Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. We’ve supported saltwater salmon derbies, lake trout derbies, ice-fishing events, and freshwater club derbies — single-day and multi-day, with a few dozen anglers up through multiple thousand. Because every setup is built around your event, the categories, prize structures, and rules can match whatever your derby actually does, rather than what a generic platform supports.

That’s exactly the situation we’re built for. Our portals aren’t a generic template; we gather the specifics of your event up front and configure the system and workflow around them. Complex category structures, youth/adult divisions, side contests, mystery-fish prizes, and multi-species scoring are all things we’ve set up for past derbies.

In many cases, yes. Anything built around registrations, ticketing, and ranking entries by a measured value fits naturally — hunting contests, bowfishing or spearfishing tournaments, produce-growing contests (biggest pumpkin, tomato, watermelon), and timed events like pinewood derbies or RC racing all map cleanly onto the existing portal. Invasive-species bounty programs are structurally identical to a fishing derby. Events that need judged scoring (BBQ cook-offs, chili, photography, craft beer) or bracket play (cornhole, pickleball, disc golf, league darts) can be supported with some additional setup. Have a different kind of event in mind? Contact us today — we’d love to hear about it and explore how we can help bring it to life.

Both. Tickets are sold through our system, which you can link to from your event website, your Facebook page, or a QR code. All sales and attendee data flow into your portal in one place — you don’t need a separate e-commerce setup.

Yes. Plenty of derbies run a mix — online sales plus paper tickets at local shops, weigh-in stations, or sponsor locations. Your portal allows manual entry of paper tickets so you have a single view of who’s entered.

We handle the technical side of refunds and ticket transfers through your portal, and we’ll work with you on a cancellation/rain-date policy that fits your event. The exact refund terms depend on the situation. Some credit card fees and custom work may not be refundable, but we’ll work with you towards the best possible outcome.

Your data is yours. After the event you can export your attendee list, ticket sales, and results in CSV formats so you can use them for sponsor reports, newsletters, or planning next year’s derby.

No — and this is one of the more meaningful differences between Simple Derby and other platforms. We handle all payment processing end-to-end: credit card transactions, fund collection, and disbursement are all managed for you. There’s nothing to set up with a bank, no merchant account application, no ongoing processor relationship to maintain.

For smaller organizations, this matters more than it might sound. Setting up a third-party payment processor requires a business bank account, merchant approval, and ongoing management that many volunteer-run derby organizations simply don’t want to deal with.

For larger derbies, it’s worth understanding the true cost of alternatives. Some platforms charge a license fee — but that fee doesn’t include credit card processing, which you’d pay separately at standard industry rates (typically around 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). At higher ticket volumes, those fees add significantly to the total. Our fee covers both the platform and all processing. See our pricing page for a full breakdown.

You can find a full breakdown of our plans, features, and rates directly on our pricing page. If you have any specific questions, feel free to reach out!

Yes! Verified 501(c)(3) organizations receive a discount. See our pricing page for details.

No. Your rate is set by your feature tier when you set up your derby and stays the same for every ticket sold — whether you have 50 participants or 5,000, and whether your derby runs one day or a full week. No surprise rate bumps mid-event.