Question: How does your pricing work?

Answer: There are two kinds of fees involved in the usage of our software -- a "base" fee, and another which involves a decision on your part:

• Base Fee

  The base fee for the use of our software is $1.25 per skater (increasing to $1.50 as of November 1, 2011).  This per-skater fee is charged to you (the LOC) and applies only when an entry is processed for a new skater entry.  We believe this pricing mechanism is the most fair for our clients, as it allows your total cost to be determined by the number of skaters in your competition.

• Convenience Fee

  In order to recover some of the costs of maintaining our servers and software, we must apply a small 3.5% convenience fee (increasing to 3.8% as of November 1, 2011) to each skater's total charged amount for all online payments.  This fee can be added as a line-item to each skater's subtotal at the time of payment, or you can choose to absorb these fees and pay them on your skaters' behalf.  If you choose to absorb and pay these fees, they will not appear as part of each skater's subtotal.
  
  This convenience fee is similar (but somewhat less expensive) than the convenience fees seen with online concert ticket sales, where ticket sellers often charge $15.00 or more per ticket as a "handling" fee.  The rationale behind a percentage-based fee is the wide range of expenses involved in credit-card processing and secure data storage - again, our intent is for an equitable fee structure.
  
  With a 3.8% convenience fee, a typical skater paying $120.00 to enter your competition would pay a convenience fee of $4.60.  Alternatively, if you choose to absorb the convenience fee, the skater would pay $120.00 and you would pay $4.60.  Note that if you were to slightly increase your entry fees by $5.00, there would be no net loss of revenue after the convenience fees.

Each month, we send you a check for the total dollar amount of all entries we receive for your competition.  Each time a skater's entry is processed (whether by the skater with a credit card, or by you from a paper entry form), our system tallies that entry. On the next statement we send to you, we'll report to you how many new entries were processed and multiply that number by $1.25 ($1.50 after November 1, 2011) to determine your total base fees.  That total amount will be deducted from the amount of your check, in addition to convenience fees only if you have elected ahead of time to absorb them.

If a skater creates an account for your competition and puts several events into a shopping cart but never actually finalizes the entry, we charge you nothing.

If a skater re-enters his or her account and adds an event or practice-ice to an already existing entry, there is no additional base fee.

There is also no base fee charge when skaters purchase practice-ice sessions online with a credit-card.  Oh, and you can make changes to a skater's entry at any time with no charge at all.

Question: There are no other charges?

Answer:  No -- your initial $125.00 deposit is refundable.  We use it only if it is needed to finalize your last statement.

Configuration Service

We do offer an optional configuration service.  For an additional $50.00, we'll configure your competition for you, saving you the hassle of setting up everything yourself.  While our configuration screens are straightforward, we've found that some of our clients appreciate the option of having it done for them.

Otherwise, our fees are limited to the two-part description at the top of this page.

Question: Are there any ways for us to reduce our total cost?

Answer: The best way for you to directly recover some of these costs is to sell web advertising. We suggest contacting any existing sponsors you have and offering them some advertising space on your front page for an additional fee. You can display 4-5 picture ads on one panel of the front page, or 12-15 text ads, or you can mix them. There are two panels, thus plenty of room to sell lots of ads. Web ads can be uploaded at any time -- we provide screens to make it quick and easy.

Question: Do our skaters pay any additional fees (other than their entry fees)?

Answer: Please refer to the top of this page for a description of our convenience fees.  If you choose to absorb these convenience fees as described above, your skaters will only pay the amounts for events, practice-ice, and merchandise.

Question: When do we get our refundable $125.00 deposit back?

Answer: We finalize your account activity approximately 45 days after the actual date of your competition. If there are any last-minute paper entries, we'll deduct $1.25 ($1.50 as of November 1, 2011) for each one. If not, we'll send you the entire $125.00. Either way, we put a check in the mail during the next billing cycle (the first of the month). No matter what, you still pay only $1.25 per skater ($1.50 as of November 1, 2011).

Question: The system sounds complicated. What if I have trouble using it?

Answer: Our administrator screens (which you'll be using to monitor and manage your competition) employ some of the latest web technology to make your user experience as straightforward as possible. Nearly every page has context-sensitive help available at the click of a button. The system's navigation scheme is very natural and easy to follow, and each page carefully validates your input so you don't accidentally do something wrong.

If you reach a point where you're still unsure how to proceed, even after reading the online help, just call us toll-free and we'll be happy to assist.

Question: How long will our entry data be available after our competition is completed?

Answer: We'll keep your data in our database for 60 days after your competition is completed, in case you need access to the information. You'll be able to access various reports and spreadsheet downloads in order to archive your competition data.

After 60 days, all your competition information and entry data will be removed from our main database.