ScoutU is not NCSA. It's not CaptainU. It's not a mass-market recruiting platform that sends thousands of emails on behalf of thousands of athletes. ScoutU is a small, family-owned recruiting consulting service based in Wisconsin, with about 19 scouts spread across the country. It claims to be selective about which athletes it takes on, and it charges a one-time fee rather than a monthly subscription. For families who've looked at the mass-market options and found them wanting, ScoutU represents a different model — boutique consulting with personal attention.
Whether that model delivers better results is harder to answer than it should be. ScoutU has almost zero independent review presence. No Trustpilot profile, no BBB listing, no Reddit threads, no Google Reviews. The only independent discussion found across every major recruiting forum is a single thread on Discuss Fastpitch from 2018. That absence of data — positive or negative — is itself the most important thing families should know.
What ScoutU offers
ScoutU was founded in 2008 by Jason Lauren, a former sports journalist who covered athletics for the Green Bay Press-Gazette and the Freeport Journal Standard in Illinois. The company is headquartered in Greendale, Wisconsin, and operates with about 22 staff — 19 scouts, two video editors, and a coordinator.
The model differs from mass-market services in several ways. ScoutU claims to evaluate athletes before accepting them, working only with those it determines are college-level talent. Scouts attend games and events in person to assess athletes before approaching families. Once a family signs on, the assigned scout provides ongoing support: building a personal recruiting website, editing highlight video, running targeted college searches across 16 criteria, and sending monthly updates to college coaches on the athlete's behalf. ScoutU also maintains a coach portal where college coaches can create free accounts, follow athletes, and submit their recruiting needs.
The scout roster includes a range of backgrounds — a former 18-year MLB scout, several former college coaches with 20+ years of experience, former collegiate athletes from programs including Michigan and North Carolina, and others with youth coaching backgrounds. The company reports that athletes have committed to 136 colleges across 25 states, including programs at Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Missouri, and Purdue, along with many D2, D3, and JUCO programs.
The claim that matters most is the "small number of athletes" promise. If ScoutU genuinely limits its caseload so each scout works with a manageable roster, that's a structural advantage over services where a single advisor manages 50+ accounts simultaneously. But there's no independent data to verify what "small number" actually means in practice — five athletes per scout, or twenty.
ScoutU pricing
ScoutU doesn't publish pricing on its website. The only confirmed price from an independent source is roughly $3,000 as a one-time fee, reported by a parent on Discuss Fastpitch in November 2018. That parent described the service as covering liaison work, video editing, and coach outreach — characterizing it as hand-holding all the way through the process.
Current pricing may be higher, lower, or structured differently. Without published rates, the only way to find out is to contact ScoutU directly. This is a red flag shared with most of the recruiting service industry — from NCSA's hidden pricing to boutique consultants. Services that don't publish pricing generally price based on perceived willingness to pay, which puts families at a negotiation disadvantage.
For context, here's where ScoutU fits in the market based on the 2018 data point:
| Service Type | Typical Cost | What You Get |
|---|
| Free platforms | $0 | Profile hosting, some coach messaging (SportsRecruits, FieldLevel) |
| NCSA premium | $1,500–$4,200+ | Assigned advisor, coach database, structured outreach program |
| ScoutU | ~$3,000 (2018) | Personal scout, in-person evaluation, video editing, coach outreach |
| DIY approach | $0 (plus camps/travel) | Direct email to coaches, Hudl film, self-directed research |
At roughly $3,000, ScoutU occupies similar pricing territory to NCSA's mid-to-upper tiers. The difference is what the money buys: NCSA provides a technology platform with a large coach database and an assigned advisor managing dozens of athletes. ScoutU provides a personal scout who (in theory) attends your athlete's games, knows their abilities firsthand, and contacts coaches individually. Whether that personal touch translates to better outcomes depends on the specific scout assigned and their actual connections to programs your athlete is targeting.
What we can and can't verify
This is where the ScoutU review becomes different from reviewing NCSA or Stack Athlete. Those platforms have thousands of independent data points — forum threads, Trustpilot reviews, BBB complaints, verified coach statements. Families can triangulate between multiple sources to form a picture of what the experience actually looks like.
ScoutU has almost none of that. The company's website features 200+ testimonials with specific outcomes — 300+ coach responses for one softball player, 40 offers for a basketball player, commitments to Notre Dame and Wisconsin. Those outcomes, if accurate, are impressive. But testimonials curated by the company are not the same as independent reviews. Every service in every industry features its best outcomes on its website.
The single independent forum thread from 2018 was skeptical. One respondent called recruiting services "a dime-a-dozen" with quality all over the place. Another warned that no service replaces the work the athlete needs to do. No one in that thread had used ScoutU and could speak to results. This isn't damning — it's just uninformative.
The honest assessment: ScoutU might be excellent for the right athlete. A small, selective service with scouts who have real coaching and scouting backgrounds, attending games in person, could genuinely add value that mass-market platforms can't replicate. But families considering ScoutU are relying almost entirely on the company's own claims, because independent verification doesn't exist in any meaningful form.
How to evaluate ScoutU (or any boutique consultant)
If you're considering ScoutU or any similar boutique service, these questions separate the genuinely valuable consultants from the ones selling a pitch:
Which specific scout would work with your athlete, and what's their background in your sport? A scout with 18 years as an MLB scout is valuable for a baseball player. That same background means nothing for a volleyball recruit. ScoutU has 19 scouts with different specialties — make sure the one assigned to your family has relevant experience and, ideally, real relationships with coaches at programs your athlete is targeting.
How many athletes is your assigned scout currently working with? The value of boutique consulting evaporates if your scout is managing 30 families simultaneously. Ask for a specific number.
Can you speak with families whose athletes play the same sport at a similar level? Website testimonials featuring D1 Notre Dame commitments don't tell you what the experience looks like for a D3-level volleyball player. Ask for references whose situation matches yours.
What happens if you're not satisfied? Is there a refund policy? A trial period? A guarantee of any kind? The absence of a refund policy in a service built on unverifiable promises should give families pause.
What will your athlete still need to do themselves? Even the best consultant can't replace direct outreach from the athlete to college coaches. If the service implies they'll handle everything, that's a warning sign — coaches want to hear from athletes, not from intermediaries.
The bottom line
ScoutU is a small, seemingly legitimate boutique recruiting service that does things differently from the mass-market platforms. The selective intake, in-person scouting, and small caseloads are structurally sound ideas. Some of its scouts have genuinely impressive backgrounds. But the near-total absence of independent reviews means families are making a decision based almost entirely on the company's own marketing — and that's a significant gap when you're considering spending thousands of dollars.
If you're weighing ScoutU against the broader landscape, start with understanding whether paying for any recruiting service makes sense for your family. If you've already decided you want help, compare what the mass-market model actually delivers against what a boutique consultant promises — and ask yourself whether the difference justifies the cost. And if you're leaning toward doing the work yourself, our breakdown of what DIY recruiting actually costs covers the real expenses no service eliminates.