Our commitment to you

Online Scout Manager (OSM) has been proudly supporting Scouting since 2011 with reliable, secure, easy-to-use tools that reduce admin and help you help young people enjoy great Scouting.

We are delighted to have helped 493,274 leaders and parents manage billions of badge records, attendance records, events, payments, meetings and more in the last year alone.

This article explains OSM’s pricing method, how we reinvest income, and what we do behind the scenes to keep the platform secure, reliable, and continuously improving.

Why section-based pricing works

OSM is designed around the fundamental component of Scout groups - sections. It was created by leaders who understand how sections and groups run. Groups can choose to work closely together and share access, events, badges, programmes, etc - or they can let each section run independently – whichever suits their needs.

Section-based pricing ensures fairness. Smaller groups with less income pay less, and larger groups with more income pay more. This keeps the “cost per child” the same for one-section groups vs larger groups.

Section-based pricing keeps the price down and doesn't penalise small groups. If we charged at a group level, smaller groups would subsidise larger groups, and they might not be able to afford the same tools as larger groups.

Equally, our operating costs scale proportionally to your usage. Paying more when you use more ensures long-term sustainability and is how most platforms and businesses work.

Despite rising costs from inflation, new data protection regulations, hosting increases and payment processing fees - we have never increased our prices. Inflation alone should have increased our costs by about 49% from our 2011 prices.

We believe this approach is transparent, fair, and flexible for groups of all sizes - groups pay for what they use - nothing more, nothing less.

World class reliability and security

We are honoured that so many Scout groups and National Membership Organisations choose to use us. As well as providing OSM to UK Scout Groups, we provide it nationally to multiple Scouting, Girl Guiding, Boys' Brigade, Girls' Brigade, Fire Cadets, and St John’s Ambulance associations from all around the world.

To maintain this level of reliability, we continually invest significantly in areas that most people wouldn’t think of, such as:

• Resilient hosting infrastructure
• Independent security testing
• 24/7 monitoring
• Multiple encrypted offsite backups
• Cyber insurance
• Professional Data Protection Officers (DPOs)

Your data deserves the highest standard, and we take that responsibility seriously.

Supporting you

OSM never stands still. We use your feedback to shape OSM's direction. Just in the last few years, we’ve added many new features, big and small, including:

• Accountancy tools to save treasurers days of work each year
• Expense cards to stop volunteers spending their own money
• Venue booking system to make it easier to book and manage venues
• AI tools to help plan sessions, risk assessments, emails, and more
• Kit lists to make it easier for parents to send children with the right kit
• Virtual “thank you cards” to help leaders feel appreciated by parents

We believe volunteers deserve proven, dependable tools that’ll last for decades to come.

Behind OSM is a full professional team, including:

• software developers
• support specialists
• data protection and compliance officers
• finance & legal teams

We will continue to:

• listen to leaders
• prioritise transparency and fairness
• invest heavily in reliability and security
• maintain fair and predictable pricing
• evolve OSM as Scouting changes
• provide APIs to let you integrate with OSM to make your own tools

Giving back

We launched the “Entrepreneur Fund” in September 2025 to provide match-funding to young people who create mini-businesses to help with their scouting costs.

We've been planting a tree for every 5000 logins since January 2025 to help offset the environmental impact of data centres (that's already 3,606 trees this year).

We also donate to charities. This year, inspired by our founder's foster-carer role, we're supporting a charity that provides therapeutic support to children who have experienced trauma.

If you ever have questions about OSM, our pricing, or how we operate, we’re always happy to talk.

Thank you for everything you do for young people.

Founder
Online Youth Manager Ltd.

Numbers accurate as of 25th November 2025