Swim Team Software You’ll Love!
How do SwimTopia and TeamUnify compare? Our best answer to “how do we compare” comes from the many customers who have switched to SwimTopia from TeamUnify. What we hear consistently from customers is that SwimTopia is easier to use, more liked by parents and coaches, more affordable, and provides features and benefits to summer league teams that aren’t available in TeamUnify.
Here’s what one former TeamUnify customer had to say about SwimTopia:
“Over the past three years I had been using TeamUnify. SwimTopia is SO much more user friendly and has everything that a coach needs in one place. There is no comparison between the two programs, SwimTopia blows TeamUnify out of the water. Also, I am very impressed with the customer service and willingness of SwimTopia to help answer any questions or teach people how to use the site.”
—Michael E., Head Coach, Lake Marion Lasers
Transparent Pricing
With SwimTopia there are no setup fees and no hidden fees. You can choose the account type that’s right for you, either a Lite account for $150 + $1.50/athlete/year, or a Premium account for $150 + $3.00/athlete/year. See more.
Take a Look
SwimTopia has streamlined all aspects of swim team management and communications for coaches, swimmers and parents. SwimTopia allows me to spend more time on deck and less time on the computer! SwimTopia support staff is amazing!
“We tried TeamUnify to help us manage registrations and communications and it was disastrous. The software and functionality was over-complicated. Set-up required days rather than hours. Tasks were not intuitive. Parents were frustrated by tedious and difficult site navigation. Our parents literally begged us to go to SwimTopia. SwimTopia is an actual utopia.”
—Beth R., President, North Cobb High School
Note: SwimTopia software currently provides a comprehensive team and meet management solution for summer, recreational, and high school swim teams. SwimTopia’s year round software is coming soon.
| Features | SwimTopia® | Team Unify™ |
|---|---|---|
| Website Management Offers simple yet powerful drag-and-drop website editing Ensures custom domain name is always displayed in your URL Allows customizable administrative permission levels for different types of users Features editable HTML text areas available on any page | ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ | ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ |
| Volunteer Management Collects volunteer preferences and shift assignments during online registration Collects donation item signups Allocates volunteer points to team roles outside of meets Offers printable volunteer sign-in sheets | ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ | ✘ ✘ ✘ ✘ |
| Merchandising Enables you to easily sell any brand of product you want, at any price you want, with the full convenience of online checkout and keep 100% of the proceeds Complete customization of merchandise items offered, including sizes, and colors | ✓
✓ | ✘
✘ |
| Fundraising Does not charge additional fees or take a cut of team donations, sponsorships or merchandise sales Features sponsorship levels that are customizable | ✓ ✓ | ✘ ✘ |
| Meet Entries Enables direct editing of swim meet entries in familiar athlete-by-event matrix Automatically ages athletes up on their birthday | ✓ ✓ | ✘ ✘ |
| Hy-Tek Integration Supports native Hy-Tek Meet Manager™ file formats for full compatibility including team rosters, diving events, and non-standard relays | ✓ | ✘ |
| Relay Generation Can select the optimal combination of athletes for relays teams in all events in a meet with a single click Swim-up rules can be defined and are automatically part of the relay generation process Tracks and reports if a swimmer needs to leave early or arrive late to a meet, and this availability is automatically taken into account for relay editing and generation | ✓
✓
✓ | ✘
✘
✘ |
| Estimated Relay Splits Can automatically estimate relay leg splits based on individual times of different distances (e.g. scale a 50 free time down to an estimated 25 free for a 100 free relay) | ✓ | ✘ |
Swim teams are run by volunteers, which is why SwimTopia makes managing your website so simple that technical expertise is not required. Anyone who can use Microsoft Word can customize the appearance of your site with little or no training. How do SwimTopia and TeamUnify compare on website management? SwimTopia websites are easier to update and maintain, while customers who have switched from TeamUnify to SwimTopia say they needed knowledge of HTML to edit and update their TeamUnify website.
Working with Snippets in SwimTopia
SwimTopia uses flexible drag and drop elements (called Snippets) to quickly create and update all the content on your website, making it easy to directly edit website content without technical expertise. Editing templates and navigation follow the same familiar drag and drop concepts. Snippets make it easy to add coach bios, contact forms, images, Google maps, register buttons, your Facebook page feed, and more to your SwimTopia website in seconds.
Updating website content in TeamUnify is not done “in context.” Instead one must learn the various behind-the-scenes configuration options and understand how those changes will affect the website. What we’ve heard from TeamUnify customers, is that a much bigger learning curve is involved in managing a TeamUnify website, whether you have the old “Chameleon” system, or the “New CMS”.
SwimTopia supports many more common volunteer signup options than are available in TeamUnify. Both platforms allow families to sign up for volunteer positions on a meet-by-meet basis outside of registration. But how do SwimTopia and TeamUnify compare on volunteer signup during registration? Only SwimTopia provides the ability to require volunteer job/shift commitments or preferences during the online team registration process. Only SwimTopia allows you to specify minimum volunteering requirements and enforce those requirements as part of the registration process.
Job & Role Sign-up During Registration in SwimTopia
SwimTopia’s registration form seamlessly integrates your season’s schedule into the job signup process. Your volunteers see what’s needed with availability that updates in real time.
“…signup for jobs during online registration?”
TeamUnify does not provide the ability to sign up for volunteer jobs or shifts during registration as a built in feature. Instead, they’ll suggest you jump through all kinds of set-up hoops to require parents to sign up for volunteer positions before being able to complete registration.
How do SwimTopia and TeamUnify compare on the sale of merchandise through team websites? TeamUnify does not currently offer the ability to sell merchandise through team websites. SwimTopia enables teams to sell merchandise from any page on their website, during registration and all season and with the full convenience of online checkout and payment. SwimTopia provides great reporting and tools to making tracking orders easy. By selecting their own products from vendors they choose, setting their own prices and keeping 100% of the proceeds, SwimTopia teams can potentially make thousands of dollars more per year from merchandise sales.
SwimTopia teams maintain control over their stores and can support the local swim shops and swim community at the same time by allowing teams to choose where they get their team gear.
TeamUnify does not provide tools to help you sell merchandise through your team site, or during registration.
SwimTopia really shines when it comes to meet entry management. While both SwimTopia and TeamUnify allow teams to handle online meet declarations, including the option for parents & swimmers to suggest the events they would like to swim at the meet, only SwimTopia provides the ability for parents and swimmers to indicate if they need to leave early or arrive late, critical information that often affects relay team selections.
So how do SwimTopia and TeamUnify compare on meet entry management? SwimTopia reads and writes Hy-Tek Meet Manager’s native file formats for full “round-trip” compatibility for team rosters, entries, and results. TeamUnify does not support these formats, making the meet entry and roster files generated from TeamUnify more cumbersome to load and incompatible with some features of Hy-Tek Meet Manager. SwimTopia supports non-standard relay events often found in relay carnival meets, while TeamUnify does not.
SwimTopia Meet & Data Management
Coaches love SwimTopia’s Meet Entry Matrix, which takes the familiar grid of athletes-by-events and puts it online, making it interactive and directly editable. It is at once simple, powerful and a huge time-saver.
Generating a Meet Entries File in TeamUnify
TeamUnify does not generate entry and roster files in the native file formats for maximum Hy-Tek Meet Manager compatibility.
SwimTopia provides the best relay generation solution in the industry, with its One-Click Relay Generator, which selects the fastest combination of swimmers for every relay team in every event with a single click. SwimTopia also takes into account which swimmers are available for each relay, including swimmers that might be arriving late or leaving early. Of course, if you want or need to manually select a relay team, SwimTopia has you covered there as well with a smart easy-to-use relay editor that makes creating relays or making relay changes a breeze.
How do SwimTopia and TeamUnify compare on relay generation? You’ll see below that only SwimTopia allows all the relays for a meet to be generated with one click, while TeamUnify requires you to generate relays one event at a time, so SwimTopia saves time.
A coach or admin can select and set the team’s relay preferences for the desired freestyle swimmer order and swim ups, then with one click of the “Generate Relays” button, we’ll create every relay team for every event in the entire meet. Creating and changing relays is similarly simple and fast, leaving your coaches more time on deck instead of on the computer.
TeamUnify can automatically select multiple relays teams, but only one event at a time. TeamUnify does not provide one-click relay generation for an entire meet. TeamUnify does not have awareness of swimmers that may not be available for a relay because they need to leave early or arrive late.
Meet Maestro, SwimTopia’s online meet management platform, is included in the price of SwimTopia. The revolutionary new system includes a simplified meet set-up process, and a modern interface that’s more intuitive than any other product on the market. Meet Maestro saves teams hours before, and after the meet.
TeamUnify’s TouchPad meet management system is also included for TeamUnify customers, but it’s built on an archaic Access Database format.
The biggest difference between TouchPad and Meet Maestro is Maestro’s simplicity, and the modern and easy interface. Meet Maestro is also quick and easy for new admins to learn. Plus, with Maestro there is no software to install, and you’re able to use it on any computer (Mac or PC), so it’s easy to simplify running the meet by using multiple laptops on pool deck.
Meet Maestro, a complete online meet management solution, essentially runs on two screens. The one seen here for data entry during the meet, and one other for a few setup and reporting functions. It’s hard to overstate the simplicity, yet power, of the system. Much of the meet setup can be done in SwimTopia, using Meet Templates, where you can set up all your scoring and seeding rules, and apply the same information to each meet, without needing to repeat many steps.
TouchPad requires a PC, and is based on an old Access Database system. TeamUnify purchased a product that was developed in the 80s, EasyWare Meet Manager, and renamed it TouchPad. Complicated to learn and use, TouchPad requires an ethernet connection for multiple computers to be able to run the meet.
These are far from the only differences. We are happy to answer questions and to schedule one-on-one demos to go into more detail.
We are happy to provide references to teams that have used both systems so that you can ask directly why they chose SwimTopia over TeamUnify.
