Blog · For gyms · comparisons, pricing
Best free gym management software, 3 real plans (2026)
Only three permanent free plans exist, and the list changed this year. What each one really costs, what the trials pretend, prices verified August 2026.
The short version: exactly three permanent free plans exist in gym management software as of August 2026, and the list changed this year: Mat Track (ours), free to 200 contacts with 0% platform fees; PushPress Free, unlimited members at a 4.99% card rate; and Momence Basic, $0 with a 5% business fee plus 4% charged to your clients. Gymdesk's old free tier is gone, replaced by a 30-day trial. Everything else in this market is a trial pretending, and every figure here is from the vendor's own page, August 2026.
Free plan or free trial, the distinction that decides everything
A free plan is a tier you can run on forever at $0; a free trial is a countdown. The distinction matters because they answer different questions: a trial tells you whether you like the software, a free plan tells you whether your gym can operate on it without a subscription line in the budget. Most "free gym software" listicles blur the two, and this market moved in the last year: Gymdesk, which used to offer a small free tier, now offers a 30-day trial only, its published plans start at $75, and Momence arrived with a genuine $0 tier. That leaves exactly three real free plans, each with a different way of getting paid anyway.
The chart is the whole argument. "Free" plans are paid for in one of three currencies: a cap, a processing premium, or a revenue cut. Which currency your gym can afford is the real question, so the reviews below lead with the mechanism.
Mat Track Starter, free until you outgrow 200 contacts
Ours, weigh accordingly. The mechanism is a cap, not a take: the free plan covers up to 200 contacts, and payments run through your own Stripe or GoCardless at their standard rates with 0% platform fees, as of August 2026. Inside the cap you get the actual product, attendance with QR check-in, retention alerts against each member's own 60-day pattern, multi-art belt tracking with grading criteria in the member app, billing and analytics. The bet is simple: many single-location gyms never cross 200 contacts, and the ones that do have outgrown free software anyway, at which point Growth is $99 and Pro $199, billed monthly.
Where it wins:
- No platform take on payments, the only free plan here that adds nothing to your processing.
- The retention and rank features are in the free tier, not dangled above it.
- The cap is honest and visible; you know exactly when free ends.
Where it falls short:
- 200 contacts is a real ceiling for a growing gym, and inactive contacts count towards it.
- No website builder or point of sale at any tier.
- Self-serve setup, with no account rep.
PushPress Free, unlimited members at a 4.99% card rate
The mechanism is a processing premium. PushPress Free costs $0 a month with unlimited members, real scheduling and billing, and 4.7 on Capterra across roughly 190 reviews, as of August 2026, but cards process at 4.99% plus 30 cents against 2.89% plus 30 cents on its own $159 and $229 tiers. That 2.1% spread is the subscription in disguise: about $105 a month at $5,000 of card volume, $210 at $10,000, and somewhere around $7,600 of monthly volume the premium costs more than just buying Pro. The full arithmetic is in our PushPress pricing breakdown.
Where it wins:
- Unlimited members at $0, with no time limit.
- Modern, well-supported software; the free tier is not a toy.
- Every rate is published, so the arithmetic above is checkable.
Where it falls short:
- The 4.99% card rate grows with your revenue, forever, until you upgrade.
- Belt and rank tracking sits in the paid tiers.
- Built for functional fitness first; martial arts is a side room.
Momence Basic, $0 with a 5% business fee and a 4% client fee
The mechanism is a revenue cut, twice. Momence Basic is genuinely $0 a month, and the platform itself is broad, scheduling, memberships, marketing, with belt tracking in its feature set, but payments carry a 5% business fee on you and a 4% fee added to what your clients pay, on top of ordinary processing, as of August 2026. At $5,000 a month that is $250 from you and $200 from your members. The paid tiers buy the fees down, $60 Pro at 2.5%, $199 Custom at 0%, which tells you what the free tier is for: to move you onto the paid ones. Our one-to-one comparison is on the Momence switching page.
Where it wins:
- Genuinely $0 with a broad, modern feature set behind it.
- Belt tracking is in the product, unusual for a generalist.
- A clear published ladder out of the fees when you grow.
Where it falls short:
- The combined 9% of fees (5% you, 4% your clients) is the steepest take on this page.
- Your members see prices inflated by the client-side fee.
- Reporting, staff accounts and other basics sit above the free tier.
The trial crowd, and what changed this year
Everything else in this market is a trial, not a plan. Gymdesk advertises a 30-day trial and its plans start at $75; its old small free tier is gone as of August 2026, so listicles still promising "Gymdesk free plan" are out of date, ours used to be one of them. Kicksite and Wodify start at demos, TeamUp offers a trial, and Jackrabbit backs paid plans with a 90-day money-back guarantee, which is the closest thing to a safety net in the trial crowd. None of that is a criticism, $49 to $75 entry prices are honest, but a trial answers a different question than a free plan, and this guide is about the second. Full pricing context is in our Gymdesk pricing explained.
Which free option is right for you
Price the mechanism against your own numbers. Under 200 contacts with real payment volume: Mat Track, because a cap you're under costs nothing while a percentage always costs. Over 200 members but taking little money by card: PushPress Free, the premium only bites when volume flows. Able to pass fees to clients without flinching: Momence, eyes open about the 9% total. And if what you actually wanted was cheap-not-free, the honest budget tier of this market is $49 to $99, Kicksite, Martialytics, our Growth plan, where the full product costs less than one lost member a month; that argument, that retention pays the subscription, is made properly in our gym member retention guide. Our published list, free plan included, is at mattrackapp.com/gyms.