Race Roster vs Race Entry

Race Entry and Race Roster have very similar offerings when it comes to registration and race management software. You can customize your online registration form, use marketing tools, sell merchandise, fundraise, manage volunteers, and more.

And, both companies offer their software free to race directors. Race Entry makes money through a service fee charged to each participant who signs up – 4.97% + $1.25 (includes credit card fees). Information on Race Roster’s service fee was difficult to find online. From what we could find, it appears that Race Roster charges 6.99% + $1.99 per registration.

Race Entry differentiates itself from Race Roster with its sponsor management tools. You can sell sponsorships online or with check payments. You can also quickly display sponsor logos on your free marketing page, printed registrations, and even automatically display in the footer of your emails.

Registration

Both Race Roster and Race Entry offer an easy registration experience with secure payments. You can customize your registration questions, waivers, and visuals on the page. Both companies can also handle multiple pricing approaches, so you can maintain your pricing strategy.

Race Entry distinguishes its registration experience in two key ways:

1. Simple two-page form – helps increase conversion rate on your registration form
2. No account creation required – eliminates hassle of username and password creation and account retrieval.

Rather than requiring that participants manage any changes and see past registrations from an account, Race Entry includes unique links in confirmation emails. When accessing these links, participants can view their registration details and make changes as allowed by you. This approach is just as secure as account creation because it doesn’t store payment details and account recovery processes rely on email.

Race Entry and Race Roster also offer capabilities for registration edits, refunds, and transfers. While directors are the only ones with the ability to refund orders, Race Entry allows directors to decide what information participants can edit on their own – including transfers and deferrals. It's unclear if Race Roster offers the capability for participants to make changes to their registration.

Both Race Roster and Race Entry also offer team management and queuing for registration.

Marketing

You’ll find marketing tools and both Race Roster and Race Entry. Both support group discounts, access codes, promo codes, and loyalty programs. Race Roster also offers a social referral tool.

Race Entry offers further marketing and growth tools. These tools are measurable, and include

• Automated Abandoned Cart Email Reminders – Turn on emails that send a half hour after a registration is abandoned and return registrants right to where they left off.
• Social Share Discount – Generate organic buzz and increase traffic to your registration page by offering a $1-$2 discount to registrants who share your registration page on Facebook.
• Referral Program – Set a rebate amount for each new person your participants get to sign up.

Both Race Entry and Race Roster offer email marketing tools with statistics. With Race Entry, you’ll see how many times your emails have been opened. You can even benefit from email templates to step-up your email game.

Race Roster and Race Entry also offer a CRM, which makes it easy to understand your race participants and behavior patterns.

Reporting

You’ll find robust reporting with both Race Roster and Race Entry. You can see your retention rate, year-over-year sales trends, payout reports, transaction reports, etc. You’ll also benefit from real-time reporting.

Race Entry also offers heat maps so you can see where your participants come from. This information can help you target ads on social media, buy radio ads, and even make billboard placement decisions.

Integrated POS for Race Day Registration

Both Race Entry and Race Roster offer integrated POS to make same-day registration easier. Race Roster offers registration kiosks and a check-in tool. Race Entry offers check-in tools and rentable tablets that you can use for onsite registration. With Race Entry, you can also make QR Code posters that link to your registration page to alleviate lines.

Merchandise

You can use both Race Roster and Race Entry to sell merchandise. With Race Roster, you can offer a post-registration merchandise store and use Race Roster’s exclusive partnerships on products.

In contrast, Race Entry makes it easy to have a separate webpage for your merchandise store. You can also highlight specific merchandise in the registration pathway to increase sales alongside registrations. You can even highlight different merchandise based on answers to registration questions.

Race Entry’s system also manages in-person merchandise sales, which helps keep everything organized and in one place.

Volunteer Software

You’ll also find volunteer management software with both Race Entry and Race Roster. With both companies, you’ll have a customizable online registration form and the ability to track job and shift sign-ups. Race Entry also makes it easy to email your volunteers to communicate details about training and race day.

Fundraising

Both Race Entry and Race Roster offer robust fundraising tools. You can see donation metrics and reporting. You can also incentivize fundraising with peer-to-peer fundraising tools with team fundraising pages, digital badges, and leaderboards.

With Race Entry, you can encourage registrations and fundraising by offering opportunities to run for free if participants meet fundraising criteria for partner charities.

Integrations 

You’ll find integrations with both Race Entry and Race Roster. Race Entry offers timer, scoring, event cancellation insurance, and USA Triathlon integrations.

Race Roster offers similar integrations and includes Google Analytics and MailChimp integrations.

Race Entry offers the capability to add pixels to its pages so you can track the effectiveness of your digital ads. Race Entry also offers its own email messaging tool, so you can remove email service provider subscription from your monthly budget.

Bibs & Results

Both Race Roster and Race Entry offer features for bib assignment and results. Both offer results pages that can include video. Race Entry’s results pages also can also include photos from throughout the race. With Race Entry, you can also offer digital certificates with details about their time and place to your finishers.

Sponsor Management

In addition to the above tools, Race Entry offers sponsorship management tools. Set up your sponsorship structure. Then, you can sell sponsorships online. Of course, you can still accept payment via check. You can also decide where sponsor logos are displayed – on your free, customizable marketing page, on printed registrations, and in the footer of your email. Each of these logo placements are valuable marketing opportunities for your sponsors.

It's unclear from Race Roster’s website what it offers around sponsor management.

Multi-User Access & Permissions

Race Roster and Race Entry make it easy to work with a team with its multi-user access. You can fully customize what each user can access, which helps you protect sensitive information.

While you’ll find many tools for managing your race with both Race Roster and Race Entry, specific features and cost vary.

Race Entry’s online registration page is a simple two-page form that helps increase completion rates and does not require your participants to create an account to securely manage their registration. These two factors help make Race Entry user-friendly for your participants.

Race Entry’s marketing tools also stand out because they are measurable and focus on turning your attendees into marketers helping you generate organic social media buzz and traffic to your registration page through referrals and Facebook shares.

Race Entry also offers sponsorship management tools to help you track, sell, and promote your sponsors.

Race Roster charges a higher fee than Race Entry. While most races pass the fee on to participants rather than paying it themselves, a lower fee with Race Entry helps make the final cost of your race cheaper for your participants.