Most families don't seek out Stack Athlete. They get found by it — an email arrives saying a college coach searched for their athlete, or their kid's tournament team auto-created a profile, or their sport's national governing body partnered with the platform and funneled members in. By the time a family sees the notification that "a coach from [University Name] found you in search," the emotional hook is already set. That notification is the core of the platform's business model. The question is whether it means what families think it means.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, it doesn't. Stack Athlete — formerly known as CaptainU — is a recruiting platform owned by Stack Sports, a large sports technology conglomerate. It has a free profile tier and paid tiers ranging up to $199.95 per month. The platform claims over 3 million athlete profiles and 10,000 college coaches. But the gap between what those numbers suggest and what families actually experience is the reason the platform carries a 1.9-star rating on Trustpilot, with 62% of reviews at one star.
What Stack Athlete is and how it works
Stack Athlete is a self-service recruiting platform — not a coaching service. Athletes create a profile with their stats, academic information, and video. College coaches can theoretically search the database, view profiles, and contact athletes. Paid tiers add features like direct messaging, profile view tracking, college matching tools, and at the highest levels, phone consultations with a recruiting coach.
The platform covers baseball, basketball, football, hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, volleyball, and wrestling. It has partnerships with several national governing bodies — AAU, USA Gymnastics, US Rowing, USA Cheer, and Varsity Spirit — which funnel their members onto the platform, often automatically.
The platform was founded in 2008 as CaptainU by two University of Chicago business school graduates. Stack Sports acquired it in 2016 for $21 million and officially rebranded it to Stack Athlete in May 2025, though the underlying platform remains the same. One detail worth noting: the original founders sued Stack Sports in late 2023, alleging the company refused to pay $6 million in deferred acquisition payments despite having the cash to do so. The lawsuit is a corporate dispute, not a consumer issue — but it suggests a parent company that treats financial obligations loosely, which aligns with consumer complaints about billing practices.
The platform's primary acquisition channel is not advertising or word-of-mouth. It's data harvesting. Stack Athlete collects athlete information from tournament rosters, club team databases, and national governing body memberships. One parent on TigerDroppings noted that the platform likely received their information from a tournament roster. Another on College Confidential observed that these services acquire student names from tournaments and clubs, leading to persistent contact through high school. This is how most families end up in the system — not by choice, but by data collection.
The notification problem
The central complaint about Stack Athlete — the one that appears more than any other across every forum, review site, and parent discussion — is that its "a coach found you" notifications are misleading. Most of these accounts reference the platform under its former CaptainU name, but the notification system and underlying mechanics remain the same post-rebrand.
One parent on HS Baseball Web described receiving an email that the University of Richmond's head coach was now following his son. The family happened to know the Richmond coach through their travel organization. They checked. The coach confirmed he had never heard of the player and was not following him on any platform. The parent reported that many players in their organization had received similar emails, and not one had been genuine.
A softball parent on the same forum described a nearly identical situation: a notification claimed a specific coach had reviewed a player's profile and added her as a recruit. When the family contacted the coach directly, the coach said she had never heard of the player and didn't use the platform.
On Trustpilot, an all-region high school basketball player reported that despite having a CaptainU score 5,000 points above the top 10%, his profile showed zero actual views from coaches — yet he continued receiving notifications suggesting coach interest. Another parent reported that her 13-year-old daughter was receiving notifications about college coaches messaging her, calling it a money grab. A baseball parent found that his son was being added by lacrosse coaches despite never having played lacrosse.
The pattern is consistent across sports, forums, and years: the platform sends notifications that imply specific coach interest, families who verify those claims discover the interest doesn't exist, and the notifications serve primarily to drive upgrades to paid tiers. The platform's own internal activity metrics — searches, views, additions — appear to conflate automated system activity with genuine human coach engagement.
Stack Athlete pricing: free vs. paid tiers
Stack Athlete runs on four tiers with no long-term contracts — plans are month-to-month.
Bronze (Free) includes a basic profile with stats, photos, videos, and evaluations. New signups receive a two-week free trial of Silver. This is where most families should stay.
Silver ($22.50/month) adds the ability to see which coaches view your profile, message college coaches directly through the platform, access college matching tools, and get email support from recruiting experts.
Gold ($39.95/month) adds everything in Silver plus limited phone consultations with a recruiting coach, regular advice from the expert team, and basic highlight video editing.
Platinum ($199.95/month) adds a dedicated recruiting coach phone line, customized highlight video editing, athletic and division assessment, personalized college matching, and scholarship and financial aid assessment. At roughly $2,400 per year, this approaches NCSA's premium pricing territory — but without the structured onboarding or assigned specialist model that NCSA provides at its higher tiers.
The "no contract" framing sounds consumer-friendly. But families consistently report that canceling is harder than it should be. BBB complaints document a cancellation process that requires "downgrading to Bronze" rather than offering a straightforward cancel button. Trustpilot reviews describe continued charges after cancellation attempts, unresponsive customer support, and no available phone number for billing disputes. One parent reported canceling within the first month, confirming they were back on the free tier, and then being charged again the following month.
What families actually experience
The most consistent theme in family accounts is that paid Stack Athlete memberships deliver camp invitations, not recruiting conversations.
One basketball parent on Trustpilot described paying for over two years. Of nearly 100 messages from colleges, all but one were advertising camps. The parent then spent one month on social media doing direct outreach — and their daughter received four offers and committed to a D2 school. A baseball parent on HS Baseball Web paid $19.99 per month for 14 months and reported that most messages received were camp invites. Another family on HS Baseball Web summarized their experience across the platform, FieldLevel, and SportsRecruits by saying it basically put them on every camp email list and not much more.
This pattern has a structural explanation. College coaches — or more precisely, their camp staff and fundraising volunteers — use platforms like Stack Athlete to send mass invitations to revenue-generating camps. As one forum commenter on HS Baseball Web explained, the people corresponding through the platform are often associated with college camp fundraisers, not the actual coaches. Camp staff correspond as the coach to drive camp attendance. This means the "coach messages" that the platform's notifications promise are frequently camp marketing disguised as recruiting interest.
The positive experiences that do exist follow a specific pattern. Families who used the platform as one tool among many — creating a profile, then doing their own outreach to coaches they found through it — sometimes had good results. One soccer parent on SoCalSoccer reported that 9 of 11 initial coach contacts came through the platform, ultimately leading to five scholarship offers. Another soccer parent used it during their daughter's junior year spring, narrowed a list of 50 schools to 25 active contacts, and ended up with six acceptances.
The difference is that these families drove the process. They used the database to identify coaches, then reached out directly. The platform was a directory, not a recruiting engine. Families who created a profile and waited for the platform to deliver results consistently reported disappointment.
Stack Athlete vs. NCSA vs. SportsRecruits
Families evaluating Stack Athlete are usually comparing it against the two most visible alternatives. The three platforms serve different needs at different price points.
| Stack Athlete | NCSA | SportsRecruits |
|---|
| Model | Self-service platform | Managed coaching service | Self-service platform |
| Cost | Free – $199.95/mo | $1,500–$4,200+ | Free – $399/yr |
| Contract | Month-to-month | Binding fixed-term | Month-to-month or annual |
| Coaching | Phone consults at Gold/Platinum | Assigned recruiting specialist | None — tools only |
| Key strength | Low entry cost; NGB partnerships | Structured onboarding for beginners | Coach view tracking; sport-specific adoption |
| Key weakness | Misleading notifications; camp spam | High cost; binding contracts; generic advice | Value depends heavily on sport |
Stack Athlete's month-to-month pricing is more flexible than NCSA's binding contracts. But flexibility doesn't matter much if the service doesn't deliver. NCSA's problems are well-documented — high-pressure sales, generic advice, contracts that are nearly impossible to cancel — but its basic model of providing structured education and an assigned specialist at least gives families a framework. Stack Athlete at the Silver and Gold tiers provides tools without structure, and the tools are undermined by the notification system's credibility issues.
SportsRecruits is the closest comparison in terms of model — both are self-service platforms, both offer free profiles. SportsRecruits has stronger coach adoption in specific sports (lacrosse, field hockey, and increasingly softball and volleyball) and provides transparent, verified view tracking that families describe as genuinely useful. Stack Athlete has broader sport coverage through its NGB partnerships but weaker trust in its activity data.
Is Stack Athlete worth using?
The free profile is harmless. Creating a Bronze account, uploading stats and video, and having a presence in the database costs nothing and takes an hour. If a coach happens to search the platform and finds your athlete, that's a bonus. Don't expect it to happen — but it doesn't cost anything to be there.
The paid tiers are harder to justify. The Silver tier's core selling point — seeing which coaches view your profile and messaging them directly — is undermined by the widespread reporting that coach "views" may not represent genuine human interest. The Gold and Platinum tiers add phone consultations, but at $39.95 to $199.95 per month, families are approaching NCSA territory without the structured program NCSA at least attempts to provide.
The families who got genuine value from the platform used it as a directory — a way to find coaches' names and contact information — and then did their own outreach through direct email. That approach works with any platform, including free ones. A personalized email from your athlete to a college coach, with a Hudl link and specific reasons for interest in the program, will always outperform a message sent through any recruiting platform's interface.
The bottom line
Stack Athlete is a platform that promises coach visibility but primarily delivers camp invitations and misleading activity notifications. The free tier is fine as one of several profiles your athlete maintains across the recruiting landscape. The paid tiers charge for features whose core premise — that coaches are actively finding and engaging with your athlete through the platform — is not supported by the experiences of most families who've used them.
If you're already on Stack Athlete through a tournament roster or a national governing body membership, keep the free profile and ignore the upgrade prompts. If you're evaluating the broader landscape of recruiting platforms, our comparison of what each platform actually does covers where coaches are really looking. For an honest look at the largest platform in the market, our NCSA review breaks down what that service delivers at each tier. And if you're weighing whether to pay for any recruiting help at all, our guide to whether recruiting services are worth it covers when it makes sense and when it doesn't.