What Martial Arts Schools Really Pay for Gym Software and Card Fees

The two bills

Bill one is the subscription. A flat monthly fee for the software: member records, class schedule, attendance, automated texts, a member app. You see it on your card statement every month. It is the number vendors compete on.

Bill two is card processing. Every time a parent's card is charged for tuition, a slice is taken before the money reaches your bank. That slice is quoted as a percentage plus a few cents per charge. It never shows up as an invoice. It shows up as deposits that are smaller than what you billed, which is why it has to be calculated rather than read.

Processing just means moving money from the parent's card to your bank account, with the banks and card networks in between each taking a cut. Every processor pays roughly the same wholesale costs to the networks. The difference between 2.9% and 5% is not cost. It is margin.

Bill one: what the software costs, as published

These are list prices read from each vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-26. Prices change; click through and check the date before you rely on them.

Two things to notice. First, the promo year: Spark's $99 becomes $199 in month 13, so a two-year comparison uses $1,188 + $2,388 = $3,576, not $2,376. Second, the setup fee: our $99 a month comes with a one-time $1,499, which the others do not charge. Any honest comparison puts the setup fee in year one and then compares year two onward.

Bill two: the processing math

Stripe publishes its standard US card rate: 2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge (stripe.com/pricing, read 2026-09-26). Some gym-software platforms bundle processing at rates that run up to 5%. The only way to know yours is to calculate it, which we cover in the next section. For now, take a school with $15,000 a month in card tuition across 100 charges (100 members at $150).

Read that last column again. On a $15,000 month, the processing gap alone is $3,420 a year. A $199-a-month subscription costs $2,388 a year, so on this school the invisible bill moves more money than the visible one.

Scale it to your school. At $8,000 a month with 60 charges: 5% is $400; Stripe is $232 + $18 = $250; the gap is $150 a month, $1,800 a year. At $25,000 a month with 170 charges: 5% is $1,250; Stripe is $725 + $51 = $776; the gap is $474 a month, $5,688 a year. The ROI calculator does this for your exact numbers.

Find your real rate in five minutes

Your effective rate is the fraction of billed tuition that never reaches your bank. It is the only number that matters, and it is buried in your payout reports. Here is how to dig it out.

1. 1Open last month's payout or settlement report in your software. Look for a column called fees, processing, or deductions.
2. 2Add up every fee for the month. Include per-transaction fees, monthly gateway fees, PCI fees, chargeback fees, and "platform" fees. If the report does not break them out, ask support in writing for a line-item fee breakdown for the month.
3. 3Add up the total amount you charged customers that month (gross volume), not what you received.
4. 4Divide total fees by gross volume. Multiply by 100. That is your effective rate.
5. 5Compare to 2.9% + 30¢ on the same volume and charge count. The difference, times twelve, is your yearly processing gap.

Also check the statement descriptor: the name that appears on the parent's card statement. If it shows the software vendor's name instead of your academy's, you get "what is this charge?" calls and disputes. With Stripe on your own account, your academy's name is on the statement.

ACH: the cheaper way to collect tuition

ACH is a direct bank-to-bank debit, the same system payroll uses. It skips the card networks, so the fee is smaller. Stripe publishes ACH Direct Debit at 0.8% per transaction for standard settlement timing, with a $5.00 cap (Stripe local payment methods pricing, read 2026-09-26). On that page Stripe also lists 1.2% for two-day settlement and $4.00 for a failed payment, which matters because a bounced bank debit costs more than a declined card. A $150 tuition payment costs $1.20 on ACH versus $4.65 on a card at 2.9% + 30¢.

For that same $15,000, 100-charge month, all on ACH: each $150 payment is $1.20, so $15,000 × 0.8% = $120, versus $465 on cards and $750 at 5%. Not every family will hand over bank details, and you should not push anyone who would rather use a card. But each family that does switch saves you the difference every month for as long as they train, and offering ACH at sign-up costs you nothing to set up.

Putting both bills together

Same school: $15,000 a month, 100 charges. Compare a $199 platform with bundled processing at 5% against our admin panel at $1,499 setup + $99 a month with Stripe at 2.9% + 30¢ on your own account.

The setup fee makes year one closer than the headline suggests, and that is fair to say out loud. From year two the gap is the full $4,620 a year, and it grows with your volume, because a percentage gap scales and a subscription does not.

What the $99 buys: a custom admin panel for members and billing, Stripe on your own account (cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH), QuickBooks Online sync, your academy's name on the statement, and same-day fixes. Details on the admin panel page. Bundle it with a website rebuild for $2,250 setup and the same $99 a month.

Before you switch anything

• Check your contract. Some platforms bill annually or have a notice period. Know the exit date before you plan the move.
• Export your data first. Members, plans, card tokens if the vendor allows it, attendance history. Get the files before you cancel, not after.
• Plan the card re-entry. Stored cards usually cannot move between processors. Budget a month of asking families to re-enter a card or, better, set up ACH. Do it at a belt test when everyone is in the room.
• Keep the old system read-only for 60 days. Disputes and questions about old charges will come in.
• Run the numbers with your real volume. Use the ROI calculator. If the gap is small at your size, say so and stay put. The math should decide, not the pitch.

If the math does say switch, we build the admin panel and, if you want, the website, and you see a free preview within 24 hours before paying anything. No contracts either way.

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