Event Information

Part of the Expanding Timer Revenue Series

Looking to grow your timer business and better support your race partners? Join us for our next Timer Tip Tuesday, where we’ll dive into Registration as a Service — a strategic opportunity for timers to increase revenue and add real value to events.

As a timer, you already know the importance of accurate and efficient registration setup. But what if you could take it a step further? By offering registration setup and management as a service, timers can help events optimize their registration process, attract more participants, and get everything set up right from the start. Whether you choose to offer this service as a complimentary competitive advantage or as a paid value-add (per participant or flat fee), this is a chance to strengthen client relationships and boost your bottom line.

During this session, we’ll cover:

• The key benefits of offering Registration as a Service
• How to leverage RunSignup’s powerful registration tools to drive event success
• Best practices for creating participant-friendly event setups

This webinar is perfect for timers who want to differentiate themselves in a competitive market while delivering greater value to race organizers. Don’t miss this chance to expand your services and grow your timer business!

View Slides

Summary of Webinar 

What “Registration as a Service” Means

Core idea: As a timer, you offer registration setup and/or ongoing registration management as a formal service to race organizers—rather than treating it as an informal favor.

Why it matters (problem it solves):

• Races often configure registration incorrectly (or inefficiently), like:

  • forgetting key questions until 30–40 people have registered

  • using questions for things that should be separate events (distance selection)

  • mis-structuring divisions (Athena/Clydesdale, elite, etc.)

• Those mistakes create:

  • messy data

  • scoring headaches

  • participant confusion / drop-off during registration

Why Timers Should Offer It

The pitch: More money + better data + fewer problems.

Benefits called out:

• Better registration flow → fewer abandoned registrations → more participants

• Cleaner data for scoring and reporting

• Timer oversight of how the scoring structure will work

• Positions timer as the race technology expert

• Lets you bring “cool” proven registration tactics from other races into a customer’s event

• Can help drive races onto RunSignup + your partner account, which may add partner revenue and strengthens stickiness

Survey stats referenced:

• ~81% of timers offer services beyond timing

• Registration setup/management was cited as the #1 “beyond timing” service (over 85% offer it)

Start With the Race’s Goals

Before touching settings, ask:

• What kind of event is it?

  • fundraising race (donations/P2P matter most)

  • competitive/triathlon/relay (divisions/teams matter)

  • community 5K (simplicity + early signups)

• What have they struggled with before?

• What’s their biggest success metric this year?

This frames registration setup as problem-solving, not “button pushing.”

Best Practices They Recommend for Almost Every Race

These are described as features RunSignup auto-enables for new races (existing races may not have them on):

1) Referral Rewards

• Default example: $20 back for every 5 referrals

• Can be stacked (e.g., extra reward at 10 referrals)

• Goal: participants become marketers

2) Registration Insurance

• Partnership mentioned: Protect (policy product noted as FanShield)

• Race gets 20% of premiums sold

• Reduces refund pressure/conflict (“insurance handles it”)

• Helps participants feel protected (injury/qualified conflicts)

3) Price Increases + Automated Emails

• Use tiered pricing to drive early signups

• Automated email goes out the day before a price increase

• Helps planning and cashflow (instead of one flat price until race day)

Other Recommended Setup Considerations

Teams (even if not a “team race”)

• Enable social teams to drive organic group signups

• If fundraising, distinguish between:

  • regular teams

  • fundraising teams (separate feature)

Donation Checkout Add-on

• That small donation prompt right before “Pay Now”

• Works even if the race didn’t build a full donation page/step

• Suggested as “easy extra dollars” for the cause

Giveaways & Add-ons

• Most races have shirts; discuss:

  • included vs paid

  • “no giveaway” option at a reduced price

  • add-ons for extra items

Caps (and common confusion)

• Clarify whether the “cap” is real capacity vs just a shirt cutoff date

• If it’s shirts: keep registration open, but message “no shirt after Aug 1”

Questions (use them correctly)

• Identify what should be:

  • a question (emergency contact, estimated finish time, opt-in SMS)

  • a separate event (distance choice)

• Strong warnings:

  • “Friends don’t let friends use essay questions”

    • hard to report, poor for ops, doesn’t show in Check-In app

  • Checkbox questions (multi-select) shouldn’t be used for timing/scoring needs

Access, Responsibilities, and Training (How You Deliver the Service)

Decide how much dashboard access the race gets

Options discussed:

• Give full/partial RD access (recommended at least partial for:

  • marketing

  • payment accounts

  • reports / participant lookups)

• Or give very limited/no access if you fully manage everything

Define “division of responsibility”

If you manage registration but not marketing, make sure you:

• clarify who owns what

• optionally train them on marketing tools (email, website, reports, participant support)

Show them the Help Guide / Knowledge Base

Encourage organizers to self-serve answers through RunSignup support resources, plus chatbot.

Sandbox Race Strategy (How to Demo & Sell)

Recommendation: Build a sandbox race (not real) to demonstrate:

• what an improved registration flow looks like

• features the organizer may not be using

• reporting outputs

• “one step beyond the ask” (show additional value they didn’t request yet)

Also useful for:

• testing scoring setups

• staying current on new RunSignup features

• demonstrating credibility (“I know what I’m doing”)

Pricing Ideas Mentioned

They framed these as jumping-off points that vary by market:

Option A: Included in your base timing fee

• Common and competitive (since most timers already do it)

Option B: Threshold-based fee (performance/scale aligned)

• Example concept: no charge until 250 registrations, then charge something like $100

• Rationale: signals you believe the race will grow, and ties cost to success

Option C: Timer Fees (collected at registration)

• Fee is charged during signup and goes to the timer’s payment account

• Pros: avoids invoicing

• Cons: can be tricky if pricing varies across events; requires organizer agreement/acceptance

Setup vs Management split

They explicitly discussed separating:

• Setup/consulting (initial build)
  vs

• Ongoing management (handling participant questions, edits, operational tasks)

Different orgs need different levels:

• volunteer-run race may want full management

• staffed org may only want a clean setup + training