What martial arts software really costs

Among the vendors we compare on this site, the cheapest paid plans list between $75 and $199 a month, and the biggest tiers run past $500. Those figures are in a mix of currencies, as each vendor publishes them (October 2026; Zen Planner as of September 2026). PushPress also has a free plan that makes its money on card processing instead, and Clubworx a free plan for up to 20 active members.

What you actually pay depends on five things:

1. How the base price is set: by members, by plan, flat, or by quote
2. How many active members you have, if the price follows your roster
3. Add-ons: the website, the branded app, marketing, grading
4. Payment processing: whose rates, and whether there’s a markup
5. Setup fees, contract terms, and what leaving costs

Per-member tiers

The most common model. Zen Planner’s Studio plan runs from $99 to $289 a month in US dollars across eight active-member tiers (as of September 2026). Gymdesk lists $100 to $240 USD a month for up to 250 active members, quoted above that. TeamUp lists $159 to $519 CAD a month by last month’s active customers, and Clubworx $99 to $149 CAD. (All as listed on their sites in October 2026 unless dated otherwise.) The better your gym does, the more the software costs, so check where your roster sits today and where it’ll be in a year.

Plan tiers

Here the price is set by features rather than headcount. MyStudio lists $79, $159, and $239 a month per location, with testing events and its check-in portal starting on the middle plan. Wodify lists $199, $299, and $499 a month, and belt progressions and family billing aren’t on its entry plan. Pike13 lists $139 to $249 a month billed annually, or $159 to $286 monthly. (MyStudio and Pike13 don’t name a currency on their pricing pages.) The trap is the one feature you need living a plan up.

Flat price

One price, any size. Spark Membership lists $199 a month after an eight-week free trial (its page doesn’t name a currency), with payments running through Spark’s own processor. CornerDesk is $99 CAD a month for unlimited members, staff, and classes, with every feature included.

Free plan, paid in processing

PushPress lists a free plan that carries 4.99% + $0.30 per card payment; its Pro ($159/mo USD) and Max ($229/mo USD) plans drop that to 2.89% and 2.75% + $0.30 (October 2026). Free can be the right call for a very small gym. On a busy month, it isn’t free.

Quote-based

Some platforms, Glofox among them, don’t publish a price; it’s set in a sales conversation and scales with locations and features. That’s not wrong, but it makes side-by-side comparison hard. Ask for the quote in writing, with every add-on and fee listed.

The listed plan price often isn’t the whole bill. Add-ons we’ve seen on published pricing pages:

• Zen Planner: Website $99, Engage marketing $249, Branded app $39 a month (USD, as of September 2026) for its website, marketing, and branded-app add-ons.
• Gymdesk: a branded app at $100 a month; PushPress: a branded app at $97 a month (October 2026).
• Clubworx: a member app at +$75 CAD a month, grading events at +$10 a month, and SMS charged per message (October 2026).
• MyStudio: testing events, readiness tracking, and the QR/PIN check-in portal start on Growth at $159 a month, not the $79 plan (October 2026).

Before you compare, write down what you actually use: a website booking widget, member texts, belt gradings, an app. Then price each vendor with those included.

Card processing is usually a percentage of each payment plus a fixed fee per transaction. It’s often the biggest cost after the subscription, and the easiest to miss, because it never shows up on the software invoice. It comes out of your payouts.

Small percentages add up. As an illustration: if your members pay $15,000 a month by card, every extra percentage point is $150 a month, or $1,800 a year, before any per-transaction fees.

• Whose merchant account is it? If it’s the vendor’s, your members’ cards may not come with you when you leave.
• Are the rates published? Spark’s payments page says you can’t bring your own processor, and its processing rates aren’t published (October 2026).
• Is there a markup on the processor’s own rates?
• What does cash or e-transfer cost? It should be nothing.

CornerDesk runs member payments through your own Stripe account. CornerDesk takes no cut; Stripe’s standard processing fees apply to card payments, and cash or e-transfer you record has no processing fee.

The one-time costs and the exit terms belong in the total too:

• Onboarding fees. Wodify lists an onboarding fee but doesn’t publish the amount (October 2026). Zen Planner’s pricing page lists free onboarding and migration (as of September 2026).
• Contract terms. Pike13’s terms renew plans automatically at then-current rates, ask for 30 days’ notice not to renew, and make the rest of the term due if you leave early (October 2026).
• Your data on the way out. Clubworx’s terms allow it to permanently delete your data within a month of leaving (October 2026). Export before you cancel, wherever you are.

CornerDesk has no setup fee, the switch from Zen Planner is done for you free, and it’s month-to-month: cancel any time and export everything to CSV.

Say your gym has 120 active members and takes payments by card. Here’s what each vendor lists at that size, before processing fees.

Add it up yourself

For any vendor, the first-year cost is roughly:

• Monthly price at your roster size × 12 (and at next year’s roster size, if it’s tiered)
• + each add-on you’d actually use × 12
• + processing: your monthly card volume × the percentage, plus the per-payment fee × number of payments, × 12
• + setup or onboarding fees
• + what leaving would cost: notice periods, the rest of a term, data you’d have to rebuild

If you’re on Zen Planner today, the Zen Planner comparison has a calculator that does the subscription part at your size.

• What’s the price at my roster size today, and at double it?
• How do you count an “active” member?
• Which features I need are on a higher plan or an add-on?
• Whose merchant account do payments go into, and at what rates?
• Is there a setup, onboarding, or migration fee?
• Is it month-to-month? What notice do you need to cancel?
• Can I export all my data, and for how long after I leave?
• What currency am I billed in?

$99 CAD a month, flat, billed in Canadian dollars, including to gyms in the US. Unlimited members, staff, and classes; every feature in every gym; the first 30 days free; no setup fee; month-to-month. Member card payments run through your own Stripe account at Stripe’s standard rates, and CornerDesk takes no cut.

What you give up for a flat price: one location per gym, one rank ladder per gym, and no automatic sibling discount (you can price a family plan however you like). It’s in English only today.