCRM member management system for their club. If you wish to have more logins, you'll need to upgrade to a subscription plan.
Note that pricing for subscription plans is based upon the number of members at your club. This makes it affordable irrespective of how large or small a club may be. To learn more, complete this contact form.
Go VIP
Clubs are encouraged to upgrade to a subscription ("VIP") plan. This removes the limits of the free service and also removes the advertising banners that display on the bottom of the free sites.
See below for a comparison between Free and VIP