You are charged per entrant, per race, every time the calendar comes round
Marathons, trail ultras, triathlons and gran fondos all sell the same thing: a place on a start line. The platform that sells it takes a fee on each one, then hands the transfers, the deferrals and the medical forms back to you.
What a race organiser is usually renting
Entry is the obvious line. The rest arrived one problem at a time, and most of them are priced on the size of the field.
A fee per entrant restarts at every race
A per-entrant fee has one property that decides everything: it starts again. The athlete who enters your spring half, your summer trail race and your autumn marathon is charged three separate times, and the platform did the same work on each. Add a distance, add a family run on the same morning, and you have added a permanent line to the cost of putting the event on.
Entry pricing in this sport rises as the field fills, which is the model that works against you hardest. Where the platform takes a share, its cut climbs through every tier you pass, so the late entrant who pays the most also costs the most to sell to. Where the fee is flat, it lands identically on a full-distance entry and on the community run you keep deliberately cheap.
Then count what is not on the invoice. Transfers between people, deferrals to next year, distance changes and refund requests are the largest single source of email in a race office, and a rented entry system tends to handle the clean sale and leave every exception to a person with an inbox. That person is paid, and they are part of what your entry software actually costs.
What we build around a start line
- Entry with your own price ladderPrices that step up by date or by places sold, caps per distance, club and relay team entries, and codes for members and returning finishers.
- Waves, corrals and bib allocationEntrants seeded on predicted finish or qualifying time, corrals with capacity, bib numbers issued by wave, and a start list produced in the layout your timing company asks for.
- Transfers, deferrals and distance changesYour policy and your cut-off dates applied by the system, so an entrant moves their own place, name or distance without starting an email thread.
- A series passportEntering three of your races should not cost what three unrelated entries cost. Series pricing, one entrant record across the whole calendar, and standings that update as results come back.
- Waivers, medical details and volunteers in one recordConsent, medical notes and emergency contacts attached to the entry itself, and volunteer shifts filled from the same list of people who already love the race.
What stays with the specialists
- Chip timing and your timing companyMats, decoders, chips and the timer's own software are equipment and expertise on the day, not a subscription you can rebuild. We hand them a clean start list and read their results back in.
- Sanctioning and governing body systemsPermits, licence checks, qualifying standards and results filed to a federation or a ranking series run in their systems and stay there. We produce the file in the shape they ask for.
- Card processingThe processor charges its rate whoever takes the entry. We connect to the one you already use.
Months pass between the entry and the start line
Almost nothing else a person buys is paid for half a year ahead and then trained for in between. In that gap people get injured, get pregnant, get posted abroad, or enter something that clashes. Every one of those becomes a message to your race office. The policy you already have is usually sound; what is missing is a system that applies it, with your cut-off dates, your fee for a transfer and your rule about which edition a deferral lands in.
It also decides how the race feels to enter. An entrant who can pass their own place to a friend late at night does not need you at all, and the start list stays accurate, which matters when the medical information attached to a bib has to belong to the person wearing it. A race that sells out and then runs with quietly unfilled places is losing money and goodwill at once, and no rented form solves that.
Questions race organisers ask
Can entrants transfer or defer their own places?
Yes, inside whatever rules you set: who may transfer, until when, for what fee, and whether a deferral holds the same distance. The rule is then enforced by the system instead of remembered by whoever is on email that week, and the start list is right because the change was made on it.
Do we have to change timing companies?
No, and we would not suggest it. Timing is equipment and people on the day. We send your timer the start list in their format and read their results back, so finish times, category placings and the results page fill in without anyone retyping a spreadsheet.
Can we price a series so three races cost less than three entries?
Yes, and it is the thing a per-entry platform is least able to do, because it treats each race as an unrelated sale. When you own the system an entrant is one person across your whole calendar, so series pricing, loyalty rates for returning finishers and standings across the races all come off the same record.
We put on one race a year. Should we build anything?
Often not. If your field is small and your entry fee is modest, renting is the sensible choice and we will tell you so. Add up a full year of per-entrant fees, including whatever entrants pay at checkout, with the calculator on this site. If the three-year figure is small, stay exactly where you are.
From the blog, for races and endurance events
- How do you price a series passport so three races cost less than three entries?September 26, 2026 · A series passport is one purchase covering several races, priced below the sum of the entries. What it has to decide, and why one entrant record is the real requirement.
- Why do race transfers and deferrals create more admin than entries?September 25, 2026 · Transfers, deferrals and distance changes are the largest source of email in a race office. What the work really is, and what a policy applied by the system looks like.
Keep reading
Send us what entry costs per entrant
The fee on each entry, roughly how many entrants across the calendar, and what the race office still does by hand.
Hiro costs about a tenth of what you pay now, quoted against your own bill. Hosting, fixes and changes included, and no per-seat fees.