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Two club management platforms with different scopes. Row HQ is built for rowing only. LoveAdmin is a UK-based general-purpose club platform. Here is how they compare if your New Zealand rowing club is weighing the two.
By Jason Burns, Founder, Row HQ · Updated
LoveAdmin is general-purpose club management software covering many sports - gymnastics, dance, football, swim, drama and more. Row HQ is purpose-built for rowing clubs only. If your club needs rowing-specific workflows (boat booking with hull-type rules, drag-and-drop crew selection, regatta entry, water-versus-erg session tracking, cox roles), Row HQ fits naturally because the software speaks rowing. If you run a multi-sport club and want one platform across rowing and other sports, LoveAdmin is the more flexible choice. Both handle the membership basics - dues, comms, attendance - well.
Where the two platforms differ on what rowing clubs use day to day. Last verified against published feature pages on loveadmin.com.
| What you need | Row HQ | LoveAdmin |
|---|---|---|
| Built specifically for | Rowing clubs only | Any sports or activity club |
| Boat booking with hull-type rules | Yes - per-hull access rules and conflict blocking | Not advertised on their site |
| Drag-and-drop crew selection | Yes - visual crew builder with seat assignment | Not advertised |
| Regatta entry workflow | Yes - crew sheets, payments, Rowing NZ returns | Generic event management |
| Cox role first-class | Yes - cox is a recognised seat | Not advertised |
| Sweep vs sculling distinction | Yes - native to the data model | Not advertised |
| Water vs erg session types | Yes - separate session categories | Generic class and event types |
| Member CRM, online payments, comms | Yes | Yes |
| Email and SMS to members | Yes | Yes |
| Attendance tracking | Yes - one-tap from app | Yes |
| Member self-service app | Yes - white-labelled in your club's branding | Yes - JoinIn app |
| Pricing model | Per-club tiers, NZD, public on our pricing page | See loveadmin.com for current pricing |
LoveAdmin is built to serve a wide range of activity providers - sports clubs across rugby, football, netball, basketball and cricket, plus gymnastics academies, dance and drama schools, swim schools, classes and courses providers and franchise businesses. That breadth is the reason to pick them.
If your organisation runs more than just rowing - say a multi-sport community club, or a school running rowing alongside several other activities - LoveAdmin keeps everything in a single platform. You get one CRM, one payment system and one comms tool covering every activity, and your back office only has to learn one piece of software.
LoveAdmin also leans heavily on a managed onboarding model. They build the platform around your operation with a dedicated consultant. If you want a hands-on partner who works on broader club growth alongside the software, that is part of their pitch and a fair reason to look at them.
And if you are already invested in their ecosystem, with member data, registrations and historical reporting living inside LoveAdmin, the cost of switching has to clear a real bar before it makes sense. For some clubs it never will.
Row HQ is the right pick if rowing is the whole job. Most NZ clubs are pure rowing clubs - the boats and the lineup are the central daily workflow, not an afterthought next to ten other sports. We built the software to make that workflow fast.
Boats are a first-class entity in Row HQ. Each shell carries its hull type, access rules (who is allowed to row a 1x or take out the club quad), conflict blocking, and a maintenance log. Boat booking is not bolted on top of a generic resource booker - it understands rowing.
Crew selection works the same way. Coaches drag-and-drop rowers into seats, see attendance and side preference at a glance, save crew templates and broadcast the final lineup to members in one tap. Cox is a real role with its own permissions and box assignment, not a custom field.
The language matches too. Sessions are water or erg. Events are heads or regattas. Boats are scullers or sweep. Crews are eights, fours, quads, doubles, pairs, singles. We built the schema for clubs that talk like clubs, so you do not have to translate every screen into rowing on the way past.
Multi-squad clubs - juniors, seniors, masters, schools - each get their own scheduling, attendance and crew lists, with shared admin overhead and shared finance. School programmes and university boat clubs at Otago, Canterbury, Auckland, and Victoria use the same primitives without contortions.
Six rowing-specific workflows where the platforms diverge.
Row HQ models each shell as a tracked asset with hull type, access rules and crew limits. Members see live availability, can only book boats they are signed off for, and conflicts are blocked automatically. Coaches see who is in which boat for any session. See the boat booking feature. LoveAdmin's booking engine is class and session focused - members book a session, not a specific shell with hull rules.
Drag rowers into a crew, see availability, side preference (bow vs stroke side) and recent attendance side-by-side. Save lineup templates for repeat outings. Push the lineup to members and see acknowledgements. See the coach tools. LoveAdmin focuses on player rosters and squad lists rather than seat-level crew construction with rowing's side-and-seat constraints.
Members confirm in one tap from the app. Coaches see available rowers grouped by squad and session type (water, erg, land). Weather call-offs reschedule the whole session and notify everyone in seconds. See training session management. Both platforms cover attendance well; the difference is that Row HQ's session model already understands water vs erg vs land, so reports separate them out.
Build a regatta or head race entry, attach crews, collect entry fees, generate crew sheets and see acknowledgements in one place. That covers NZ Champs entries at Karapiro as well as local Head of the Harbour events. See event and regatta management. LoveAdmin has generic event management and ticketing, which works for many sports but does not know about regatta-specific crew eligibility rules.
Juniors, seniors, masters, schools and university squads each get their own scheduling, crew templates and attendance, while sharing one membership database, one finance system and one comms surface. Coaches see only their squad. Both platforms support multi-group setups; Row HQ's default templates are pre-shaped for the common rowing squad structure.
Members log in to a portal in your club's branding. They see upcoming sessions, the boats they're booked into, crew sheets, payments and notifications. See the member portal or white-label setup. LoveAdmin's JoinIn app is a shared member app with their branding by default; check their site for current white-label options.
Free for clubs of up to 20 active members, then flat monthly bands by member count - all public in New Zealand dollars on our pricing page. No setup fee, no card to start, and every feature on every band.
Pricing is bespoke and depends on club size, setup needs and chosen modules. Check loveadmin.com for a current quote.
Yes. Send us your member export, payment history and any class or session data. We import everything into Row HQ as part of onboarding, so nothing is lost. Most clubs are running fully on Row HQ within a week of handing over the data.
For rowing-specific workflows - boat booking, crew selection, regatta entries, cox handling, water vs erg sessions - Row HQ goes deeper. For broader sports coverage (gymnastics, dance, football, drama, swim), Row HQ is not the right fit because we focus only on rowing. The general-purpose membership basics (CRM, payments, comms, attendance) are well covered in both.
Pricing depends on club size and the modules you need, and LoveAdmin's pricing is bespoke, so there is no clean headline answer. Row HQ is free for clubs of up to 20 active members, then publishes flat monthly bands by member count in NZD on the pricing page. Get a current quote from LoveAdmin and compare against ours for your specific club size.
Yes. Book a demo on the demo page and we will walk through your current workflow in Row HQ live - boat booking, crew selection, sessions, payments, the lot. Or set up your club on the get-started page and try it for yourself - free for up to 20 active members, no card required.
Then LoveAdmin's broader sport coverage may suit you better, because you would get one platform across rowing and your other activities. Row HQ is the wrong choice if you need to manage non-rowing activity in the same system. If rowing is the dominant activity and the other sports are minor, some clubs run Row HQ for rowing and a smaller tool for the rest.
Still weighing options? Read our comparison Row HQ vs spreadsheets if you are starting from a Google Sheet or Excel workbook. Or browse our best rowing club management software 2026 roundup for a wider view of the market. Existing OTRC users wrote up how they switched in detail.
Free for clubs of up to 20 active members. No card. Bring your data and we will import it for you.
Use every Row HQ feature with your own boats, crews and sessions. No card. No time limit.
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