Fantasy Football Draft Assistant Comparison

DraftKick can sync with Yahoo, ESPN, and Sleeper draft rooms. Where does it stand among fantasy football draft assistants?

I'm one of those people who needs to compare features before making decisions. In my case, I'm deciding what to include in DraftKick, so I'm looking at all the other draft assistants to see how it stacks up.

RotoWire Draft Assistant ($83/year as part of their base subscription)

I just looked at the page for RotoWire's Football Draft Assistant, and it doesn't mention anything about live draft sync. However, their pricing page does mention sync, as does their Baseball Draft Assistant page. So I'm guessing this is something they're working on.

The baseball page mentions Yahoo, CBS, Fantrax, and Ottoneu as the syncing platforms, so it looks like they're missing ESPN as a major option. I'm assuming they use RotoWire's projections, but those are publicly available from Yahoo and Sleeper.

I don't see any way to try things out without paying, so I'm not sure what else to evaluate.

Footballguys Draft Dominator ($62/year to get Sleeper sync)

This one was also a non-syncing tool historically, but they've started adding some sync options (Sleeper and MyFantasyLeague so far). Yahoo's API should make it an easy next target for them, but their model (non-Chrome extension) will make it difficult to add certain platforms (e.g., ESPN).

They let you see the tool before you buy—that's definitely a plus. The first load is slow, but it seems snappy enough when it's in use.

The free version is intentionally crippled to not adjust rankings based on custom league settings. Custom league rankings are a big deal, but I trust that Footballguys knows how to do VBD right.

FantasyPros Draft Assistant ($71/year for their 10-league sync)

FantasyPros's Draft Assistant syncs with every site except maybe Underdog.

I don't see any way to try it out before purchasing.

I've never been a fan of the FantasyPros philosophy: They build from rankings rather than the underlying stats, and they give you a short list of recommendations rather than letting you decide for yourself from the data.

When I've tried their tools for baseball, their recommendations are embarrassingly poor. However, they are a football-first site, and they do a better job of blending positional rankings for football, at least for some of the obvious formats (Superflex, 3-WR).

They've done well as one of the first sites to build sync, but it strikes me as a tool for the casual masses.

Draft Hero ($46 for multiple leagues and syncs)

Draft Hero is the first tool that came out as a "sync first" kind of draft assistant. (Most others built the manual tracker first and are now tacking on sync features.) Having 4for4 and FantasyGuru behind it has given them good distribution. They sync with eight platforms (Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, Sleeper, MyFantasyLeague, FFPC, NFFC, and RealTime), missing only Fantrax and some of the fringier platforms.

They let you try out the product (always appreciated), but maybe it's too early in the draft season because I can't do much with it right now. Their league configuration UI is perhaps the most backwards interface I've ever encountered: Instead of an input field for the number of QBs or the points per TD, you click a button and enter those in a popup box?

Besides DraftKick, they are the only tool that gives you multiple projections. But they've chosen to do that with a complicated à la carte pricing model based on number of projection sources, number of leagues, and which features you want.

Also, it's not difficult to find negative reviews filled with sync issues. I wonder if their marketing side is stronger than their technical side. They may have also gone too wide on supporting so many league platforms without realizing all the little settings that need to be accounted for on each site.

Draft Sharks ($96/year for their default with auction support)

I've saved Draft Sharks for last because I suspect their draft assistant is one of the best among the competition.

I say "suspect" because this is another one you can't try without subscribing. They do sync with everyone, and my impression from comments on the web is that the sync is pretty robust.

Most of the competitors can't do DraftKick's inside-the-draft-room updating, but Draft Sharks does.

They've also got a good reputation for projection quality, so there's that.

If I were putting a target on one competitor's back, it would probably be this one.

Advantages of DraftKick

The value in looking at everyone else is that it helps me see what makes DraftKick stand out.

Here are what I think are the biggest advantages DraftKick offers in head-to-head comparisons:

Try before you buy

Lots of sites don't let you try out their draft assistant until you pay. That's fine if people are signing up for their articles and view the tools as a bonus. But I think lots of people want to know these things before purchasing:

• Is this tool easy to use?
• Does this tool give reasonable rankings/values based on my custom league settings?
• Is this tool reliable when syncing?

DraftKick's strategy is to give you all of those things upfront. All of the configuration options are unlocked before you buy. It lets you try out sync in mock drafts without paying a penny.

No confusing subscription pricing

I think people are sick of subscriptions, and most tools are offered with a super-shady "monthly price, billed annually." That's just a deceitful way to hide the true price, and I have a hard time respecting people who pull that.

DraftKick has the advantage of simple, one-time pricing. No subscription and no hiding the real price.

Better price

And speaking of pricing, DraftKick at $59 (and $49 for early drafters!) is cheaper than the base sync option for almost every other site. The exception is Draft Hero, whose price goes up with each feature added.

I guess with the subscription sites, you could wait until draft day, sign up at their monthly rate (the actual monthly rate, not the monthly-price-billed-annually rate) and cancel the next day. And so they push hard to funnel people into their annual subscription, knowing they'll get some free money from suckers and from forgotten subscriptions.

No projection lock-in

Everybody thinks their own projections are the best, but a projection aggregate is going to be the consistent winner. Most draft tools limit you to their one set of projections.

DraftKick is one of the few that builds a projection aggregate for you from multiple high-quality sources.

No draft platform is out of reach

It's true—right now DraftKick only syncs Yahoo, ESPN, and Sleeper. I picked those because they probably host three-fourths of online drafts between them, and no other platform is nearly as big.

It's telling that other platforms (RotoWire, Footballguys) haven't included ESPN, despite it being such an obvious first or second choice target. It's because they've started down a path that makes some sites (Sleeper, Yahoo) easy but makes a site like ESPN incredibly difficult.

With DraftKick, I've picked the route that will work everywhere. There's nothing but time (and maintenance headaches) keeping me from obtaining complete coverage of every fantasy site.

Feature comparison

I'm a big fan of the outrageously biased feature comparison table.

If I wanted something like that highlighting the best of DraftKick, I might make something like this:

	DraftKick	RotoWire	Footballguys	FantasyPros	Draft Hero	Draft Sharks
Estimated sync coverage	85% (Yahoo, ESPN, Sleeper)	50% (Yahoo, CBS, Fantrax, Ottoneu)	15% (Sleeper, MFL)	100%	99%	100%
Price	$59 one-time	$83/year	$62/year	$71/year	$46 one-time	$96/year
Upfront pricing	✅ One-time	❌ Shady subscription	❌ Shady subscription	❌ Shady subscription	❌ Confusing à la carte	❌ Shady subscription
Free to try	✅ Yes	❌ No	✅ Yes	❌ No	✅ Yes	❌ No
Projection sources	✅ Custom aggregate	❌ Site only	❌ Site only	❌ Only ranks	✅ Multiple	❌ Site only
Runs in the draft window	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No	✅ Yes