What Should a 25-Person Fitness Club Actually Pay for Software?

Here's the breakdown, pillar by pillar, for a 25-person independent fitness club.

Sales & Marketing: $470-870/mo

Member acquisition is the biggest variable here, and the two are actually different jobs despite both being framed as "marketing" — Meta Ads runs around $400/mo for local new-member acquisition campaigns aimed at people who've never heard of the club, while Podium at $329/mo converts people who've already found you (via search or a referral) into a trial by making it easy to text or webchat instead of calling the front desk. The failure mode is picking one and expecting it to do the other's job — Meta Ads without a fast response system loses trial-intent leads to whichever competitor answers a webchat first. Mailchimp is $65/mo for membership promotions and win-back campaigns. Semrush is $140/mo for SEO and local-search visibility. Most clubs pick either Meta Ads or Podium as the primary acquisition channel, not both, and layer the other in only once the first is proven.

Core Operations: $850-1,300/mo

Membership management is the anchor. Mindbody runs $500/mo and is built for 3-100 employees with deep class scheduling, front-desk check-in, recurring billing, and — critically — a consumer-facing discovery app; the failure mode is a single-location club paying Mindbody's premium purely out of brand recognition while never actually getting new members through the app's marketplace. Glofox is $350/mo for 2-80 employees as a lower-cost alternative that covers the same operational core without the app-discovery layer. Zen Planner is $300/mo for 1-50 employees, popular with independent gyms and CrossFit-style boxes that run on word-of-mouth rather than app discovery. Trainerize adds $200/mo for personal-training client apps and workout program delivery — it only integrates with Mindbody, so a Glofox or Zen Planner club adding it for a couple of trainers is taking on a fourth platform with no native connection to the other three. The right pick depends on whether you need the full consumer-facing app ecosystem (Mindbody) or just clean membership and billing (Zen Planner).

Finance: $290/mo

QuickBooks Online is $90/mo for general ledger and financial reporting reconciled against membership billing exports. Gusto is $200/mo for payroll on hourly front-desk staff, group fitness instructors, and salaried trainers. Stripe covers payment processing at $0/mo (transaction-fee based). Ramp is $0/mo for corporate-card expense tracking on equipment purchases and cleaning supplies.

Admin & Security: $430/mo

Google Workspace Business Standard is $170/mo for email and shared calendars. 1Password Business is $95/mo for vaults shared across membership software, banking, and marketing logins. DocuSign is $80/mo for e-signatures on membership agreements and liability waivers. Huntress Managed EDR is $85/mo for endpoint security on front-desk check-in kiosks and office computers.

What this adds up to

A genuinely optimized stack for a 25-person fitness club lands in the $2,000-2,900/mo range — but we regularly see clubs paying $4,000-7,200/mo for the same coverage because they're running Mindbody sized for a multi-location chain, paying for overlapping marketing tools, or never renegotiated after their instructor count changed.

Run the free audit with your actual headcount and current spend to see exactly where your fitness club's stack stands.