Gymdesk's five member-count tiers plus the one-time Lifetime option, direct-Stripe processing, and the all-in monthly cost for boutique studios. Why the per-member model fits martial arts and traditional gyms more cleanly than class-first boutique studios. Updated May 2026.
Gymdesk's pricing tiers scale with active member count, which mirrors the way martial arts gyms and traditional fitness centres operate — a stable monthly roster paying recurring dues. For boutique class-based studios where the meaningful unit is the booking (not the member), this fit is less natural.
For a martial arts academy with 300 active members each paying $150/month in recurring dues, the per-member tier fits cleanly. Subscription $1,500/year + direct Stripe pass-through. The billing, attendance, and member-portal flows are purpose-built for this shape and feel right at home.
For a boutique reformer pilates studio with 300 active members mixing memberships, class packs, and drop-ins across six instructors, the booking is the operation. Subscription $1,188/year. Pick-a-spot reformer booking included, term-based courses built in, hybrid in-person and online classes that count their spots separately, and direct Stripe Connect Standard pass-through.
For martial arts gyms, CrossFit boxes, and traditional gyms with stable membership rosters where the per-class booking is incidental to the recurring membership fee. The per-member model and the gym-shaped feature set fit this segment more cleanly than tools built for class-first boutique operations.
Gymdesk publishes five member-count tiers plus a lifetime option. Micro is around $75/month for up to 50 members. Small is around $100/month for up to 250 members. Medium is around $125/month for up to 500 members. Large is around $150/month for up to 1,500 members. 2X-Large is around $200/month for up to 3,000 members. A one-time Lifetime tier is also offered at a higher upfront cost in exchange for no recurring subscription. Pricing varies with billing frequency (annual is typically cheaper than monthly) and is sometimes negotiated.
Gymdesk's tiers differ on member-count caps, not feature inclusion — the same core feature set (attendance tracking, billing, scheduling, member portal, kiosk check-in) is available across all paid tiers. The bigger your active member count, the higher the tier you sit on. This per-member model fits martial arts gyms and fitness centres with stable rosters cleanly; it strains for boutique class-based studios where the meaningful unit is the booking, not the member.
Gymdesk is independent, not PE-backed. Originally built as Martial Arts on Rails for the martial-arts vertical, it expanded into broader gym management over time. Its incentives orient around long-term customer retention rather than the multi-year ARR maximisation PE acquisition multiples require. This contrasts with the PE roll-up pattern affecting Mindbody (Vista), Mariana Tek and Momence (Xplor), and WellnessLiving (JMI Equity).
No. Gymdesk doesn't operate a consumer-facing marketplace — no equivalent of the Mindbody app where consumers browse and book across studios. Gymdesk studios run their own customer-acquisition channels and pay no marketplace commission. Same category as Walla, OfferingTree, and Junocal: no marketplace, no commission.
Gymdesk integrates with Stripe and other processors directly — the studio uses its own merchant account and pays the processor's published rate without Gymdesk markup. For Stripe Connect Standard, that's 2.9% + $0.30 for US cards, 1.5% + 20p for UK cards. This matches Junocal's processing model. No bundled-processing markup either way.
Month-to-month is the default. Annual billing is offered with a discount (typically 10-20% off) and is opt-in rather than required. Gymdesk and Junocal both offer flat month-to-month with no annual lock-in — neither carries the PE acquisition-multiple economics that push the incumbents toward annual contracts.
For a boutique class-based studio with 300 active members on Medium ($125/month): $1,500/year subscription + direct Stripe pass-through (no markup). All-in: ~$1,500/year above your direct Stripe processing. Compared to Junocal Studio at $99/month with the same direct-Stripe model, Gymdesk Medium is about $300/year more — driven by the per-member cap structure rather than feature inclusion. The gap inverts at very small member counts (Gymdesk Micro at $75 < Junocal Starter at $39 for solo instructors, though the feature sets differ).
For martial arts gyms, CrossFit boxes, and traditional gyms where the meaningful unit is the member with a recurring monthly fee rather than the per-class booking. Gymdesk's billing, attendance, and member-portal flows are purpose-built for this shape — better than class-first tools for gyms where the booking is incidental to the membership. For boutique pilates, yoga, barre, and dance studios where the booking IS the operation, where pick-a-spot at apparatus matters, and where term-based programmes run as fixed cohorts, a class-first tool like Junocal is the closer fit.
For boutique pilates, yoga, barre, dance and movement studios where the booking is the operation rather than incidental to a recurring membership fee, Junocal ships pick-a-spot at apparatus, term-based courses, hybrid classes, and direct Stripe Connect Standard at $39 / $99 / $199 flat. No marketplace commission. No annual contract.