SportsRecruits vs FieldLevel (2026): Price, Model, and Which to Use

The short answer

SportsRecruits and FieldLevel are both free to join, but they put athletes in front of college coaches in different ways: SportsRecruits through club-provided profiles that coaches search, FieldLevel through endorsements from your own high school or club coach. FieldLevel publishes its Premium prices ($29 to $79 a month), while SportsRecruits does not, and clubs and families report about $99 a month or $399 a year for Pro. Use whichever one your club or coach already uses.

• Choose SportsRecruits if your club or high school provides it, or if you play lacrosse or field hockey.
• Choose FieldLevel if your high school or club coach is active on it, or if you are aiming at junior college programs.
• Cheaper month to month: FieldLevel. For messaging coaches on an annual plan, the reported SportsRecruits Pro price ($399) is below FieldLevel Gold ($470).
• Both are free for college coaches, and neither publishes a count of college coaches using it.
• You can use both: keep free profiles on each and pay for one premium tier at most.
• For direct outreach in baseball, softball, football, soccer, or basketball, NextCommit (our product) is a third option, free for 10 coach emails a week.

How we compared SportsRecruits and FieldLevel

Disclosure: NextCommit is our product, and it appears here as a third option for direct outreach, judged on the same criteria. We checked prices and features on each vendor's own site, help center, and app listings on September 30, 2026. Where a competitor is the better fit, we say so.

FieldLevel publishes every athlete and team price on its site. SportsRecruits does not publish its Pro price, so we mark it "not published" and give only figures reported by clubs and families, labeled as reported, which may vary by sport and by club arrangement.

Which is cheaper? FieldLevel's published tiers vs SportsRecruits' reported Pro price

FieldLevel labels its yearly billing as a 20% saving. The SportsRecruits figures come from a field hockey club and a lacrosse club, sports that run on co-branded SportsRecruits platforms, so they may not match the price in other sports. FieldLevel coaching staffs can also buy Prime at $99 a year per sport for activity dashboards, which does not by itself give athletes Premium features.

Billing differs too. SportsRecruits Pro renews automatically and its terms say all subscriptions are non-refundable. FieldLevel Premium also auto-renews; its help center says you must cancel before the billing date and invites users who forgot to cancel to request a refund of the last charge, without promising one.

SportsRecruits vs FieldLevel vs NextCommit at a glance

Features side by side

Based on each service's public pages, help center, and app listings as of September 30, 2026.

Which do college coaches use? The model difference

Both are free for college coaches, and neither publishes how many college coaches use it. What differs is how an athlete gets in front of them.

SportsRecruits is built around club-provided profiles and coach search. Athletes can self-register free, and integrated clubs and high schools give their athletes Pro accounts and manage them: staff tag schools as fits, send profiles and recommendations to colleges, and see coach messages and views. College coaches log in with a .edu email, search a database SportsRecruits puts at over 400,000 prospective athletes, post Roster Needs, and at select lacrosse, soccer, and women's volleyball events use the EventBeacon app, which pulls both free and Pro profiles. The IMLCA, IWLCA, and NFHCA run their official recruiting platforms on it.

FieldLevel is built around coach endorsements. Your high school, club, or junior college coach sends Athlete Promotions with your profile and a personal note, and writes evaluations, including a projected level, that only coaches can see. College coaches post recruiting needs by class and position and receive promotions in response, and they must ask permission to see an athlete's contact details. FieldLevel reports 171.5K coaches at all levels, and on August 4, 2026 the NJCAA named it its Official Recruiting Network, with FieldLevel saying more than 60% of NJCAA teams had a coach active on it in the prior 90 days.

The practical difference: on SportsRecruits your club does the vouching, and on FieldLevel your coach does. Free FieldLevel athletes cannot message a college coach first, and a coach can promote a free athlete only to colleges in that coach's own network.

SportsRecruits: best when your club runs it

Verdict: SportsRecruits is the better pick when your club or high school provides it, and the default in lacrosse and field hockey.

The free profile is useful on its own: unlimited video, a highlight reel editor, school search, a target list, open Roster Needs, and alerts when a college views you. Pro adds messaging any college coach with a tracked profile link, seeing which colleges viewed you, and a Roster Needs filter in field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, and women's volleyball. Athletes can also request a recommendation from club or high school staff.

IMG Academy, which also owns NCSA, announced its acquisition of SportsRecruits in May 2025. Public ratings are thin: the iOS-only SportsRecruits Pro app shows 3.2 out of 5 from 14 ratings, and there is no Android athlete app. In forum threads, softball parents praise having video, contacts, and transcripts in one place, while some say coaches asked for direct email instead of platform messages.

FieldLevel: best when your coach is on it

Verdict: FieldLevel is the better pick when your coach is active on it, and it is the more transparent of the two on price.

FieldLevel, Inc. has run its network since 2008 and covers 26 sports. The free plan includes unlimited video, stats, search visibility, and coach references. Silver ($29 a month) shows which colleges viewed you; Gold ($49 a month) lets you contact 20 colleges a month, including coaches not on FieldLevel, whose replies go to your own inbox; Platinum ($79 a month) makes contacts unlimited. Coaches buying 5 or more Gold seats pay $79 to $139 per athlete per year.

Its apps rate well: 4.9 out of 5 from 2,567 App Store ratings and 4.8 on Google Play. App Store reviewers credit it with real college interest and commitments. Complaints in reviews include the cost of Premium, outdated coach listings at some schools, app stability problems mostly in older reviews, and, from one reviewer, needing a coach involved for the model to work.

Can I use both?

Yes. Both are free for athletes, so the cost of being on both is only your time.

1. 1Set up the free profile on whichever network your club or high school uses first, and complete it.
2. 2Ask your high school or club coach whether they use FieldLevel; if they do, set up a free FieldLevel profile and ask them to promote you.
3. 3Use the same highlight film, stats, and grades on both, so coaches see a consistent athlete.
4. 4Pay for one premium tier at most, on the network your coaches actually use.
5. 5Email the coaches at your target schools directly as well; neither network replaces your own outreach.

Which is better for my sport?

NextCommit covers baseball, softball, football, men's and women's soccer, and men's and women's basketball for direct outreach, and works alongside either network.

NextCommit: a third option for direct outreach

Verdict: NextCommit fits athletes who want to email coaches directly rather than wait for a network to surface them; it is our product, so weigh this section with that in mind.

The free plan includes 10 coach emails a week, the full database of 35,000+ coaches at 1,800+ schools, and AI that writes a different email for each coach from your stats, film, grades, and goals. You review every email, and it sends from your own inbox. Varsity ($19.99 a month or $119.94 a year) allows 50 emails a week and adds open, reply, and film-view tracking, a message center, and automated follow-ups. Pro ($49.99 a month or $299.94 a year) allows 200 emails a week and adds coach DMs on X, the Recruit Score with a projected division level, school matching, roster needs analysis, and a 24/7 recruiting assistant. There is no sales call. In our platform data, coaches opened about 46% of athlete emails.

What it does not do: college coaches do not browse NextCommit profiles the way they search SportsRecruits or FieldLevel, so it is an outreach tool, not a discovery network. There is no human advisor, no coach endorsements, no events or showcases, and only seven sports are covered. It is built to sit next to a free SportsRecruits or FieldLevel profile, not to replace one.

Who should choose what