How to Choose Gym Management Software: A Buyer's Guide

Gym management software runs the business side of a gym: memberships, recurring billing, door access, bookings, sales, member communication and reporting. Most systems cover the same headline features, so feature lists won’t tell you much. The differences show up in the detail: how a failed payment is handled, what happens when a member wants to pause, how long it takes to change prices for 500 people.

This guide goes through what to check, what to ask each vendor, and how GymMaster handles each point. We make GymMaster, so treat that part accordingly. The questions apply to any system you’re looking at.

Before you talk to anyone

Write down how your gym actually runs. You’ll get much more out of demos if you can describe your own setup instead of watching a generic tour.

• Your memberships. List every option you sell: ongoing direct debit, fixed terms, paid in full, concession packs, casual visits, trials, family or couples memberships, add-ons.
• How you take payments. Which billing provider you use now, and any contract you have with it.
• Your opening hours and staffing. Staffed all day, staffed some hours and unstaffed the rest, or fully 24/7.
• What members book. Group classes, personal training, courts, rooms, or nothing at all.
• How many sites you have, now and in the next few years.
• Your current member count, because most vendors price on it.

Then pick three or four real situations you deal with every week and ask each vendor to show you exactly how their system handles them. For example: “A member’s card has expired and their payment failed this morning. Show me what happens next.”

Memberships

What to check: whether the system can model the memberships you already sell, without workarounds. Also check how it handles holds, cancellations and price rises, because these are where admin time goes.

Ask the vendor:

• Can I set up fixed-term contracts that renew automatically, as well as open-ended memberships?
• Can I sell concession packs, day passes and free trials, and do they count towards my member numbers?
• Can members put their own membership on hold or cancel online, with a notice period I set?
• When I raise prices, can I apply the change to existing members on a future date and leave some members on their old rate?

In GymMaster: each membership type has a Membership Basis that sets how it behaves: open-ended contract, renewal-based contract, preset date program, add-on, charge per visit, club visit pack, class and booking pack, day pass or trial. Benefits attached to the membership control which doors, classes, services and product discounts the member gets. You set these up in Settings > Membership Types.

Members can place holds and cancel through the Member Portal or app if you allow it, either directly or as a request for staff to approve. Price changes can be applied to new members only, or to new and existing members from a date you choose, with a preview before you confirm. Members on legacy rates or still in their minimum term are excluded by default, so you can review them first.

Guides: Membership Basis, Online Holds, Membership Price Changes

One limit worth knowing: GymMaster doesn’t currently support a single pack that deducts for both club visits and class bookings. There’s a workaround in the pack guide, but if that’s central to how you sell, test it in the demo.

Billing and payments

What to check: which payment providers the software works with in your country, and what happens when payments fail. Failed payments are where a lot of revenue quietly disappears.

Ask the vendor:

• Which billing providers do you support here? Am I locked into yours?
• If I change billing provider later, can my members’ payment details move across?
• When a payment fails, do I see the actual reason? Can the system retry automatically, email the member, and stop their door access after a set time or amount owed?
• What are the transaction fees, and who sets them: you or the billing provider?

In GymMaster: you choose from a range of PCI-compliant billing providers depending on your region, and GymMaster doesn’t lock you into one. If you switch later, you can either move members across gradually or, where the new provider supports it, do a token transfer. In some regions, direct-to-bank file payments (such as SEPA or CSV bank files) are only available on Professional and higher plans.

Failed payments show the reason returned by your billing provider. In Settings > Advanced Configuration you can set a retry interval, how many failed attempts move a member to Pending Review (4 by default), and whether to keep collecting debt after a membership ends. Under Doors & Readers you can set how long, or how much, a member can owe before their access stops. Automated emails or texts can go out when a payment fails.

Guides: Billing Providers, Understanding Failed Billing, Moving Members to a New Billing Provider

Door access and 24/7 opening

What to check: whether access control is built into the membership system or bolted on. If they’re separate, someone has to keep two lists of members in sync, and people who stop paying keep getting in.

Ask the vendor:

• What can members use to get in: fobs, cards, phone, QR code, PIN?
• Can I give different memberships access to different doors or different hours (off-peak, 24/7, studio only)?
• Is access cut off automatically when a membership expires, is cancelled or goes unpaid?
• Can I use my existing door hardware, and what does that cost?
• What happens to door access if the internet connection drops?
• How do you deal with tailgating in unstaffed hours?

In GymMaster: access is part of the membership. Members can get in with a key fob, Bluetooth from the Member App, a QR code or a passcode. Door access benefits on each membership type set which doors a member can open and during which roster: open hours, peak, off-peak, 24/7 or a custom roster. You can also limit visits, such as 5 sauna visits a week, or open a room only to people booked into a class there. Members with failed billing, holds, or expired or cancelled memberships are denied until it’s sorted.

There’s an optional tailgating detection system that uses two cameras at the entrance to flag people who walk in without checking in. GymMaster sells its own door hardware. You can use other hardware, but there’s an extra monthly fee for it.

Guides: Member Access, Door Access Benefits, Is Tailgating Detection Right for Me?

Online sign-up and the member app

What to check: whether someone can find you at 10pm, pick a membership, sign the waiver, pay and get access without speaking to anyone. And whether existing members can manage their own bookings, payment details and holds.

Ask the vendor:

• Can people join online from my website, social posts and a QR code at the door?
• Are waivers, terms and health questionnaires completed and stored during sign-up?
• Can members update their own card details?
• Is the app branded with my gym’s name? What does that cost?

In GymMaster: memberships can be sold through the Member Portal and Member App, with direct “buy online” links and QR codes for each membership type. Forms and waivers set up in Settings > Forms and Waivers are attached to a membership type and completed during sign-up. If someone skips one, they’re prompted at their first visit, and signed copies are stored on the member’s record. A Day Pass can be bought online and used to get in with the app, which suits unstaffed facilities.

The standard Member App is GymMaster branded. A custom branded app with your name, logo and colours in the app stores is available for a setup fee plus a monthly fee.

Guides: Selling Memberships Online, Membership Forms and Waivers, Custom Branded Member App

Bookings and timetables

What to check: how well the system fits the way you sell sessions. A yoga studio, a PT studio and a gym with courts need different things.

Ask the vendor:

• Can I run both group classes and one-to-one sessions with trainers’ availability?
• Can I set different prices for members, casuals and pack holders on the same class?
• Can I build a term or year of repeating classes in one go?
• Are there waitlists, reminders and late cancellation rules?

In GymMaster: bookings are split into classes (scheduled group sessions) and services (one-to-one or small group sessions booked against a trainer’s availability). Each class or service sets who can attend and what they pay: current members using their benefits, casuals and prospects at a set price, or pack holders using a pass. Repeats let you schedule classes across a term or a year.

Guides: Setting Up Bookings, Repeat Bookings

Leads and follow-up

What to check: what happens to an enquiry after it arrives. If enquiries land in an inbox and someone has to remember to call, some won’t get called.

Ask the vendor:

• Do website enquiries, trial bookings and day pass sales go into a list staff can work through?
• Can follow-up emails and staff call tasks be triggered automatically?
• Can I see which ads and campaigns my sign-ups came from?

In GymMaster: the Prospect Funnel collects anyone who enquires on your website, books a trial or casual visit, or is added by staff. You set the stages, and attach automated emails, texts and staff tasks to each one. For online sign-ups, GymMaster automatically records the landing page, referring site, UTM campaign tags and ad click IDs, and you can report on them in the report builder.

Guides: Prospect Funnel, Marketing Attribution

Communication

What to check: which routine messages you can automate, and how easy it is to send a one-off message to a specific group.

Ask the vendor:

• Which messages come set up already, and can I edit them?
• Can I send email, SMS and app notifications? How is SMS charged?
• Can I message a filtered group, such as everyone who hasn’t visited in three weeks?

In GymMaster: templates in Settings > Templates and automated tasks in Settings > Tasks send email, SMS or push notifications when something happens, such as a booking, a failed payment or a sign-up. GymMaster comes with templates and tasks already set up for common situations. For one-off messages, run any report, filter it to the group you want, and send an email or SMS from there. SMS needs a connected Twilio account, and the per-message rate depends on your region.

Guides: Automate Member and Staff Communication, Contacting Groups of Members

Reporting

What to check: that you can get the numbers you’ll actually use (members joining and leaving, visits, debt, revenue) without exporting everything into a spreadsheet.

Ask the vendor:

• Show me how many members joined, cancelled and rejoined last month.
• Show me who has stopped visiting.
• Can reports be emailed to me or my accountant on a schedule?

In GymMaster: the KPI report summarises member numbers, new, cancelled, retained and rejoined members, sales, payments received, and booking and class attendance for any date range, and you can click through to the detail. Retention reports under Report and Till > Standard Report > Retention show who has stopped visiting and your busiest times. The Debt Collection Report lists overdue accounts with contact details. Any report can be set to email itself daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

Guides: KPI Report, Reporting on Member Visits, Scheduled Reports

Point of sale

What to check: if you sell drinks, supplements, merchandise or PT sessions at the desk, whether sales go on the member’s record and stock is tracked.

In GymMaster: the built-in point of sale sells products, gift vouchers and general sales, takes payments for overdue balances, and manages the till. Stock can be tracked through deliveries and stocktakes, with cost prices if you want gross profit figures. Product discounts can be set as membership benefits.

Guides: Using the Point of Sale, Adding Product Stock

Integrations and your data

What to check: that the system connects to the tools you already use, and that you can get your data out if you leave.

Ask the vendor:

• Is there an open API? Webhooks?
• Which third-party services do you integrate with?
• If I leave, can I get a full export of my members and history?

In GymMaster: there’s an open API and webhooks that send event data to tools such as Salesforce, GoHighLevel or your own systems. Ready-made integrations include ClassPass, Zapier, Mailchimp, GymSales, GymLeads, eGym, MyWellness and FitMetrix, among others. Your data is available on request in PDF or CSV format, and can be deleted on request, including backups.

Guides: Integrations, Webhooks, API documentation

Security and reliability

What to check: you’re holding members’ personal and payment details, so check who can see what and how the data is protected.

Ask the vendor:

• Can I limit what each staff member can see and do?
• Is two-factor authentication available for staff logins?
• Where is my data hosted, and how long are backups kept?

In GymMaster: staff permissions are set per role, with permission templates to start from. Two-factor authentication is available by email or Google Authenticator. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, with servers in the United States, Japan, Germany, Singapore and Australia, and backups kept for six weeks. The RFP information page has the detail that councils and larger organisations usually ask for.

Moving from your current system

What to check: switching is the riskiest part of changing software. The main risk is billing: members being charged twice, or not at all, during the changeover.

Ask the vendor:

• Who moves my data, and is there a charge?
• Can my members’ payment details move without them having to re-enter their card?
• How long does it take, and what do you need from me?

In GymMaster: a transfers team handles imports, starting with a sample of your data so both sides agree what each field means before the real transfer. Transfers are normally a paid service, and the cost depends on which system you’re coming from. At the time of writing, the pricing page offers free transfers from selected providers (terms apply). You’ll need to tell your old software provider and billing provider about the change, and agree a date a few days before GymMaster takes over billing.

Guides: Data Transfers, Migrating Data into GymMaster

Pricing and contracts

What to check: the total monthly cost once hardware, app branding, SMS, payment fees and any per-member charges are added. Also check how long you’re committed for.

Ask the vendor:

• What’s included in the base price, and what costs extra?
• How do you count members for billing?
• Is there a minimum contract term or a cancellation fee?

In GymMaster: plans are priced per location per month and tiered by the number of current members: Foundation (up to 100), Advanced (up to 400), Professional (up to 1,300) and Enterprise (unlimited, quoted). Each plan is available as software only, or with 24/7 door access control. Door hardware, the custom branded app and SMS are charged separately. “Current members” includes anyone with a paid in full or regular billing membership, including $0 memberships and future start dates, but not concession pack holders, casuals without a current membership, or prospects. There’s no lock-in contract, and there’s a 60 day money-back guarantee.

Current prices for your region are on the pricing page.

Support and setup

What to check: who you’ll be talking to when billing goes wrong on a Monday morning, and how you’ll get set up.

Ask the vendor:

• Is phone support included, or only email and chat?
• Do I get help setting up, or am I handed a login and a help centre?

In GymMaster: every plan includes phone and email support from the GymMaster team. You can book one-on-one onboarding sessions that work through setup in order: staff, financial settings, opening hours, forms, bookings, memberships, the Member Portal, templates and automated tasks.

Guide: Onboarding Settings

Narrowing it down

Once you have two or three options left:

1. Run the same real situations through each one. Ask to see it done in the software rather than described.
2. Try it yourself. GymMaster has a free trial that doesn’t need a credit card.
3. Ask to speak to a gym similar to yours that already uses the system.
4. Work out the full monthly cost for your member count, including hardware and payment fees.
5. Read the contract terms before signing, especially the minimum term and what happens to your data if you leave.

If you’d like to see how GymMaster handles your situations, book a demo and bring your list.