Best martial arts software (2026)

If you run a class-led martial arts school, Junocal, from $15 a month, can publish separately named level and age-group classes, run fixed term programs, sell recurring class memberships, request intake and waivers after sign-up, and provide a day-of roster with check-in. It does not enforce belt prerequisites automatically. This post walks through the fit and that limitation.

The short version is in the Short answer callout at the top of this page. The buyer criteria and the feature-by-feature breakdown are below.

What to look for in martial arts software

A dojo or academy is not a generic gym, and a generic booking tool tends to fight the way martial arts schools actually run. Five things separate software that fits a martial arts school from software that merely tolerates one.

A leveled class timetable. Your schedule is not one flat list of classes. White belts, intermediates, advanced students, competition teams, and kids each belong in different sessions, and a student should see the classes they are eligible for without scrolling past twenty that do not apply to them. Good software lets you publish a timetable organised by level and cap each class to the number of students you can safely put on the mat.

Term-based programs. Beginner courses, kids programs, and intro blocks usually run as fixed cohorts — a six-week white-belt foundations course, an eight-week after-school kids block — not open-ended drop-ins. Software that treats every session as a standalone class makes you rebuild the same enrolment by hand every term. Software built for this lets you publish a course once, enrol a cohort, and bill it as a unit.

Dues-style recurring memberships. Most dojos run on monthly dues. The software needs to bill memberships automatically, retry a declined card instead of silently dropping the payment, and let you also sell class packs for students who train on a punch-card basis. Missed dues are the single biggest revenue leak in a small school, so failed-payment recovery is not a nice-to-have.

Waivers and intake. Every new student — and every minor's guardian — needs to accept a liability waiver before they step on the mat. The cleanest setup captures the waiver, injury history, and guardian details at the moment of booking, and keeps that record attached to the student so your front desk and instructors can confirm it at check-in.

A day-of staff view and check-in. On a busy evening your front desk or lead instructor needs to see who is booked into each class and check students in fast, on a phone at the door. A day-of roster that loads on mobile, without making instructors log into a full admin console, is what keeps the mat-side experience smooth.

How Junocal delivers each criterion

Junocal was built for class-based, instructor-led schools, and the martial arts case sits squarely inside that. Here is how it maps to the five criteria above.

Named level classes. Publish separate beginner, advanced, competition-team and kids services with independent capacities and waitlists. Names and descriptions help students choose, but Junocal does not hide sessions or reject a booking based on belt eligibility. See the full picture on the martial arts software page, and the grappling-specific version on the jiu-jitsu academy software page.

Term-based programs. Junocal handles fixed-length courses natively. You publish a white-belt foundations block or an after-school kids program once, enrol a cohort, and bill the whole course as a unit instead of stitching together individual sessions every term. The mechanics are spelled out on the term-based courses feature page. This is the difference between running a structured beginner pipeline and re-keying enrolments by hand each season.

Dues-style memberships. Recurring memberships bill monthly or annually through your own Stripe account, with automated failed-payment recovery that retries a declined card and emails the student to update it — so a bounced payment does not quietly cost you a month of dues. For students who prefer to train on a punch-card basis, you can sell 5-class and 10-class packs alongside dues. Both are included on the entry plan.

Waivers via intake. Build an operator-approved conditional form for the waiver, injury questions and any guardian details the school needs. Sign-up happens first, then Junocal requests completion before attendance. Responses live with the client record for staff to review; the software does not decide legal sufficiency or eligibility.

Day-of roster and check-in. Instructors and front-desk staff get a day-of staff view that loads on a phone, shows exactly who is booked into each class, and lets them check students in with one tap at the door — without handing out full admin access. It is mat-side software, built for the person standing by the entrance on a Tuesday night.

Junocal also includes the rest of what a growing school uses day to day: automated confirmation and 24-hour reminder emails, welcome and win-back sequences, reviews, lead capture, coupons and buy-X-get-Y offers, and hybrid in-person plus online classes for the school that streams or records sessions.

Pricing

Junocal starts at $15 a month (or $150 a year) on Starter. Separately named classes, term courses, class memberships and packs, intake workflows, class waitlists, automated emails, day-of roster and check-in are included. Level prerequisites are not. Studio is $29 a month and Growth is $69 a month for larger multi-location operations. See the full breakdown on the martial arts software page.

On payments, your dojo connects its own Stripe account. Stripe Checkout presents the payment methods enabled and eligible for that account, and Junocal adds no markup or marketplace commission on class sales and memberships. Exact methods and Stripe rates depend on the account country, currency and transaction. There is no annual contract, CSV export is free, and migration help is included in the first 30 days.

Getting started

Moving a dojo onto Junocal starts with the connected Stripe account, current students and memberships, separately named level and age-group classes, and any fixed beginner or kids terms. Build the school's approved waiver into an intake form, then test the post-sign-up request and staff review. Keep belt eligibility as an explicit staff process.

If you want to see exactly how it maps to your school, start on the martial arts software page, check the jiu-jitsu academy software page if you run a BJJ academy, and read the term-based courses feature page to see how beginner blocks and kids programs run as enrolled cohorts.

For a class-led martial arts school, Junocal, from $15 a month, supports separately named classes, fixed term programs, recurring class memberships, post-sign-up intake and a day-of roster with check-in. Schools that need automatic belt prerequisites or a full household billing portal should test a more specialised dojo system.