Every gym software pricing page is designed to show you the lowest possible number. The real cost — once you add staff seats, essential add-ons, payment processing, and any onboarding fees — is almost always higher. For a 300-member independent gym, the difference between the sticker price and the real invoice can be 3–5x depending on which platform you're on. This post does the math on six platforms so you don't have to.
Figures below were checked on 24 August 2026 against each vendor's own pricing page. Where a vendor does not publish a price, this post says so rather than repeating a number we cannot verify. Prices change — confirm before you decide.
Before the platform-by-platform breakdown, two cost categories that appear on almost no pricing page but show up on every invoice:
Every gym software platform routes your member payments through a processor. The standard rate in 2026 is 2.2–2.9% + $0.20–$0.30 per transaction. This is non-negotiable — it exists on every platform. But it's easy to forget when budgeting from the marketing page.
The math for a 300-member gym at $140/month average membership ($42,000 MRR):
On a $75,000/month revenue gym, processing fees alone are $1,875/month = $22,500/year. This is a standard business cost, not a trick. But it needs to be in your budget from the start.
Several platforms charge additional fees per staff member above the included headcount. A 10-person gym on a plan that includes 3 staff seats pays 7 additional seats. At $35–$50/seat, that's $245–$350/month in overage fees that don't appear anywhere on the pricing page.
This is the single biggest reason two gyms quoted the same headline price end up paying very different amounts. When you compare platforms, compare them at your headcount, not at one seat.
Published price: None. Mindbody lists three tiers — Starter, Accelerate, and Ultimate — and every one of them says "Let's talk" instead of a price.
What a 300-member gym can expect:
You will see specific Mindbody figures quoted around the web. We are not repeating them here, because none of them can be checked against Mindbody's own page. Get your number in writing, and ask what happens to it at renewal.
Published price: From $99/month for the Studio plan, with the Engage tier at $249/month and a branded app add-on at $39/month.
What a 300-member gym typically pays:
A smaller box that only needs the Studio plan lands considerably lower, at $99 plus processing.
Published price: Starter $69/month, Business $199/month, BusinessPro $349/month. Paid annually those become roughly $62, $179, and $314.
What a 300-member gym typically pays:
BusinessPro at $349 adds the marketing automation layer, which pushes the annual figure to roughly $16,788.
Published price: Not published. Quote only — confirmed on Glofox's own pricing page, which asks you to request a quote rather than listing tiers.
What a 300-member gym can expect:
We've written up what actually drives a Glofox quote, and the questions to ask before signing, in Glofox pricing.
Published price: $75–$200/month, published openly and tiered by active member count — Micro (up to 50) $75, Small (51–100) $100, Medium (101–200) $150, Large (201–400) $200. Enterprise is custom. Additional locations are $50/month.
What you actually pay (300-member gym):
Gymdesk publishes a full tier table and includes unlimited staff accounts. Note the tier is set by member count, so a growing gym crosses into a higher band automatically — past 400 members you are into Enterprise.
Published price: Free (Pulse), then $139, $249, and $999/month.
Mako's tiers are worth reading carefully, because they are structured by team size rather than by feature set. Basic at $139 is the complete operational platform — CRM, booking and class scheduling, memberships and credits, estimates and invoicing, payments and customer portal, email and SMS automation, and automated win-back journeys. Moving up does not unlock the product; it adds seats, shared team workflows, advanced reporting, QuickBooks sync, and support level.
What you actually pay (300-member gym):
Which line applies is a headcount question, not a features question. A 300-member gym running with an owner and two coaches sits on Basic. One with a front desk, six coaches, and a manager sits on Team.
No add-ons required, no per-seat fees, and no contract at any tier. Pulse, the retention benchmarking layer, is free and imports from Mindbody, Momence, and other platforms — so you can measure your churn against your market before paying for anything. Additional locations on Team are $75/month each; Enterprise is $999/month for unlimited team members across three locations. Pay annually and every tier drops roughly 20% — $1,334, $2,390, and $9,588 per year.
For nine platforms side by side on contract terms and twelve-month total cost, see our gym management software comparison.
All figures include $12,600/year of payment processing, which every platform on this list charges in some form.
Three things stand out, and none of them is what the marketing pages would lead you to expect.
First, four of these six platforms now publish a real price — Zen Planner, WellnessLiving, Gymdesk, and Mako. Two years ago that number was one. The quote-only model is losing.
Second, among the platforms that do publish, the software line is remarkably tight: $139 to $249 per month for the same 300-member gym. Once processing is added, the annual spread across all of them is about $1,300 — roughly 9%, and most of that is seat count rather than capability. Anyone telling you their gym software is dramatically cheaper than the alternatives is either quoting a lower tier than you need or leaving out the add-ons.
Third, and most usefully: the thing that moves your bill is headcount, not features. Gymdesk charges by member count. Mako charges by team size. WellnessLiving and Zen Planner charge by feature tier. Work out which of those three axes your gym is about to grow along, and pick the platform whose pricing does not punish that growth.
Paying more for gym software makes sense when:
Paying more does NOT make sense when:
Most gym owners who run this exercise find their real cost is 30–50% higher than they thought. The ones on quote-only platforms typically find it's closer to 100% higher.
Your wellness business is a business. Not a hobby, not a side project, not a calendar with a cash register. It deserves software that treats it accordingly. If your CRM can't tell you whether your business is financially healthy, it's not doing its job. And in 2026, you have better options.
See Mako in action — no sales call required
Mako is built for independent studio and service-business owners who'd rather spend their time on clients than on demo calls. Open the live demo, poke around, and see exactly how scheduling, billing, and financial intelligence come together in one place.
Try the demo: https://app.makocrm.so/demo
Self-serve. Instant access. No forms, no calendars, no "talk to sales."
