A coach at a local running club in Kenya spends the first hour of every Monday morning the same way. He pulls out a worn notebook and a mobile phone. He scrolls through M-Pesa messages, looking for names he recognises as registration fees. Then he cross-checks those names against a WhatsApp group where parents and athletes have been sending their details in a messy thread of voice notes and text messages. By the time he has a list, two athletes have already dropped off because they were not sure their payment went through.
This is not an unusual scene. Running clubs and sports academies across the country manage their registration the same way — paper forms, M-Pesa messages, and WhatsApp threads. It works, just about. But it does not scale, and it costs more in time and lost athletes than most people realise.
What a registration site actually does
A simple registration site is not a full website. It is a single page — or a few pages — where an athlete or a parent can do three things in under two minutes: fill in their details, confirm their category (junior, senior, competitive, recreational), and pay via M-Pesa. The system sends them a confirmation message automatically. The coach gets a clean list of registered athletes, with payment status, on a dashboard they can check from their own phone.
That is it. No social media management. No blog. No news section. Just registration and payment.
From our experience, kES 150,000 to KES 300,000— Estimated annual value of lost registration revenue for a mid-sized sports academy in Kenya that loses just 15 to 20 athletes per season to a confusing or slow registration process, based on average local fees of KES 8,000 to KES 15,000 per athlete per term.
The problem with paper and WhatsApp
Paper forms get lost. WhatsApp threads bury details. M-Pesa messages do not always include the athlete's name or the right reference. Every season, a handful of athletes pay but never appear on the coach's list, and the coach spends hours trying to reconcile who paid what. The athlete's parent, meanwhile, is wondering if the money went through and whether they should pay again.
From our experience working with sports organisations, this confusion costs about 10 to 15 percent of potential registrations every season. Some athletes give up and join a different club that seems more organised. Others simply miss the deadline because they were waiting for a confirmation that never came.
Why mobile-first matters for sports in Kenya
According to the Communications Authority of Kenya's Q3 2025 report, mobile penetration in Kenya hit 145 percent, and mobile money subscriptions rose by 7.2 percent to 45.36 million. That means almost every parent or athlete who needs to register has a phone and uses M-Pesa. A registration site that works well on a smartphone — loading fast on Safaricom data, with a simple M-Pesa integration — meets people where they already are.
A parent does not need to travel to the club office to pay. They do not need to queue at an agent and send a screenshot of a receipt. They open a link on their phone, fill in three fields, and pay. The confirmation arrives in seconds. That convenience is the difference between someone registering on a Tuesday evening and someone forgetting about it entirely.
What a good registration site looks like
Here is what we have found works best for running clubs and sports academies in Kenya:
- A single page with the club name, a brief description, and a registration form
- Fields for full name, phone number, age category, and emergency contact
- M-Pesa payment integrated directly — the fee is set, the user pays, and the system confirms automatically
- A confirmation page and an SMS or email sent to the registrant
- A simple admin dashboard the coach can access from their phone to see who has registered and who has paid
No complicated features. No membership portals. No leaderboards. Just the core task done well.
What it costs and how fast it can be built
A simple registration site is not a large project. From our experience, a basic version with M-Pesa integration can be built in two to three weeks and costs between KES 35,000 and KES 60,000, depending on how much customisation is needed. That is less than what a mid-sized club might lose in a single season from registration confusion.
The ongoing costs are also low. From our experience, hosting runs about KES 500 to KES 1,000 per month. M-Pesa transaction fees are a few shillings per payment. The club does not need a dedicated IT person — the coach or an assistant can manage the dashboard from a phone.
The coach's Monday morning, after the change
Let us go back to that coach we started with. After his club put up a simple registration site, his Monday mornings changed. He opens a dashboard on his phone. There is a list of 47 registered athletes for the new season. All have paid. The system has sent each one a confirmation message. He has not answered a single WhatsApp query about whether a payment went through. He has not reconciled a single M-Pesa message against a notebook.
That hour he used to spend on admin is now free for planning training sessions, talking to parents, or just getting out on the track himself.
It is a small change. But for a club that runs on tight margins and volunteer hours, small changes add up. A registration site does not make athletes faster or races better. It just removes one layer of friction that was quietly costing the club time, money, and members.
If your running club or sports academy still handles registration through M-Pesa messages and a notebook, that friction is costing you more than you think.
Want to see what this looks like for your organization?
Talk to Us on WhatsApp