FairSub

If you coach youth soccer and have ever searched for an app to manage substitutions, you have almost certainly found SubTime. With 50,000 coaches across 115 countries, it is one of the most established substitution apps for youth coaches. So why does FairSub exist, and when is it the better choice?

This comparison is written by the FairSub team, so read it with that context. We will be specific about where SubTime is genuinely better, because the comparison is only useful if it names the trade-offs.

Quick recommendation

Choose SubTime if you coach more than one sport, need multi-coach collaboration today, want CSV exports of statistics, or value the depth of an established product with thousands of reviews behind it.

Choose FairSub if you want an adaptive engine that recalculates after every whistle, want substitution reminders on your lock screen so you can focus on the players, coach in a language other than English, or want a focused matchday tool rather than a full team-management platform.

What both apps do well

Before the differences, the overlap is real. Both apps:

• Build lineups, track playing time, and ensure equal minutes across a match
• Support multiple formations (3v3 through 11v11)
• Handle goalkeeper time separately from outfield time
• Let you adjust on the fly when players arrive late, get injured, or need to leave early
• Save matches to a history so you can review playing time over the season
• Work offline at the field

For a coach who simply wants every player to get roughly equal minutes, either app can do the job.

Where they differ in substance

The substitution engine

This is the most important difference, and it is technical.

SubTime works more like a smart rotation timer. You set the rotation interval (say, every 8 minutes), and the app tells you when each player should come on or off. If a sub gets skipped or delayed, the schedule still ticks forward — coaches often describe ending the match with a couple of players noticeably short on minutes because the plan did not adapt to what actually happened.

FairSub uses what we call forward simulation. At every moment, the app projects the rest of the match — including the substitutions still to come — and balances the projected end-of-match minutes for every player on the roster. If you skip a sub or pause the game, the engine recalculates from where you actually are, not from where the plan said you should be. The result is that the final whistle leaves everyone closer to the same number of minutes, even when the match did not go to plan.

We documented this engine across 490 unit tests and 50 simulated full matches, including injury scenarios, goalkeeper rotations, and late-arrival cases. That is in the equal playing time guide if you want the long version.

Lock screen and Live Activity

SubTime's notifications work when the app is in the foreground. The most common complaint in their App Store reviews is that subs get missed because the phone went to sleep or the coach switched to another app.

FairSub uses iOS Live Activities and Dynamic Island for matchday substitutions. The current match time, the next substitution, and the player coming on are visible on your lock screen and in the Dynamic Island throughout the match. You can pause, resume, end a period, or execute a substitution from the lock screen itself, without unlocking the phone.

One minute before a substitution, FairSub uses an iOS push alert to play a whistle — the sound and screen wake-up happen even if you have not touched your phone in the last 20 minutes. No banner to read, just the whistle. More on how this works during a live match.

Position-aware substitutions

SubTime lets you set positions for each player, but the rotation engine does not weigh them. A striker can be suggested for a center back if the timing lines up.

FairSub uses ten atomic position codes (GK, DL, DC, DR, ML, MC, MR, FL, FC, FR) and weighs them when generating substitutions. A defender is matched to a defender first; a central midfielder is matched to a central midfielder. If a perfect match is not available, the engine falls back to a partial match (role, then side) before resorting to position-agnostic swaps. This is on by default and requires no configuration.

Squad selection rate — who gets picked?

Equal playing time within a match is only half the fairness picture. The other half is whether every child gets selected for matches across the season. A coach who calls up the same nine players every weekend, but distributes minutes evenly within each match, is still unfair to the children who are never picked.

SubTime tracks playing time within a match but does not surface a season-level signal for selection. FairSub shows a green/yellow/red dot next to every player based on how often they have been called up, so you can spot the player you keep accidentally leaving out. We wrote about this in fair squad selection.

Languages

SubTime is English-only. FairSub is available in English, Swedish, German, Spanish, French, Norwegian, Danish, European Portuguese, and Italian. The translations are not machine-only — terminology like banc de touche versus ligne de touche, Anstoß versus Spielbeginn, and tempo di gioco versus tempo di partita has been checked by humans against each federation's official vocabulary.

Sharing with parents

SubTime offers SubTime Live, a web view where parents can follow the match in real time, and CSV exports for stats. FairSub takes a different approach: instead of live data to parents, it generates a monthly report — a single shareable link showing the whole month's matches, fair-play percentages per child, and substitution patterns. Parents log in with the team name (no personal account required) and the link expires after 90 days.

The coach's role is already visible. Every parent watches. Every player questions why they were the one taken off. Every matchday is a review. We do not think broadcasting that role in real time makes coaching easier — we think it makes it harder. FairSub is designed for the coach: so they can do their job as well, and as undisturbed, as possible. SubTime Live turns the coach into a broadcaster operating a platform for watching parents. FairSub keeps the phone in your pocket during the match and gives parents a summary afterwards. More on why monthly reports work better than live feeds.

Where SubTime is genuinely better

Three things, honestly:

Multi-sport. SubTime works for basketball, lacrosse, field hockey, rugby, and futsal in addition to soccer. FairSub is soccer-only by design.

Multi-coach today. SubTime's Team Plan ($34.99/year) lets two or more coaches see the same shared match view simultaneously and make substitutions from different devices. FairSub's Team licence ($19/year per coach) is on the roadmap but not yet shipping at the time of writing.

CSV export. SubTime exports raw stats to CSV. FairSub deliberately does not — we believe the monthly report is a better answer than a spreadsheet — but if you need the raw numbers for a club-level analysis, SubTime gives them to you.

And one obvious point: SubTime has 649 App Store reviews. FairSub has 3 at the time of writing. If proven adoption matters to you, that is a legitimate reason to pick SubTime.

Side-by-side feature comparison

Pricing

FairSub's free tier is fully functional — no time limits, no match-length cap. The paid Coach licence is $14.99/year and unlocks position-aware substitutions, the monthly report, sound and haptic alerts, and other quality-of-life features.

SubTime's free tier limits matches to 40 minutes (a real cap for 11v11 coaches with 2x40-minute halves). Standard is $24.99/year, Team is $34.99/year, and club pricing scales down for multiple teams under one admin.

SubTime is roughly 65% more expensive than FairSub at the individual-coach level, though it is fairer to say they are in a different segment — SubTime serves multi-coach teams and clubs; FairSub focuses on the single sideline coach.

Which substitution app should you download?

If you have been using SubTime for years and it works for you, stay with it. It is a well-built product with a deep team behind it, and switching costs are real.

If you are new to substitution apps, or you have been using SubTime and feel like you spend too much time staring at your phone during matches, try FairSub. The free tier is full-featured for one team, the engine logic is genuinely different, and the lock-screen experience changes what coaching from the sideline feels like.

Also weighing FairSub against another app? See FairSub vs Coach Meister.