SkillShark vs. TeamGenius: Which Athlete Evaluation App is Right for Your Organization in 2026?

Choosing the right athlete evaluation software can make a major difference in how your sports organization runs tryouts, collects scores, compares athletes, forms teams, shares feedback, and tracks development.

For sports organizations, clubs, and academies, two leading solutions are SkillShark and TeamGenius. Both platforms help organizations move away from paper evaluation forms and spreadsheets, but they differ in various ways.

This comparison breaks down the key differences between SkillShark and TeamGenius to help your organization choose the best athlete evaluation app for your needs.

Feature availability may vary by plan, add-on, and account setup. This comparison is based on publicly available information and product details as of September 2026.

Quick Comparison: SkillShark vs. TeamGenius

Pricing Comparison: Per-Player Pricing vs. Annual Starting Prices

Pricing referenced in this section refers to the annual cost of each software subscription in USD.

Pricing is one of the first things organizations compare when choosing athlete evaluation software. SkillShark and TeamGenius both offer annual subscriptions with multiple paid plans, but their pricing structures are different.

SkillShark uses annual per-athlete pricing. The total cost depends on the number of athletes being evaluated and the selected plan. Licenses are sold in blocks of 25, with three paid tiers:

• Rookie: $5/athlete

• All-Star: $10/athlete

• Legend: $15/athlete

TeamGenius uses annual package-based pricing. Each plan includes a bundled feature set and athlete threshold:

• Self Starter: As low as $1,050/year, for up to 150 athletes

• Starter+: As low as $1,500/year, for up to 500 athletes

• Pro: As low as $2,900/year, for up to 1,000 athletes

• Elite: As low as $6,500/year, for unlimited athletes (per location)*

*For multi-location or advanced use cases

The key difference is how pricing scales. With SkillShark, cost is tied directly to the number of athletes being evaluated and the plan selected. This makes it easier for organizations to estimate cost based on evaluation size and understand what they are paying for at each tier.

With TeamGenius, each tier includes both a set of features and a maximum athlete capacity. Organizations select a tier based on the number of athletes they evaluate and the features available within that package, with additional add-ons available for certain plans.

The pricing structures differ in how athlete volume affects cost. Based on TeamGenius's Self Starter tier, organizations evaluating anywhere from 1 to 150 athletes would fall within the same tier and pay the same starting base price of $1,050/year before any add-ons or custom considerations. As a result, smaller organizations may pay a higher effective cost per athlete than organizations closer to the tier maximum. With SkillShark, pricing is based on the number of athletes being evaluated, so costs scale more directly with athlete volume, allowing smaller organizations to pay for only the athlete capacity they need.

TeamGenius's package-based model may work well for organizations that fit neatly within a tier and want the bundled feature set included at that level. However, organizations may need to compare athlete capacity, feature access, and add-ons when determining the best-value plan. For example, an organization may need a higher tier because of athlete count, feature access, or both. 

SkillShark also offers more flexibility during the trial stage. Its free trial allows organizations to test the platform's core features with up to 25 players without a time limit, while TeamGenius offers a 14-day trial for up to 20 players.

For organizations that want annual pricing tied directly to the number of athletes they evaluate, SkillShark may offer a simpler and more predictable cost structure. For organizations that prefer bundled annual packages with athlete thresholds and add-on options, TeamGenius may be worth exploring.

Evaluator Access: Verified Accounts vs. Access Keys

Both SkillShark and TeamGenius allow coaches and evaluators to score athletes digitally, but their evaluator access models are different.

SkillShark evaluators are invited by an admin and create individual password-protected accounts before scoring. This adds an extra setup step compared to TeamGenius, but it provides stronger identity verification and ties scores to authenticated users.

TeamGenius uses an access-key model. Evaluators enter their name, email, and access key to score, without creating an account or logging in with a password. In TeamGenius's evaluator training, they explain that evaluators are recognized by email address and should use the same unique email throughout the event to ensure scores sync properly. They also state that sharing an email address with another evaluator “will result in scores being overwritten.”

This makes TeamGenius faster and more convenient for evaluators to start scoring. However, because evaluator identities aren't verified through password-protected accounts, the risk of unauthorized or misattributed scoring is higher. This risk is heightened if an access key is shared too broadly or ends up with the wrong person. An unauthorized user with the access key could potentially enter the evaluation using their own name and email, a fake name and email, or another evaluator's information accidentally.

This does not mean TeamGenius has known security issues, but it is an important difference for organizations handling sensitive athlete evaluation data or making high-stakes team selection decisions.

On the highest tiers, both platforms also allow organizations to restrict which athletes or lists certain evaluators can access. In TeamGenius, different access keys can be limited to specific player lists. In SkillShark, admins can restrict access at the user level by assigning evaluators to specific player lists or teams. The key difference is where that control happens: TeamGenius controls access through shared keys, while SkillShark controls access through authenticated evaluator accounts.

Beyond evaluator access, SkillShark also offers custom user roles on its highest tier, allowing organizations to define granular, permission-level access for different types of staff. This goes beyond controlling which players a user can see; it also controls what actions and permissions they have within the SkillShark account itself.

Examples include:

• Check-In Manager: Access limited to adding, editing, and checking in players only.

• Coach: Manage only the players or team they've been given access to, create events, and view reports for those players. For example, once teams are formed after tryouts, each coach can view their team's roster and run mid-season and/or post-season evaluations to track player progress over the year.

• Fully Custom Roles: Build roles from scratch by choosing exactly which permissions to grant across areas like players, events, reports, and more. Each role can be tailored with precise access levels based on the user’s responsibilities.

With SkillShark’s custom roles, sports organizations can control not just who can log in, but what each user is allowed to see or do once they're in. This is especially useful for larger organizations with multiple layers of staff (admins, directors, coaches, evaluators) involved across a season, not just a single tryout.

Reporting and Team Formation Experience

One of the biggest advantages of digital evaluation software is the time it saves sports organizations during and after tryouts. With a traditional pen-and-paper-based process, evaluators record scores on paper, and those scores then need to be manually entered into a spreadsheet before coaches can view rankings, compare athletes, and begin forming teams. 

With evaluation software, once scores are collected digitally, player reports are auto-generated for coaches to view instantly. SkillShark and TeamGenius take fairly different approaches when it comes to reporting.

Core Reporting Tools

Both platforms cover the basics: Athlete Report Cards, Player Progress/Development Reports, and side-by-side player comparisons (SkillShark's Spider Graphs compare up to 6 athletes at once, versus 2 for TeamGenius). SkillShark has also added two new reports this year: an Athlete Attendance Report for tracking who showed up to which session, and a Score Overview Report for viewing all scores, comments, and videos collected across one or multiple events at a glance. In the Score Overview, SkillShark also offers a unique Score Audit tool that flags score outliers. Coaches can then adjust scores that were misentered (e.g. “0”) or fill in missing scores.

Both platforms also offer Public Live Leaderboards; SkillShark currently publishes more detail on customization options like age-group filtering, QR code sharing, and TV display formatting. The full feature-by-feature breakdown is in the comparison table below.

Team Formation: Automated Regrouping vs. Manual Draft

SkillShark's Tiered Draft Reports help organizations automatically sort athletes into ranked or balanced groups based on evaluation results. Admins customize how much each skill, metric, event, and player list contributes to overall athlete ratings, and the system automatically sorts athletes into ranked or balanced groups based on those criteria. This is especially valuable for large organizations running tryouts over multiple days. After day one, a Tiered Draft Report can instantly regroup athletes for the next round, make initial cuts, or generate a starting point for final teams.

TeamGenius has recently added a new Team Drafts feature: a snake or linear draft board where coaches take turns picking players from a pool, round by round, with optional per-pick time limits, digitizing a process traditionally run with index cards or a spreadsheet on draft night. This is not the same type of tool as SkillShark's Tiered Draft Reports, even though both relate to drafting teams: TeamGenius's Team Drafts is a manual, pick-by-pick interface, while SkillShark's Tiered Draft Reports automatically generate rankings and groupings straight from evaluation data. They solve different problems, and organizations comparing the two should understand the distinction.

Athlete Feedback and Development

SkillShark's Athlete Self-Assessments let organizations ask athletes questions about their own skills and coachability to better understand their self-perception. For example, “How would you rate yourself on coachability on a scale from 1-10?” Self-assessment questions can be rating-based or open-ended, giving coaches additional context beyond standard scores. 

TeamGenius has a comparable self-evaluation functionality through a new Athlete Portal, where athletes can log in and complete self-evaluations.

SkillShark's Developmental Resources add another layer to its commitment to athlete development. Coaches can automatically attach resources (YouTube links, URLs, or PDFs) to an athlete's report card based on scoring rules. For example, when an athlete scores below a threshold in a given skill area, a developmental video will automatically be attached to their report card.

Team Genius' offer tracking

Offer Sending and Tracking is one area where TeamGenius stands out. While SkillShark allows coaches to communicate with teams or players via email, TeamGenius offers a dedicated offer management workflow, including the ability to track whether offers are accepted, rejected, or pending in one dashboard. TeamGenius also offers AI-assisted tools for tasks such as generating comments and emails.

Overall, TeamGenius may be the stronger fit for organizations that want a manual, pick-by-pick draft experience alongside offer tracking, while SkillShark may be the better fit for organizations that want automated team grouping and developmental feedback built into their evaluation workflow. The full comparison below shows exactly where each platform lines up feature by feature.

Customer Support and Onboarding

Customer support can be a deciding factor for sports organizations choosing a digital evaluation platform. Tryouts, athlete assessments, and talent ID camps often take place outside regular business hours, so having quick support during those evaluation periods can be critical to keeping an event running smoothly.

Both SkillShark and TeamGenius offer customer support, but their support models are different.

SkillShark provides 24/7 support and a dedicated Customer Success Manager for paid accounts, giving organizations access to hands-on help before, during, and after evaluations. SkillShark also offers 1-on-1 onboarding and training on all paid accounts. Its support phone number is clearly listed on the SkillShark website, giving customers another direct way to reach the team when needed.

TeamGenius offers support as well, but onboarding and service levels vary by tier. The Self Starter tier includes technical account support, which TeamGenius defines as the ability to submit support tickets related to product issues. As the tier name suggests, this plan does not include onboarding or ongoing email support.

TeamGenius's Starter+ tier includes a one-hour onboarding session, with the option to add additional meetings at an hourly rate. Starter+ also includes ongoing email support during business hours. Pro and Elite tiers offer more hands-on support, including three additional one-hour sessions with a Customer Success Manager after onboarding, along with priority support, which TeamGenius defines as support tickets being sent to the top of the support team's inbox. TeamGenius does not list a support phone number on its website.

Customer Ratings

In a September 2026 Google review audit, SkillShark had 130 reviews compared to 17 for TeamGenius. TeamGenius had a slightly higher overall rating at 5.0, while SkillShark had a 4.9 rating. However, SkillShark's review base is more than 7x larger than TeamGenius's, which gives prospective customers a broader sample of real-world feedback. Overall, SkillShark has a more established track record of publicly shared positive customer experiences across teams, clubs, academies, and sports organizations.

Support is one of the areas where the larger review base stands out. SkillShark had 46 customer support mentions, with team members mentioned by name 25 times, compared to 1 named employee mention for TeamGenius. SkillShark users specifically praised their team's willingness to go above and beyond, including one instance where the team “worked late into the night to retrieve all of our data” after it was accidentally deleted, having it ready the next morning. This feedback suggests that when you choose SkillShark, you are choosing an elite, proven team that is actively invested in your sports organization's success.

This demonstrates that SkillShark customers frequently highlight not only the software, but also the people supporting them. This feedback reinforces SkillShark's commitment to support, compared to TeamGenius's, which has limits based on your tier. The table below summarizes the findings from the Google review audit completed in September 2026.

TeamGenius's Unique Focus on Health, Performance, and Admin Add-Ons

TeamGenius has expanded beyond traditional athlete evaluation software into a broader category of health and performance, in addition to a growing set of administrative and communication tools. While SkillShark and TeamGenius overlap in areas like digital scoring, athlete reports, leaderboards, and team formation, some of TeamGenius's newer offerings appear to serve a different use case than standard tryout and evaluation management.

This is an important distinction because these features position TeamGenius partly outside the core athlete evaluation category. Tools like Athlete Load Monitoring, TG Verified Advanced Athlete Testing, and Virtual SportMed Evaluations are more closely aligned with athlete performance management, testing services, and health support than day-to-day tryout scoring. TeamGenius has also been building out its registration, payments, and messaging tools at a fast pace in recent months, expanding further into general club administration alongside evaluations.

SkillShark, by comparison, is more focused on helping organizations run customizable evaluations, collect scores digitally, generate reports, form teams, provide athlete feedback, and support long-term development. However, SkillShark does not currently offer the same specialized health, medical, registration/payment, or advanced testing services listed by TeamGenius.

For organizations that specifically want health and performance add-ons, athlete testing services, registration payments, scoring form import, or AI-assisted communication, TeamGenius offers several supplementary tools beyond traditional athlete evaluations. However, organizations whose primary goal is to run efficient tryouts, assessments, player evaluations, team formation, and athlete development programs may find SkillShark to be the more focused solution. SkillShark is purpose-built for athlete evaluations and stands out with responsive customer support, Tiered Draft Reports, athlete feedback tools, and advanced reporting capabilities designed to help coaches make confident roster decisions while supporting long-term athlete development.

Summary of Findings

SkillShark and TeamGenius both offer strong digital evaluation tools for sports organizations, clubs, and academies. Both platforms help organizations move away from paper scorecards, collect evaluation data digitally, generate reports, and support more informed team selection decisions.

The biggest differences come down to pricing transparency, evaluator access, support, reporting workflows, and the types of features each platform prioritizes.

SkillShark is a strong fit for organizations that want:

• Public, transparent pricing with clearly laid-out paid tiers

• An unlimited free trial for up to 25 players

• Secure evaluator accounts tied to authenticated users

• 24/7 support and a dedicated Customer Success Manager for all paid accounts

• A strong track record of positive Google reviews and support-specific feedback

• Tiered Draft Reports to automatically sort athletes into ranked or balanced groups based on evaluation results. Especially helpful during multi-day tryouts for larger organizations.

• Customizable event leaderboards

• Athlete Self-Assessments and Developmental Resources

• Custom user roles for national or regional organizations that need granular, permission-based admin access

TeamGenius is a strong fit for organizations that want:

• A custom, quote-based package with optional add-ons

• Faster evaluator access through shared access keys

• Team Placement Offer Sending and Tracking

• AI Score Analysis & Reporting

• Health and performance-focused add-ons, including Athlete Load Monitoring, TG Verified Advanced Athlete Testing, Integrated Testing Hardware, and Virtual SportMed Evaluations

• Registration/payment tools (including discount codes and customizable forms), scoring form import, SMS/WhatsApp messaging, and AI-assisted communication features

For organizations focused primarily on tryouts, year-round evaluations, reporting, team formation, and athlete feedback, SkillShark offers a streamlined evaluation platform with clear pricing, strong support, and a proven track record through a larger review base. Start with the free Prospect tier or book a walkthrough to see how SkillShark can support your next evaluation.

For organizations looking for a broader platform that extends into health & performance testing, offer management, registration, and AI-assisted communication, TeamGenius may be worth exploring.

Ultimately, the best choice depends on what your organization values most. For the most accurate comparison, organizations should consider booking a demo with both platforms to see how each workflow, pricing model, and feature set fits their specific evaluation process.