GymMaster alternative for independent gyms

GymMaster and Workout OS at a glance

GymMaster figures are from gymmaster.com/pricing, read on 4 November 2026 (USD, per site, per month, excluding tax). Workout OS figures come from our own billing configuration.

GymMaster's prices exclude tax and are also published in AUD and NZD; paying yearly gives 10% off. Check gymmaster.com/pricing for your country before you decide.

What GymMaster does well

GymMaster covers the physical side of a gym as well as the software: Bluetooth and RFID readers, key fobs and a tailgating system, so a gym can run unstaffed hours with one vendor responsible for the door. A member app is included on every plan, and the pricing page is public and detailed, including hardware prices.

If unmanned 24/7 access is the core of your business model, that integrated hardware is a real advantage, and Workout OS does not offer it: we sell no hardware.

Where the cost differs

GymMaster prices by current members per site: $89 a month covers up to 100 members on software only, and the next tier, $129, covers 400. Workout OS prices by active members too, but the free Starter plan covers up to 30 and the Gym plan at $79 covers up to 500. Workout OS charges no setup fee and no commission on member payments.

Hardware is where the totals diverge most. GymMaster lists one-off prices for readers and set-up fees for branded hardware, and its door-access column adds $40 a month on each tier. If you already own a door controller, check whether it can talk to an API before you replace it.

Things to verify with GymMaster

• What counts as a current member on your tier, and what happens when you pass the limit.
• SMS rates for your region, and whether email or app notifications cost extra.
• Which payment providers are available in your country and their fees.
• Whether non-GymMaster door hardware is supported and what the extra monthly fee is.
• How a full data export works if you leave (GymMaster's cancellation page explains its process).

How Workout OS approaches it

Workout OS is a web-based management tool for gyms (Workout OS) and for PT, Pilates and reformer studios (Workout Studio). It runs in the browser, including on a phone, and clients can book through a link without installing an app.

We aim to remove the things owners most often complain about in this category: surprise price rises, commission on payments, hard-to-find cancellation and paid data export. Pricing is flat: studios pay $0, $24, $59 or $99 a month depending on the plan, and Studio Solo has unlimited clients. We do not take a cut of payments, you can cancel in one click effective at period end, and you can download all your data as a ZIP whenever you want.

Day to day, the features that matter most for studios are reformer spot booking, a waitlist that promotes the next person automatically, session packages with a remaining-sessions ledger, and ready-made reminders and drafts by reason, such as package ending or payment due, that staff review and send.

Honest limits: we are a young product. We have no consumer marketplace, no native member app for Studio (clients use the booking link in a browser), and no advanced marketing suite. Online card payment is only available as an optional paid add-on connecting the studio's own payment provider account.

Keeping members: what happens after the at-risk list

Many tools in this category can show which members or clients are lapsing, and many stop at that list. We have not verified exactly what GymMaster offers on its current plans, so ask them what happens after the list: who is told, with what reason, what the next step is, and whether the result is measured.

Workout OS closes that loop. Every night it compares each member's or client's activity with their own history using eight explainable rules (not an AI prediction), shows the reason with numbers such as weekly visits 3.1 to 0.5, and suggests an action: a programme review for the trainer, a neutral message draft that your staff edit and send personally, or a follow-up task. Fourteen and thirty days later it shows who came back, who is active again and who renewed, next to cases nobody followed up. Nothing is sent automatically, members never see a risk label, and it is included in every plan (Member success in the gym product, Client follow-up in Workout Studio).

It is a prompt for a human, not a guarantee: a small gym will see small numbers, and with fewer than 10 cases in a group we show counts rather than percentages.

Moving from GymMaster to Workout OS

The Workout OS migration wizard has a GymMaster preset. In GymMaster, run the standard reports (Reports & Till, Standard Report: Current Members and Current Memberships with Display Mode set to All Memberships), add the fields you need with Add Field, and use Export to CSV. Add the payments and visits reports the same way.

Upload the files, check the column mapping (dates are read as day-month-year), and read the validation report before anything is imported. Open-ended memberships with an empty end date stay open-ended. Run both systems side by side until the reconciliation is green; assisted migration by our team is free.