How Pivt Pay makes money, in years one, three and five.
The prices and rates here are the ones running in the live product. Every number you see traces back either to that pricing or to an input we name. Anything we had to guess is labeled ASSUMPTION so you know what to dig into.
What we assumed
| Input | What we used |
|---|---|
| Where we are | No revenue yet. The payments and fundraising engine is built and we are signing our first clubs by hand. Every forward number is an ASSUMPTION. |
| The raise | A $2.5M seed ASSUMPTION, split 55% product, 30% getting in front of clubs, 15% operations and runway. Swap in the real round. |
| The market | US competitive and travel clubs, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball and softball. About 60,000 programs ASSUMPTION, plus the NIL pool those clubs feed. |
| How we sell | The founders sell to club directors, where one director can mean 6 to 40 teams. Families spread it. A fee calculator pulls people in. We move the first clubs over for free. |
| Costs to win and keep | All ASSUMPTION until the first clubs report back. See the unit economics below. |
Why this works
- Four ways to earn, two of them a cut of money moving. Subscriptions give a steady floor. The cut on deals, fundraising and dues grows with the money, and it costs nothing extra to win because it rides on clubs we already have.
- The club seeds the marketplace for free. Every paying club brings 150 to 300 families. Every family can become a PIVT athlete. Every athlete is supply that brands and agents pay to reach. We buy that supply at dues prices, not marketplace prices.
- Two products, one login, one bill. A club admin who lands on dues is one tap from a PIVT team. An athlete who sets up a free profile is one tap from a paid plan. That lifts the lifetime value with almost no extra cost to acquire.
- We are cheaper than everyone. Fundraising runs 16 down to 0, under Snap!. Dues stay under TeamSnap. The NIL cut runs 20 down to 4, under the usual agency rates. We win the line item and still keep a cut.
- A light balance sheet. Money settles into the club's own Stripe account. We never hold it, so we skip the money transmitter licensing that usually slows a payments business down.
How we make money
Four streams. A, subscriptions: free plus four paid plans for each role, clubs at $0, $49, $149 and $249, and annual plans give you about two months free. B, a cut of NIL deals: 20% down to 4% depending on the agent's plan, and deals with no agent pay 20%. C, a cut of fundraising: 16% down to 0%, where Club Zero's flat $249 a month is the whole deal. D, a thin dues margin: 35 basis points plus $0.40, down to nothing at Club Zero, and the family covers it. Then a few one off items: a $99 athlete sign up, media kits at $99 and $299, and donor tips. The one that compounds fastest is B, because a tenth of a big and growing deal flow beats any seat fee.
The numbers, built from the ground up
First, the accounts ASSUMPTION
Everything rides on club growth, so here are the rules we used, each one written out so you can push on it:
- Clubs start at 250 in year one, in line with the plan: 10 first clubs, then an app launch, then 250 or so by month twelve.
- Club growth slows over time, not the other way around: 3 times in year two, then 2.67, then 2.25, then 2 times. That lands at 250, then 2,000, then 9,000 active clubs. The 9,000 is about 15% of the market we named.
- The share of clubs that pay rises as the product gets deeper: a third, then 42%, then half. That is 80, then 840, then 4,500 paying clubs.
- Each club brings about 200 families. Roughly a third set up a free profile, and 3 to 4% of those pay for more.
| Accounts | Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active clubs | 250 | 2,000 | 9,000 |
| Paying clubs | 80 | 840 | 4,500 |
| Free athlete profiles | 15,000 | 128,000 | 630,000 |
| Paying athletes | 450 | 4,480 | 25,200 |
| Brands | 30 | 400 | 2,000 |
| Agents | 40 | 500 | 2,500 |
| Coaches | 50 | 600 | 3,000 |
Subscriptions, money per month times accounts
Here is the average monthly price we used for each role, with the plan mix we assumed, all at real prices: clubs $83 (mostly Pro), athletes $36.50, brands $384, agents $319, coaches $344. We trim the totals by 5% because some accounts pay annually and get two months free.
| Role | Per month | Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clubs | $83 | $80k | $837k | $4.48M |
| Athletes | $36.50 | $197k | $1.96M | $11.04M |
| Brands | $384 | $138k | $1.84M | $9.22M |
| Agents | $319 | $153k | $1.91M | $9.57M |
| Coaches | $344 | $206k | $2.48M | $12.38M |
| Subscriptions, after the annual trim | $735k | $8.58M | $44.36M |
The cut of money moving
Dues. Free clubs are capped at $2,000 a season, so paying clubs carry the volume. We assumed each paying club runs $130k, then $170k, then $200k of dues. The margin we keep is thin on purpose, about 0.30%, since the family already covers the processing.
- Year 1: $10.7M of dues, we keep $32k.
- Year 3: $145M of dues, we keep $435k.
- Year 5: $909M of dues, we keep $2.73M.
Fundraising. Half of active clubs run at least one fundraiser a year, averaging $15k, then $18k, then $20k. The blended take drifts down from 13% to 10.5% as more clubs move to paid plans and Club Zero.
- Year 1: $1.88M raised, we keep $244k.
- Year 3: $18M raised, we keep $2.07M.
- Year 5: $90M raised, we keep $9.45M.
NIL deals. The marketplace is slow to start, then liquidity builds as profiles and brands pile up. The blended cut eases from 12% to 10% as bigger agency deals, which pay less, make up more of the flow.
- Year 1: $1.2M of deals, we keep $144k.
- Year 3: $40M of deals, we keep $4.40M.
- Year 5: $180M of deals, we keep $18.0M.
Add it up
| Line | Year 1 | Year 3 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscriptions | $735k | $8.58M | $44.36M |
| Dues margin | $32k | $435k | $2.73M |
| Fundraising cut | $244k | $2.07M | $9.45M |
| NIL deal cut | $144k | $4.40M | $18.00M |
| One off items | $60k | $350k | $1.20M |
| Total revenue | $1.22M | $15.84M | $75.74M |
| Money moved through us | $13.8M | $203M | $1.18B |
| Gross margin | 78% | 82% | 85% |
On margin: subscriptions run about 90%. Dues and fundraising are covered by the family or donor, so Stripe's fee lands on them, not us. The main cost is Stripe on our NIL cut, plus servers and support, which is why we start at 78% and climb to 85% as we scale. Subscriptions are about 60% of revenue today and stay around 59% by year five, but the NIL cut alone goes from a tenth of revenue to a quarter. That is the line that compounds.
Low, base and high
The base case is the careful one. Three things swing the result: how fast clubs grow and how many pay, how much NIL money moves per athlete, and how well clubs turn into PIVT accounts. The low and high cases just push those three.
| Total revenue | Low | Base | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $0.7M | $1.22M | $1.9M |
| Year 3 | $7.5M | $15.84M | $29M |
| Year 5 | $33M | $75.74M | $145M |
| Year 5 money moved | $0.55B | $1.18B | $2.3B |
In the low case, clubs grow 2 times a year, conversion stalls at 30%, and NIL never really gets going. That still leaves a healthy subscription and dues business. In the high case, density pulls the cost to win down, half of clubs pay, more families set up profiles, and NIL money reaches $300M by year five, which is still a small slice of the national pool. Every move has a reason behind it.
Unit economics
All of these are an ASSUMPTION until the first clubs report real numbers. The point is the shape.
It costs about $600 to win a club. That club throws off roughly $2,400 a year in gross profit once you add dues and fundraising, and it stays about five years, so it is worth around $10,200. The reason the value runs so far ahead of the cost is the cut: the NIL money and the family supply ride on an account we already paid for. We pay to win the club once, then earn off it for years. That is the whole story.
What the money buys, year by year
| When | What it buys | How we judge it |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | The iPhone app and App Store launch, 250 clubs in two or three metros, the PIVT handoff wired up | How fast a club gets its first payout, and how many turn into PIVT accounts |
| Year 3 | Android and a national push, real NIL deal flow, 2,000 clubs | NIL money moving, and revenue retention above 115% |
| Year 5 | We own the category, 9,000 clubs, the NIL cut is the biggest line | $1.18B moving through us and $64M in gross profit |
What to check first
- Club growth and paid conversion. This swings the result more than anything else. Check it against the first 250 clubs before trusting year three or five.
- Clubs turning into PIVT accounts. How many families set up a profile, and how many pay. The whole two sided story and most of the value lift live here.
- The NIL ramp. Deal flow going from $1.2M to $180M is the biggest year five line and the least proven. Confirm the deal flow and the mix of agent plans.
- Dues per paying club and how many clubs fundraise. These drive the base and the $1.18B headline.
- Cost to win, retention and net revenue retention. Swap in real numbers as soon as you have them. The 17 to 1 is a claim about the shape, not something we have measured yet.