What’s the catch?
Fair question. Here's the honest answer.
Game Day was built for a real team, not a business plan
It started as software for one beer league team that was drowning in group-chat logistics, and it grew feature by feature as that team hit real problems — spare goalies bailing, uneven sides, ice fees nobody paid. Running it for other teams costs very little, so charging a licence fee for the core would be solving a problem that doesn't exist.
The paid parts are the ones that cost real money
Card processing has a per-transaction cost that goes to Stripe, and text messages cost money to send. Those are passed through where they apply. Everything that's just software — RSVPs, balancing, spares, stats, chat, calendar — doesn't cost you anything, because it doesn't cost much to run.
Your data is yours
No ads, and nothing about your roster is sold to anyone. Personal information is encrypted in the database, ratings stay coach-private unless you choose to share them, and a coach can export their team's raw stats at any time.
What that means for you
Sign up, run a season, and if you never touch card payments or SMS you will never see a bill. That's the whole model.