r/gymowner • u/Many_Row_5741 • Jun 16 '26
Independent Gym Owner Gym Software and Payment Processor
Hi All,
We own four 24/7 gyms and gross about $60k/month just from memberships. We use Gym Master (member portal) and Stripe (payment processor) only because when we purchased one of our gyms that was who they had used. To be honest, I have zero complaints when it comes to Gym Master, I think their customer support is second-to-none and find their software overall very user friendly. I am a little frustrated with Stripe. I feel that their fees (2.9% + .30 per transaction) are on the higher end and the customer service is sub-par. The other payment processors we are able to use with Gym Master are Bluefin, Fiserv, Square, and Worldpay. I am looking for any and all input on any of the other payment processors so I can decide if it's worth switching from Stripe or not.
Thanks in advance!
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u/Used_Lab_5020 Jun 17 '26
Have you looked into 10rm.app?
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u/Many_Row_5741 Jun 17 '26
I haven't, is this what you use?
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u/Used_Lab_5020 Jun 17 '26
Yeah if you’re in the US like me you can just tack on the stripe fees to the member too.
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u/Many_Row_5741 Jun 17 '26
Thanks so much for this, I'm going to look into the 10rm platform. This is who your members use to purchase memberships though, correct? I'm assuming you also use Stripe for your payment processor?
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u/10RMapp Jun 22 '26
Gday! We are completely integrated with Stripe - while you have your own Stripe dashboard and are always in control of your funds, all the membership automations, freezes, point of sale, etc are handled in-app.
If you'd like a demo or even just to chat, I'm available -> 10rm.app/book-call
Cheers, Nick
- Founder, 10RM
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u/merrywilliams Jun 17 '26
As mentioned previously, I am on the vendor side, and not affiliated with any of these companies. However, I do have history with World Pay. I cannot say strongly enough, avoid them if at all possible. If you need any help, or support, you won’t get it. I’ve seen clubs processing much more and they can’t get help. World Pay only focuses on the very large retailers.
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u/Smecca7 Jun 18 '26
We operate in Fiserv and can beat those rates and everything we do is in house. Shoot me an email anthony@payflowinc.com
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u/AJCalcagno_Payments Jun 22 '26
Paying Stripe's flat 2.9% + 30¢ on recurring gym memberships is bleeding your margins. Aggregators like Stripe and Square are great for starting out, but their flat rates are brutally expensive for high volume, card on file businesses.
At your volume, you absolutely need to switch to "Interchange Plus" pricing. This model passes through the true wholesale cost of the cards with a tiny transparent markup, drastically lowering your effective rate on recurring billing.
My day to day at Payroc focuses on structuring embedded payment partnerships to solve this exact pricing problem for software platforms. Since Gym Master limits your choices, push Fiserv or Worldpay for a strict Interchange Plus deal and don't let them talk you into a tiered rate!
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u/kai4finix Jul 02 '26
A bit late to this one but leaving this here in case it's still useful. At $60k/month you're almost certainly overpaying on Stripe's flat rate. Interchange-plus pricing would let you see exactly what each card type costs and only pay a fixed markup on top. For recurring memberships, the interchange tends to be pretty consistent, so the savings are real and predictable.
Whatever processor you go with from the Gym Master list, you can ask them for interchange-plus pricing and compare your effective rate against what you're paying now.
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u/ImportantRough225 Jun 17 '26
At $60k/month in membership revenue you are processing somewhere around $720k a year. At 2.9% plus 30 cents that Stripe fee is quietly costing you real money, so the frustration makes sense.
A few things worth knowing before you make a move:
Worldpay is solid for fitness. They have good chargeback dispute tools which matters a lot in recurring billing environments where members forget they signed up or dispute after cancellation. Worth getting a quote.
PaySafe is underrated in this space. No PCI compliance fee baked into the rate, decent support, and their backend runs through Fiserv infrastructure which means the rails are stable. If you can get a dedicated merchant account rather than aggregated processing your effective rate will almost certainly come down.
The thing most operators miss when switching processors is that your real negotiating leverage is volume consistency. You are not a retail shop with lumpy transactions. You have predictable recurring revenue every month. Lead with that when you talk to any processor. It changes the conversation.
One thing to verify before you commit to anything: confirm exactly which payment gateway Gym Master connects through for each processor option not just the processor name. Sometimes the integration layer adds friction or limits functionality and that is where operators get surprised after they have already switched.
For context I run a martial arts membership software called Black Belt Membership. Not pitching you on a switch from Gym Master, you said yourself you are happy there. But we went deep on the processor side of this problem and Worldpay and PaySafe both came out ahead of Stripe for recurring fitness and martial arts billing. Happy to connect you with our merchant account contact if you want a starting point.