Organizations leave Xplor Recreation over the missing league scheduling module, recurring facility rentals that renters cannot request online, and quote-only pricing on multi-year terms. Stay on Xplor if you depend on its custom fields and workflows.
Xplor Recreation is the platform formerly sold as PerfectMind. Xplor acquired PerfectMind in 2020, renamed it Xplor Recreation in 2022, and rebranded it nextRec in 2026 after the Xplor and Clubessential merger. Searches for PerfectMind, Xplor Recreation and nextRec all point to the same product.
Ordered by how well each one fits the organizations that usually outgrow Xplor Recreation.
Recurring seasonal bookings, memberships, programs and volunteers on one member record
Memberships, program registration, facility rentals, donations, volunteer shifts and POS on one member record, with recurring seasonal bookings, membership-gated rates and booking-to-invoice for team renters.
Check first: No childcare ratios, no native mobile app and no website builder, and large city departments with hundreds of spaces should ask for a custom quote.
Activities, facilities and memberships with self-serve resident registration
Amilia SmartRec covers memberships, facilities, leagues, volunteers, donations and a REST API on one platform, with facility and account limits that step up by tier.
Check first: A 1% service fee on every invoice on top of 2.85% + $0.30 card processing, plus a yearly contract.
Registration, leagues and a rec website for a single department
RecDesk covers registration, facility scheduling, memberships, leagues, POS and email for small towns, with no per-seat fees, free training and a website CMS on Standard and above.
Check first: No volunteer management, donations or public API, and ownership moved to Clubessential in 2024, the same holding company now tied to nextRec.
League scheduling and registration for a single department
Cogran includes a league scheduler at no extra cost alongside registration, facilities and POS, with unlimited admin seats, which directly answers the gap Xplor reviewers complain about.
Check first: Steep initial setup with video-only training per reviewers, and a small vendor with a limited ecosystem.
Enterprise hosting and the broadest module set for large municipal departments
ACTIVENet covers activities, facilities, memberships, POS, childcare and mobile apps at the scale of large city and county parks departments, with ACTIVE Hub for BI integrations.
Check first: Reviewers call the admin interface dated and reporting hard to customize, and fees are either absorbed or passed to participants.
Team and game scheduling, rentals and POS for a single site
MyRec.com covers team and game scheduling, facility rentals, POS and memberships, which answers the two gaps Xplor reviewers raise most.
Check first: Card processing around 3% plus monthly gateway, PCI and minimum fees, and no public API advertised.
The natural fit for municipalities already on CivicPlus websites
CivicPlus Recreation Management (CivicRec) integrates with CivicPlus municipal websites, 311 and process automation, and covers activities, leagues, facilities, ticketing, memberships and POS.
Check first: Quote-only pricing that reviewers call higher than competitors, reported downtime incidents and League Manager bugs.
| Feature | Communal | Xplor Recreation | Amilia SmartRec | RecDesk | ACTIVENet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Membership management | IncludedTiers, custom fields, segments | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Family & household memberships | Included | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Resident vs non-resident pricing | IncludedAutomatic by address | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Program & class registration | Add-onWaitlists, capacity, attendance, rosters | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Facility booking & rentals | Add-onFrom +$50/mo; approvals, invoices, agreements, iCal | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Leagues, seasons & recurring bookings | Add-onSeasons and recurring blocks (Facilities) | Not offered | Included | Included | Included |
| Volunteer shifts & hour tracking | IncludedShifts, hours, auto volunteer discounts | Not listed | Included | Not offered | Included |
| Donations & fundraising | IncludedIncluded; donor covers fees option | Not listed | Included | Not offered | Not listed |
| Point of sale | IncludedSoftware included; Stripe Terminal readers, Interac | Included | Included | Included | Included |
| Digital membership cards (Apple / Google Wallet) | IncludedIncluded in every plan | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed |
| Public API | IncludedREST API, Zapier webhooks, MCP server | Included | Included | Not offered | Included |
| Built-in accounting | Not offeredCSV/XLSX exports with GL codes; no QuickBooks sync | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered |
| Detail | Communal | Xplor Recreation | Amilia SmartRec | RecDesk | ACTIVENet |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $75/mo | Quote only | From $99/mo + 1% | From $3,835/yr | Quote (per transaction) |
| Pricing model | Flat, by member band (to 250 members at the floor) | Quote; multi-year | Monthly tiers + 1% service fee | Annual subscription by town size | Transaction-based + implementation |
| Contract | No contracts, prorated billing, cancel any module any time | Multi-year term contracts implied by vendor blog ('what you'll pay throughout the term of your contract'); exact term not published | Reviewers report a yearly contract commitment | Annual subscription (term details not published) | Multi-year agreements typical for municipal deals (not published) |
| Payment fees | Card-processing application fee set in your agreement, often 2%; no monthly minimums | Processing via Xplor Pay;Detailsdifferent rates for online vs in-person transactions; specific percentages not published | 1% service fee on every invoice;Detailscards 2.85% + $0.30 (Standard) or 2.75% + $0.30 (Advanced); eCheck 1% + $0.50; custom rates for high volume | Not published on pricing page | Processing fee is a percentage plus dollar amount per registration;Detailsagency can absorb or pass to participant; exact rates via account manager |
| Free trial | Free trial, no credit card | No free trial | Free trial | Free trial | No free trial |
Reviewers have requested a league scheduling module that does not exist. Departments running adult softball, youth soccer or pickleball ladders end up scheduling in spreadsheets or a second tool.
Reviewers report that renters cannot request recurring facility rentals, so a league that wants the same gym every Tuesday for 14 weeks goes through staff rather than the portal.
Reviewers criticize the reporting and accounting framework and say the modules are not well integrated, which shows up at month end when finance tries to reconcile registrations, rentals and POS.
Xplor does not publish a price table, and the vendor blog refers to what you will pay "throughout the term of your contract", which points to multi-year agreements. Review sites list a placeholder of A$100 per feature per month, and onboarding and implementation may be invoiced separately.
PerfectMind became Xplor Recreation in 2022 and nextRec in 2026. Each rebrand followed a corporate transaction, and reviewers describe the cancellation and transition process as difficult, which is what pushes departments to look at what else is available before their next renewal.
Renters and teams in Communal can book recurring seasonal blocks, with organization renters carrying their own billing and bookings converting to invoices, including multi-day. Xplor reviewers report recurring rentals cannot be requested online.
Communal handles league seasons as recurring bookings and program sessions with member, public and volunteer price tiers, waitlists and attendance sheets, so a league player, a renter and a member are one profile. Xplor has no league scheduling module.
Communal is a single product with a public REST API, OpenAPI docs and scoped keys available on every plan, rather than a platform that has been renamed after each acquisition. Wallet cards and address-based pricing are included rather than negotiated.
Communal lists every price, starting at $75/mo to 250 members with programs and facility booking added by bookable space count, billed month to month and prorated with any module cancellable at any time. Xplor publishes no price table and ties you to a contract term.
Stay on Xplor Recreation if your department has built custom fields and workflows that staff rely on daily, you do not run leagues, and your contract term has time left. Renegotiating at renewal with a transparent fee breakdown, which the vendor blog promises, may be cheaper than a migration. The reasons to leave are pricing opacity and the league and recurring-rental gaps, not the core registration engine.
Communal for centers up to a few thousand members that want memberships, programs, rentals, volunteers and POS on one record with recurring seasonal bookings. Amilia SmartRec if you want a storefront-style registration experience and can live with the 1% service fee.
RecDesk or MyRec.com for small town departments that want registration, scheduling and free training. CivicPlus Recreation Management if your municipality is already on CivicPlus, and ACTIVENet for the largest city and county departments.
Cogran if the league scheduler is the whole job. Communal if the club also sells memberships, rents courts or fields on recurring blocks, runs volunteer shifts and wants wallet cards for members.
Daxko Operations for established YMCAs and JCCs that need scholarships, holds and check-in with dedicated operations staff. Communal for smaller community centers that want self-serve family memberships and program registration.
Xplor Recreation exports member, membership and registration data to CSV; we map and import it for free, timed to your contract end.
Export clients with household links, membership purchases and expiry dates, program registrations and facility bookings from Xplor; we map them to Communal members, dependents, plans, sessions and spaces and run a dry-run import with validation.
Configure membership types, map boundaries for resident pricing, parent and child spaces with booking windows, and next season's programs in Communal, then import members with their existing expiry dates.
Switch registration and booking links on your website to the Communal portal, send wallet cards, and go live at a season boundary. Keep Xplor read-only until the contract term closes.
The Tuscany Community Association runs soccer registration on Communal and reports saving about 10,000 volunteer hours. Read the case study.
How the hall gets booked, how program pricing works, how you chase renewals. No canned tour. We walk Communal through your real process so you can see the fit before you decide.
No canned tour · No sales script
For community centers, clubs and smaller recreation departments, Communal: $75/mo flat with programs at +$50/mo and facilities from +$50/mo, with recurring bookings and no contract. For organizations that want published monthly tiers and a storefront, Amilia SmartRec from $99/mo. For small towns, RecDesk from $3,835/yr. For the largest departments, ACTIVENet.
Xplor does not publish pricing. Review sites list a placeholder of A$100 per feature per month that does not reflect real quotes. The vendor blog promises a transparent fee breakdown including payment processing and refers to pricing across the term of your contract, which suggests multi-year agreements. Onboarding and implementation may be invoiced separately, and processing runs through Xplor Pay at unpublished rates.
Yes. PerfectMind was acquired by Xplor Technologies in 2020, rebranded Xplor Recreation in 2022, and rebranded nextRec in 2026 after the Xplor and Clubessential merger. The product, customers and contracts carried through each rename. If you are searching for PerfectMind alternatives or nextRec alternatives, this page applies.
Both are quote-priced enterprise recreation platforms for municipal departments. ACTIVENet is transaction-priced with a broader module set including childcare and mobile apps; Xplor is known for customizable fields and workflows but lacks league scheduling. Neither publishes a price table. Read the full ActiveNet vs Xplor Recreation comparison.
Communal handles league seasons through recurring seasonal facility bookings and program sessions with recurrence rules, capacity, waitlists, attendance sheets and member, public and volunteer price tiers. It does not generate round-robin game schedules automatically; if you need bracket generation, Cogran includes a league scheduler from $899/yr.
Yes, and it is free. We import clients, households, membership purchases with expiry dates, program registrations and booking history from your Xplor CSV exports, validate the mapping on a dry run, and schedule go-live at a season boundary or at the end of your contract term.
Yes. Communal publishes every price, starting at $75/mo with facilities from +$50/mo and no contract. Cogran lists pricing from $899/yr and RecDesk from $3,835/yr, both published. MyRec.com has no startup cost and no long-term contract. See Communal pricing for the full table.