Why Rec believes cities deserve better technology

"Rec can’t support large or complex departments."

Rec was built specifically for the complexity of recreation. Our partners manage combinations of programs, memberships, facilities, rentals, permits, leagues, camps, payments, scholarships, and other workflows, often across multiple facilities and teams.

Today, Rec supports recreation organizations including Indianapolis, IN; Apex, CO; Glenview, IL; and Bloomington, MN.

"Rec doesn’t have [feature/capability]."

Hundreds of workflows run a recreation department, and no city should choose software based on a generic feature checklist. If you need a specific capability, ask us to show it to you. We’ll tell you whether it exists today, demonstrate how it works and be straightforward if something is not currently supported.

Rec also builds closely with our partners. Customer feedback regularly influences what we build and how existing capabilities evolve. That does not mean promising every requested feature. But it does mean our partners have direct access to a team that is actively investing in the platform and building for recreation every day.

"Rec is too new. Choosing Rec is risky."

Rec was founded in 2022, so we are considered a newer company than some recreation software providers. However, we think cities should evaluate the strength of our company today, rather than treating company age itself as a measure of risk.

More than 100 communities across 30+ states are live on Rec. That means 350,000+ residents on our platform, 1,000+ instructors, 13,500 facilities, and yes – even 10,000+ hot dog sales.

But more importantly, cities should evaluate us on the things that directly affect them:

"Rec is still building their product."

This is true, but we see it as a strength, not a weakness. We don’t believe recreation departments should be running on software that evolves more slowly than the communities it serves. Recreation software shouldn’t stand still after a city signs a contract.

Rec builds at the pace of a modern technology company. We build continuously, learn from how our partners actually use the platform, and keep making it better. This has included new capabilities across registration, rentals, payments, memberships, ticketing, Sponsor and Instructor Networks, accessibility and AI-powered workflows.

Our partners benefit from what we build next, not just what they bought on day one.

"Switching to Rec will be difficult and cumbersome."

We know changing a core recreation system is a significant project. We won’t tell you otherwise. Our job is to take as much of that work off your team as possible.

The average Rec implementation takes 3-4 months, with more than 90% completed on schedule. We’ve successfully transitioned departments big and small – from two-person teams to organizations with 500+ staff. Every partner gets a dedicated Rec Deployment Strategist who guides the process from discovery and configuration through testing, training and launch. Data cleanup and mapping is done collaboratively using Rec’s migration tools, and training is customized for your staff and workflows.

When it’s time to go live, you’re not on your own. Your Deployment Strategist is there with you, with Rec’s engineering team on call for launch-day support.

And you don’t have to take our word for it. We can connect you with other cities that have recently made the switch to Rec so you can ask them directly what the experience was like.

"Rec’s existing customers regret choosing them."

We regularly connect prospective partners directly with recreation professionals using Rec so they can ask about the product, implementation, support and what they would do differently. We also pay close attention to what happens after launch. Our partners in Torrance, Emeryville and Santa Cruz County, for example, expanded their use of Rec after their initial launches or pilots to exclusively using our platform for all their recreation needs.

We don’t expect every customer interaction to be perfect. When something isn’t working, we want to hear about it, fix what needs fixing and use what we learn to make the experience better across the platform. If you are considering Rec, ask us for references. We’ll connect you with partners who can tell you about their experience themselves.

"Rec won’t be around in five years or will get acquired."

We started Rec to build the defining technology company for recreation, and that's what we intend to spend the next decade building. That means we’re investing today for the scale and complexity our partners not only need now, but will need years from now.

Our technology infrastructure is designed to operate at a scale well beyond even our largest current partners. Our product and engineering teams operate on continuous development cycles, with roadmaps shared with our partners and meaningful new capabilities delivered throughout the year. As we bring increasingly large and complex recreation agencies onto Rec, what we learn and build becomes part of a platform that benefits every partner.