Build vs. buy gym software, priced over the years you’ll pay for it
The SaaS prices are Mindbody, PushPress and Trainerize’s own published starting prices, and the build prices are the ones Zee Palm publishes. Pick your locations and platform to see the total over 1, 3 or 5 years and the month a build breaks even, if it ever does.
3-year total, 1 location
Own it (custom build)
$50,298
Rent it (PushPress)
$8,928
PushPress at this scope costs about the same as our own maintenance retainer alone, so this comparison never crosses over on price. Renting is the cheaper call unless you value owning the platform outright.
- MVP build floor
- $12,000
- Dashboards
- $799
- AI receptionist
- $1,499
- Maintenance, 3 years at $1,000/mo
- $36,000
PushPress, $248/mo
$248 × 36 mo
This comparison excludes
- Per-booking or payment-processing fees either path may charge
- Migration effort moving members and history off your current system
- Vendor feature updates you would stop receiving automatically after a custom build
- Support and account-management time, which a SaaS subscription bundles in
An estimate, not a quote. Vendor prices are each company’s own published starting price and can change without notice. Our numbers come from a five-day planning sprint at $1,500, credited in full toward the build.
Before you decide
What the total-cost number doesn’t say on its own
Weigh these four things alongside the break-even month above.
Locations change the shape of the build
One location is a bounded member-app MVP. A second location moves the floor to a full platform, because door access, memberships, billing and reporting then have to reconcile across sites.
Per-location fees add up over years
A $99/mo starter plan looks nothing like $99, four times, every month, for as long as you operate four locations. Monthly pricing is easy to underestimate over several years, so the calculator projects the whole window instead of showing one month.
Owning software costs money every month too
With a custom platform you carry the maintenance, the security patching and every decision about future features, either yourself or under a retainer. The build total here includes that cost.
Renting is often the right call
A single location still finding product-market fit is very likely better off on a $99–$229/mo platform, which costs less and carries less risk than a build.
Methodology
How the break-even month is calculated
The build side is arithmetic: the published floor for your location count, plus any add-ons you selected, plus our $1,000/mo maintenance retainer running for every month of the window you picked. One location prices from the $12,000 member-app MVP floor; more than one prices from the $25,000 full-platform floor, which is the same tier break the service page itself uses.
The rental side multiplies the vendor’s own published monthly price by your location count where the vendor prices per location, or leaves it flat where the vendor prices by client count instead, plus the branded-app add-on if you turned it on. All three numbers were read from Mindbody, PushPress and Trainerize’s own pricing pages on 8 Sep 2026. We show the date because vendor pricing changes without notice.
The break-even month solves for where the two lines cross: the point at which the rental total, still accruing every month, exceeds the one-time build cost plus the maintenance that has run since. If your rental bill is at or below what our own maintenance retainer costs on its own, the lines never cross and the calculator says so instead of printing a meaningless month.
If you run one location and are still filling classes, keep renting. A build that takes years to pay for itself is a bad trade however it’s pitched, ours included, and “not yet” is a result this calculator will give you.
FAQ
Gym software build vs. buy questions
Is it cheaper to build custom gym software?
Only past a break-even point, and the calculator finds that point for your numbers. A single-location gym on a $99/mo starter plan rarely clears the $12,000 MVP floor within a few years. A four-location operator paying per-location fees on top of a branded-app add-on can cross over inside 18 months. The math depends on locations, the platform you're renting and how many years you run it.
Why don't you include Glofox's price in the comparison?
Because Glofox doesn't publish a price, and every other figure here comes from a vendor's own public pricing page. We left it out instead of estimating one. The note under the platform picker explains how to read the comparison if you run Glofox today.
What does a SaaS platform give you that a custom build doesn't?
Continuous feature updates you don't pay for individually, a support team, and no engineering risk if something breaks at 2am. For a single location just finding its feet, that trade is usually the right one. Custom software makes sense once you're paying repeatedly for features you don't use to reach the two or three you do, or once per-location and per-seat fees start compounding across sites.
Does the custom build number include ongoing costs?
Yes. The build total already includes our $1,000/mo maintenance retainer for every year you project, so it compares fairly with a subscription you pay every month. It leaves out payment-processing fees, migration effort and the account-management time a SaaS plan bundles in. The full list of exclusions sits under the result.
Is this a quote?
No. It's a planning estimate built from our published floor prices and each vendor's published starting price. Your build's firm price comes out of a $1,500, five-day MVP Planning Sprint, credited in full toward the build if you go ahead.
Next steps
From comparison to a scoped build
Work with us
Send us your locations and current platform
Paste in your calculator result. Usually within one business day, we'll reply with what a first version should include, a fixed price and a date.