If you’re using Trackie for sports tournaments and event registration, you’ve probably realized it excels at one thing: results tracking. But if you’re looking for a Trackie alternative to handle the other 90% of your admin work (payment reconciliation, waiver collection, constant reminder emails, and last-minute weather alerts you have to send manually), you’re not alone.
Many sports clubs, recreation programs, and camps have hit the same wall: Trackie handles the scoreboard, but not the chaos behind it.
That’s why organizations are switching to Activity Messenger, an all-in-one platform that combines registration, payments, digital waivers, SMS reminders, and automated communications.
Whether you run sports leagues, recreation programs, camps, or multi-session classes, this guide will help you understand why Trackie leaves gaps and what to replace it with.
DISCLAIMER: Activity Messenger is our software. We created it after experiencing the various shortcomings of existing registration and program management software for years.
Trackie is a cloud-based registration and event management platform, particularly popular in the Canadian athletics and running community. The platform handles over 20,000+ events and clubs with 4+ million total entries, making it a go-to choice for sports organizations managing competitions and tournaments.
Purpose-built for sports organizations, particularly track & field, running clubs, and pickleball organizations, Trackie offers solid functionality for competition-focused programs.
The platform includes online registration, live results tracking, province-wide event calendars, membership management, promotional codes, and Mailchimp integration.
It’s fully bilingual (English/French) and includes features like seed-mark validation for track and field competitions, making it highly specialized for competitive athletics.
While Trackie excels at competition logistics and results management, organizations often find it lacking in several key areas:
For clubs running year-round programs, camps, or non-competitive activities alongside tournaments, Trackie’s event-centric design can feel restrictive. Organizations seeking a Trackie alternative usually prioritize these missing features when evaluating new platforms.
Even if Trackie “works” for your basic needs, these red flags usually mean you’ve pushed it past its limits:
If you offer training camps, recreational leagues, year-round classes, or private lessons alongside tournaments, Trackie’s event-focused model becomes limiting. You need a platform that treats all program types equally.
Tracking who paid, who owes balances, and processing refunds shouldn’t require spreadsheets and hours of cross-referencing. If you’re exporting data to reconcile payments manually, you’re working too hard.
Email doesn’t work for last-minute updates. When the weather cancels practice in 2 hours, or you need to notify 200 families about a schedule change, you need SMS.
If families aren’t receiving instant confirmations or can’t see their account status, payment history, or upcoming sessions, your system is creating unnecessary support tickets and frustrated parents.
Digital waivers should be searchable, linked to participants, and accessible in seconds, not buried in inboxes or physical files. When you need to verify a waiver before an event, you shouldn’t be hunting through folders.
Trackie as a registration + email service + payment processor + scheduling app + SMS tool = too many logins, too many monthly fees, too much manual data transfer between systems, and too many opportunities for errors.
Parents expect to register from their phones in under two minutes. If your registration process requires desktop access, multiple steps, or account creation before registration, you’re losing sign-ups.
Sending season updates, payment reminders, weather cancellations, and program information shouldn’t eat up staff time. If you’re manually crafting emails for every communication, automation should be handling it.
👉 The result? Staff burnout, parent frustration, lower enrolment, and missed revenue from inefficient processes.
| Feature | Trackie | Activity Messenger |
| Event & Results Management | ✅ Built for competitions, tournaments, and live scoring with results tracking | ✅ Full online ticketing & event management — sell tickets, manage registrations, scan entries & track attendance |
| Registration Forms | ⚠️ Basic online forms with limited customization options | ✅ Fully customizable forms with multi-participant enrolment, family accounts, sibling discounts, and conditional logic |
| Payments & Refunds | ⚠️ Manual reconciliation often required; limited flexibility with payment processing | ✅ Integrated payment processing with Stripe, automatic receipts, instant refunds, installment plans, and balance tracking |
| Digital Waivers & Signatures | ❌ Not built-in; requires manual upload or external waiver tools | ✅ Fully digital waivers with e-signatures that auto-store and link to participant profiles for instant access |
| Communication Tools (Email/SMS) | ⚠️ Email-only through admin panel; no SMS capability or automation | ✅ Built-in SMS, email, and push notifications with automated reminder sequences and targeted messaging |
| Automation | ❌ Minimal; relies heavily on manual follow-up and data exports | ✅ Automate registration confirmations, payment reminders, roster updates, event notifications, and waitlist promotions |
| Attendance & Check-In | ⚠️ Manual or partial tracking; focused on competition results | ✅ QR codes, Apple/Google Wallet passes, tablet check-in, and automated roster updates |
| Multi-Program Support | ⚠️ Sports-focused, primarily events and competitions | ✅ Supports leagues, camps, recreation, classes, workshops, memberships, drop-ins, and rentals equally |
| Reporting & Analytics | ⚠️ Export-based reporting requiring external spreadsheet analysis | ✅ Real-time dashboards, enrolment reports, revenue tracking, and attendance analytics built-in |
| Mobile Experience | ⚠️ Functional for registration; limited mobile optimization | ✅ 100% mobile-optimized for parents and staff with integrated mobile passes and app-like experience |
| Data Privacy & Hosting | 🇨🇦 Canadian hosting | 🇨🇦 Canadian hosting, fully bilingual (English/French) throughout the platform |
| Customer Support | ✅ Standard email support with response times | ✅ Personalized onboarding, live chat/email support, dedicated migration assistance, and training resources |
| Best For | Sports organizations needing competition results, live scoring, and event-focused registration | Sports clubs, camps, recreation programs, and multi-program organizations needing all-in-one management for registration, payments, communication, and automation |
| Starting Price | Contact for pricing (4.9% plus $0.50 per entry) | $89/month for Light Plan |
| Capterra Rating | N/A | 4.8/5 |
📌 Read More: Activity Messenger also acts as an alternative to US-based tools like Google Forms, Smartwaiver, SurveyMonkey, Mailchimp, and Eventbrite.
Built for programs — not just events.
Activity Messenger is designed for organizations that do more than run competitions. Whether you offer year-round training programs, summer camps, recreational leagues, or multi-session classes, it handles the full lifecycle: registration → payment → communication → attendance → retention.
Activity Messenger simplifies registration for families and streamlines payment collection for staff. Parents can register from their phones, select multiple sessions for different children, apply sibling discounts, and pay instantly. No account creation required, no complicated navigation, just a smooth enrolment experience.
The registration flow is mobile-optimized, eliminating the frustration parents experience with forms that don’t work on phones. Families complete registration during their commute, at pickup, or whenever it’s convenient, driving higher conversion rates.
Collect everything you need in one place: emergency contacts, medical information, skill levels, t-shirt sizes, equipment needs, and liability waivers with legally binding digital signatures.
All submissions automatically attach to participant profiles with no manual filing, no searching through email attachments, and no lost paperwork.
When you need to verify a waiver or check emergency contact information, it’s accessible in seconds from any device. No more digging through file cabinets or email folders on event day.
This is where Activity Messenger truly differs from Trackie.
Instead of manually sending reminders via email or relying on external tools for urgent SMS notifications, Activity Messenger integrates both channels directly into your workflow.
Email Campaigns:
SMS Reminders:
Automated Workflows:
Set it once, forget it forever. Activity Messenger’s automation engine handles repetitive communication tasks so staff can focus on coaching and program delivery.
Examples of automated sequences:
Unlike Trackie’s limited email-only system, you can segment communications by:
This means your competitive team gets tournament updates while recreational participants get fun weekend activity suggestions.
Trackie was built for the finish line, not the starting line. It handles competition results beautifully — but checking in 200 kids for summer camp? Not so much. That’s where Activity Messenger’s attendance tools save the day.
For regular programs and classes:
For events and tournaments:
💡 Want to learn more about Activity Messenger? Check out our YouTube channel for how-tos, past webinars, feature comparisons, and more.
Organizations switching to a Trackie alternative report the same pain points:
⏰ Too much time on manual tasks
📱 Registration experience frustrations
💬 Communication tool gaps
🏃 Programs beyond competitions
Activity Messenger solves all of these with automation, integrated SMS/email, mobile-optimized registration, and support for every program type, not just events.
Schedule a personalized demo today to explore how Activity Messenger can streamline your organization.
Book a demoSwitching to a Trackie alternative doesn’t have to disrupt your season. Activity Messenger offers hands-on support for data migration, setup, and staff training.
Export participant, family, and registration records from Trackie. The Activity Messenger team helps map these fields into your new system. Most organizations migrate 1-2 years of active data and archive older records.
Run a pilot import with 10-20 records to confirm field mapping is accurate. Test a complete registration flow: form completion, payment processing, confirmation delivery, and data storage. This identifies adjustments needed before full launch.
Let families know about the switch 2-3 weeks in advance. Activity Messenger provides communication templates and parent guides to reduce confusion and position the change as an improvement.
Schedule staff training 1-2 weeks before launch, covering form creation, payment processing, communication tools, attendance tracking, and reporting. Monitor the first week closely and have extra support available during peak registration.
Verify that the payment process is correct, rosters populate as expected, and waivers are captured properly. Send a test communication to confirm messaging works. Collect staff feedback to refine workflows for future seasons.
Activity Messenger’s support team stays involved through your first registration cycle to ensure success.
Trackie handles event registration and results tracking well, but lacks modern automation, integrated SMS communication, and flexible payment options. Organizations running year-round programs, camps, or recreational leagues alongside competitions need platforms that support diverse program types with comprehensive tools for payments, waivers, communication, and attendance.
Trackie excels at live competition scoring, results tracking with real-time updates, and seed-mark validation for track & field events. For instant results posting and performance rankings, Trackie’s specialized tools are excellent. Activity Messenger focuses on operational needs: registration, payments, communication, and program management. Some organizations use Activity Messenger for operations and specialized meet software for competition-day results.
When evaluating a Trackie alternative, prioritize platforms that offer integrated communication tools (SMS and email), flexible payment processing with installment options, digital waiver management, mobile-optimized registration, robust automation for confirmations and reminders, and comprehensive attendance tracking beyond just competition results. The best Trackie alternative should handle diverse program types—camps, training sessions, memberships, and recreational leagues—not just competitive events.
Yes. Export your participant, family, registration, and payment history from Trackie into CSV or Excel formats. Activity Messenger’s import tools map these fields into your new system.
Some organizations use both during transition or keep Trackie for competition results while Activity Messenger handles registration, payments, and communication. Most find Activity Messenger’s all-in-one approach eliminates the need for multiple platforms. Running parallel systems temporarily during migration is common.
Organizations offering diverse programs beyond competitions benefit most:
Yes. Activity Messenger implements industry-standard security:
Yes. While Activity Messenger doesn’t replicate Trackie’s competition scoring, it handles all operational aspects: season registration, training program enrolment, camp registration, meet registration, athlete/parent communication, payment collection, and attendance tracking. Many clubs use Activity Messenger for operations and specialized meet software for competition results.
Activity Messenger starts at $89/month with transparent pricing. Trackie operates via processing fees (4.9% plus $0.50 per entry, subject to additional sales tax). Consider your full tool stack: Trackie subscription + email marketing + SMS service + payment processing + waiver management + administrative time. Many organizations find Activity Messenger’s all-in-one pricing is lower than combined tool costs while reducing admin time. View detailed pricing or schedule a demo.
Trackie remains a solid platform for managing competitive athletics, live scoring, and results tracking. But for organizations that need more than event management (comprehensive registration tools, flexible payments, integrated communication, attendance tracking, and automation), Trackie leaves significant gaps.
Activity Messenger was built for clubs, camps, and recreation programs that need complete operational tools. Instead of supplementing Trackie with multiple external tools for payments, communication, and daily management, you get one unified platform designed for the realities of modern program administration.
💡 Ready to simplify registration, streamline communication, and reduce admin workload? Book a demo with Activity Messenger today to see how our platform can transform your operations and help you focus on what matters most: delivering great programs.
