How to start a volleyball club: the steps and what it costs

How to start a volleyball club comes down to two jobs: setting up the club on paper, and making sure there is a team in the gym with a coach at the first practice. This article walks through both in the order you will meet them, and shows which part an app can take off your hands.

How to start a volleyball club: the steps

The order below is not fixed, but the first three steps decide whether the rest works. Without a board, nobody signs a rental agreement, and without gym time you have nothing to recruit players for.

1. A core group and a board. Find two or three people who want to carry it together. The classic split is a chair or president, a secretary and a treasurer. Above all, agree who makes which decision, and what you put on record at the first members' meeting.
2. A legal structure and a governing document. These depend on the country your club is in; see the next section.
3. A gym and regular gym time. Ask the owner or manager of the gym or sports hall as early as you can which slots are free. The number of courts and hours decides how many teams can practice, so work out what you have first. How to keep that clear is covered in a fixed weekly schedule for your venues.
4. Coaches. At least one per team, ideally two: then no practice is cancelled when one of them is ill. Where to find them and how to keep them is in recruiting volunteer coaches who stay.
5. Players and teams. Start with the teams you can really fill: six on the court and enough subs to cover a player who cannot make it. How to find those players is in recruiting new members.
6. Joining the federation. If you want to play in a league, the club joins the volleyball federation or governing body of your country or region and enters its teams. Ask there about the entry deadline, the cost per team and the requirements for referees and coaches.
7. Insurance. Think of liability cover for the club and the board, and accident cover during practices and matches. First ask what your federation membership or the gym rental already covers, so you do not insure anything twice.
8. A budget. List the fixed costs and work back from them to what each member needs to pay. Start with the gym rental: it runs all season. How to do that sum is explained in setting membership fees per team or per player.

Once this is in place, the normal rhythm of a season begins, with team goals, a review halfway and an evaluation at the end. That rhythm is in the checklist for organising the volleyball season.

Which legal structure suits a volleyball club?

The legal structure decides who is liable if there are debts, and whether the club itself can sign a contract, such as the gym rental. What follows is not legal advice: it reflects what the governments write themselves, checked in October 2026. If in doubt, get advice.

• United States. According to the IRS, an organization that wants tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(3) must be a corporation (or unincorporated association), community chest, fund or foundation, and its organizing documents must limit its purposes to exempt purposes. You apply with Form 1023 or the shorter Form 1023-EZ. Before that, the IRS lists steps such as the organizing documents, an employer identification number (EIN) and meeting the requirements of your state.
• United Kingdom. According to gov.uk, a charity can be a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO), a charitable company limited by guarantee, a charitable trust or an unincorporated charitable association. In a CIO or a charitable company, trustees have limited or no liability for its debts; an unincorporated charitable association cannot employ staff or own premises. A sports club can also register with HMRC as a community amateur sports club (CASC), for tax relief on some income, Gift Aid on donations and business rates relief. A CASC needs a governing document, must be open to the whole community with affordable membership fees, organised on an amateur basis and managed by 'fit and proper persons'. A registered CASC cannot later register as a charity.
• Elsewhere. Every country has its own structures and its own office. Look on the website of your government or of your national sports body for the rules for a club.

How much does it cost to start a volleyball club?

An honest answer: it varies so much by country, federation and gym that an average amount tells you nothing. What is certain is where the money goes.

• Setting up. In the US, the IRS charges a user fee of $600 for Form 1023, or $275 for Form 1023-EZ, if you apply for 501(c)(3) status (checked in October 2026). Forming the organization in your state comes on top of that; check the fee with your state. In the UK, what you pay depends on the structure you choose.
• Gym rental. You pay for every hour you book the gym, including the evening when fewer players turn up. This is the cost that keeps running all season.
• The federation. Membership for the club, entry fees per team and possibly a fee per player. Ask the federation itself for its rates.
• Insurance, as far as it is not already covered through the federation or the gym.
• Equipment and training. Balls, pinnies or bibs, a first aid kit, nets and poles if the gym does not provide them, and courses for coaches and referees.
• Software. Membership software for members and fees, and an app for teams and coaches. Koach Club costs €9.99 per month for the whole club.

What to set up from day one: teams, coaches, schedule and volunteers

In the first season the systems grow by themselves: a group chat per team, a spreadsheet with the gym slots, a list of who does which duty. Whatever you use at the first practice, you will still be using at the end of the season. So choose it on purpose, and look for five things:

• Every team in one place, even if there are two now and five next year.
• Coaches who can join without hassle, and whose work stays with the club when they leave.
• A schedule per team that players and parents can see themselves, with sign-up for every practice.
• Volunteer duties that are shared out fairly, so it is not always the same three parents.
• Messages that reach everyone and do not get buried in a group chat.

Spreadsheet, membership software or club app: the options side by side

We make Koach. So read this as the view of a party with an interest, and check whether the split below fits your club.

Separate tools, such as a spreadsheet and a group chat per team, cost nothing and work straight away. For a club with one or two teams that is a fine start. It starts to pinch once everything sits with one person: whoever has the file knows, and everyone else sends a text.

Membership software is made for the members and the money: who is a member, what each person pays and what goes to the federation. If you have a treasurer who wants to collect membership fees, you need something like that. What to look for when choosing is in five questions for club membership software.

A volleyball app with a club module, such as Koach Club, handles the sports side: teams, coaches, practices, matches and the duties around them. It replaces the loose lists, not the membership software.

How Koach Club sets up a new club from day one

Club has no free trial. You leave your details on the club page, we get in touch and set up the teams and coaches together with you. The subscription only starts when you decide to go ahead.

Teams and coaches

On the club account you create as many teams as you have, and with Choose a team you switch between them. For each team you send a link with Invite a coach: whoever opens it becomes a coach of that team, even without a Koach account yet. A coach in a team on the club account needs no subscription of their own, and there is no limit to the number of coaches. When a coach leaves, you remove their access and what they recorded stays with the team.

If a coach already has a team of their own in Koach, they join with the Club code. Their team then shows up in your Club dashboard, but stays on their own account with at most two coaches until they transfer it to the club account. The board and the technical staff have their own roles, such as Treasurer and Technical manager, and that role decides what someone sees across the club.

Gym time and the schedule

In the club dashboard you record under Venues which team practices in which gym and when. That is a reference: it does not schedule anything by itself. A coach puts the practices in the team's schedule with Schedule recurring trainings, on the regular day from the gym schedule. Players and parents sign up or let the coach know they cannot come, and with Sync calendar they subscribe their own phone calendar to the practices.

Volunteers and messages

Under Club duties you set how many duties belong to a season, and Koach then keeps the count of who has done theirs. Under Match day you assign a referee, a scorer and hall duty for each home match, and Assign automatically shares out the open spots fairly: whoever has done the least goes first. If your club runs a bar or snack stand, Generate a year of bar duties gives every home match in the coming year a bar duty, shared out fairly. A message for everyone goes out as a club announcement in the app, or as club email from the club's own domain; you connect that domain once. Members without a Koach account do not receive that club email.

What Koach Club does not do

Koach does not replace your membership software and has no member import: players come in when a coach enters their team or invites someone. Koach does not collect membership fees either. Under Contributions you keep track of who still owes something and add your own payment link, but Koach does not send or receive money. Koach sends nothing to the federation, and everything assumes indoor volleyball with six players on the court: it is not made for beach volleyball or for mini volleyball in small-sided formats. What the app does for an existing club with many teams is in the app for your volleyball club.

Who Koach Club suits, and what it costs

Koach Club suits a new volleyball club that has more than one team from the start or wants to grow quickly, and where the coaches are volunteers who do not want to pay for an app themselves. It suits a multi-sport club less well, because Koach is only for volleyball, and the same goes for a club that is mainly looking for a system for members and fees.

Club costs €9.99 per month for the whole club, or €8.33 per month when paid yearly, whatever the number of teams and coaches. If you start with one team, Coach is enough: €2.99 per month for one team with two coaches, and you can try it free for 14 days first. From four teams, Club is cheaper than separate Coach plans (4 × €2.99 = €11.96), and only Club has the club dashboard. Players and parents use Koach for free. In the App Store and on Google Play you pay the store price in your own currency. All amounts are on the pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

An app for your volleyball club: from one team to the whole club Recruiting volunteer coaches: how to find ones who stay Recruiting new members for a sports club: what works and what does not

Browse 200 volleyball drills with animations Download a complete practice plan of 8 to 28 weeks