Sacra estimates RunSignup hit $14M in revenue in 2023, up 16% YoY.

RunSignup generates revenue primarily through transaction fees on race registrations, with approximately 90% coming from premium subscriptions. The platform serves over 21,000 races (representing roughly 25% market share in endurance events) and 9,000 nonprofits, demonstrating strong penetration in both core markets.

The company's transaction volume grew from $270M in 2019 to projected volumes approaching $500M in 2024, driven by both market share gains and post-pandemic recovery in event participation. RunSignup maintains remarkably low customer churn at 2.5% for competitors and 5% for events during 2017-2019, with overall transaction volume churn under 4%.

RunSignup's asset-light model and focus on technology-driven self-service has enabled it to maintain strong unit economics while scaling. The company is entirely employee-owned without outside investment, allowing it to prioritize sustainable growth over aggressive expansion. Current growth initiatives focus on expanding deeper into the nonprofit events and fundraising market, which represents a potential opportunity 50x larger than their core endurance market.

RunSignup was founded in 2010 by Bob Bickel as a technology platform for managing endurance events. The company emerged from Bickel's experience with both technology startups and running events, identifying a need for modern race management software.

RunSignup found product-market fit as a comprehensive race management platform for race directors and timers who needed an all-in-one solution to handle participant registration, race day operations, and post-event engagement.

The core product enables race directors to create and manage endurance events through a centralized dashboard. Race directors can build custom registration forms, manage participant data, and coordinate volunteers. Participants register for races through a mobile-friendly interface, where they can select their events, provide required information, and join teams.

On race day, the platform transforms into an operational hub. Timers use RaceDay Scoring to track results in real-time, while volunteers use the CheckIn App to process participants efficiently. Spectators can track runners through the RaceJoy mobile app, receiving live updates on their progress.

The platform has expanded to support a wider variety of endurance events beyond traditional road races, including trail runs, triathlons, virtual challenges, and multi-day events. Each event type utilizes the same core infrastructure while accessing specialized features specific to their format.

RunSignup is a transaction-based technology platform for endurance events and nonprofits, generating revenue through processing fees on registrations and donations. The company operates with a usage-based model, charging no subscription fees or contracts while taking 4-6% + $1 per transaction for paid events and 4% for donations.

The platform's core competitive advantage lies in its comprehensive suite of free tools provided to race directors and nonprofits, including website builders, email marketing, volunteer management, and RaceDay technology. This creates a powerful network effect as race directors standardize on RunSignup's platform for both paid and free events, leading to increased adoption across the endurance event ecosystem.

RunSignup employs a product-led growth strategy by offering free events with no processing fees, which helps attract new organizers to the platform. As these organizers grow their events or add paid components, they naturally convert to paying customers. The company has expanded beyond pure race registration into adjacent markets like fundraising and ticketing through GiveSignup and TicketSignup, leveraging its existing technology stack and customer relationships to capture additional transaction volume.

The asset-light model allows RunSignup to scale efficiently while maintaining high margins, as most costs are tied directly to payment processing rather than physical infrastructure or inventory.

RunSignup operates in the endurance event management and registration market, which generates approximately $1B in annual transaction volume in the US.

The market's largest player is Eventbrite, processing $13.2B in annual ticket volume across all event types. However, Eventbrite has seen declining ticket buyers (-16% YoY) and faces challenges with their broad horizontal approach. EnMotive recently exited the registration business entirely, highlighting consolidation pressure in the space.

Race Roster and Active.com focus specifically on endurance events but take different approaches to the market. Race Roster has faced scaling challenges, as evidenced by recent registration system failures for major events like Grandma's Marathon. Active.com maintains significant market share but relies heavily on a traditional sales-driven model rather than self-service technology.

Strava ($265M ARR) has emerged as a key player in the broader endurance space by focusing on the social and tracking aspects of fitness activities. While not directly competing in registration, Strava's ownership of the "sweat social graph" positions them to potentially expand into adjacent services. The platform processes significantly more user engagement than traditional social networks, with 2.23% engagement per post compared to 0.15% for Facebook.

The market shows clear preference for specialized vertical solutions over horizontal platforms, with RunSignup processing approximately $400M in annual registration volume and maintaining low customer churn rates (2.5% competitor churn, 5% event churn) through their focus on purpose-built technology for endurance events.

RunSignup has tailwinds from the growing endurance events market and increasing digitization of nonprofit fundraising, with opportunities to expand into adjacent markets like event ticketing, payment processing, and nonprofit technology services.

RunSignup currently processes around $270M in annual transactions, representing roughly 25% market share in the $1B endurance events space. The company's asset-light model and focus on technology innovation positions them well to capture more market share from legacy players. Their 2.5% competitor churn rate and 90% retention of transaction volume demonstrates strong product-market fit and potential to become the dominant platform.

The nonprofit technology market represents a 50x larger opportunity than endurance events. RunSignup's GiveSignup platform leverages their existing infrastructure to serve nonprofits with event management, fundraising, and donor management tools. Unlike incumbent providers who rely on subscription fees and contracts, RunSignup's transaction-based pricing and modern technology stack provides a compelling alternative. Early traction shows nonprofits are beginning to view GiveSignup as a viable option to engage supporters.

RunSignup's payment processing infrastructure and event management expertise creates natural expansion opportunities in adjacent verticals like general event ticketing (estimated $4B+ market) and payment processing for membership organizations. Their RaceDay technology suite, which includes check-in, scoring and tracking capabilities, could be adapted for conferences, festivals and other event types. The company's proven ability to process high-volume registration days (50,000+ registrations) demonstrates the scalability needed to serve these larger markets.

Market consolidation pressure: As RunSignup captures more market share (currently 25% of endurance events), larger tech companies may view the endurance registration space as attractive for acquisition and consolidation. Google's acquisition of Fitbit and the increasing focus of companies like Strava on monetization could lead to aggressive competition or acquisition attempts that could threaten RunSignup's independent, employee-owned model that has been key to their success.

Demographic headwinds: RunSignup's core market shows concerning demographic trends, with 18-29 year old participation still significantly below 2015-2018 levels (14.7% vs 18-22%). While the company is working to attract younger participants, a sustained decline in young runner participation could impact long-term growth as the core participant base ages.

Revenue concentration in peak seasons: With Turkey Trot and spring race seasons driving massive transaction spikes, RunSignup faces operational risk from its concentrated revenue periods. A technical failure during peak registration windows (like recent competitor Race Roster's crash during Grandma's Marathon registration) could damage brand reputation and push races to seek more distributed solutions.