A gym's $60 monthly dues cost $2.29 to collect by card at Vagaro and 35 cents by bank debit at GoCardless

A gym, yoga studio or boutique fitness business lives on the same transaction repeated: a monthly membership charged automatically to a member who is not there. The card networks and most payment platforms treat that charge as a card-not-present payment, and many price it at their highest rate, the one they also charge for a card number typed in by hand. Bank debit, by contrast, is cheaper per payment than any card rate, and many gym-management platforms offer it.

We read the published US pricing of the platforms the site has reviewed that fitness businesses use, as it stood on 3 October 2026, and priced one example throughout: a $60 monthly membership. Where a platform does not publish a price, we say so.

Why a membership is priced like a keyed card

When a member's card is charged on the first of the month, nobody taps, inserts or swipes it. The platform charges a card it stored earlier. Vagaro says so explicitly: its help centre defines a keyed-in transaction as one 'processed using a saved card on file or by manually entering card details', and lists 'recurring payments for memberships and packages' among them. Its keyed rate is 3.5% + 19 cents on both of its plans, against 2.6% + 10 cents (or 2.29% + 19 cents on its $10-a-month plan) for a card tapped at the front desk. Square's fee table applies its 'manual entry or card on file' rate of 3.5% + 15 cents whenever a saved card on file is used, on every plan.

The card networks do not soften this for gyms. Visa has a discounted interchange category for recurring bill payments, but Wells Fargo's April 2026 qualification matrix limits it to telecommunication services (merchant category code 4814) and cable and satellite television (4899). Visa codes health and fitness clubs as MCC 7997, which is not on that list, so a gym's dues fall into the ordinary card-not-present rates: 1.74% to 1.89% plus 10 cents on a basic consumer Visa credit card in the same matrix, and more on rewards cards. Visa's small-merchant rates in the same matrix are lower, at 1.43% to 1.58% plus 10 cents. Our guide to keyed card transaction fees explains where the extra point goes.

What $60 dues cost by card, platform by platform

• Vagaro: $2.29 a member a month (3.5% + 19 cents), on either plan. Vagaro's software starts at $30 a month for one calendar, currently $23.99 for the first six months, and it does not allow you to pass processing fees on to members.
• Square: $2.25 at 3.5% + 15 cents, the rate Square's fee table applies whenever a saved card on file is used. Square's help centre does not state a separate rate for recurring invoices, which charge the stored card automatically at 10 a.m. local time on the scheduled date, and Square does not retry a declined payment by itself.
• Stripe: $2.04 at its standard 2.9% + 30 cents online rate, or $2.46 if the subscription runs on Stripe Billing, which adds 0.7% of billing volume on its pay-as-you-go plan. Several gym platforms run their payments on Stripe underneath, but the software company sets the price you pay.
• Helcim: about $1.93 to $2.02 on a basic consumer Visa credit card. Helcim passes interchange through and adds 0.50% + 25 cents for card-not-present payments at under $50,000 a month in volume, plus 0.4% on transactions run through its recurring-payments tool. Network assessment fees come on top, and rewards cards cost more.
• GlossGenius: $1.56. GlossGenius charges a flat 2.6% with no per-transaction fee and, unusually, no premium for cards on file or manually entered cards. It is built for salons and wellness businesses rather than gyms, with software from $24 to $148 a month billed annually.
• Mindbody: not published. Mindbody's rates article lists rates for other countries and, for the US, gives an email address. Its pricing page says the rate is 'based on the Mindbody plan you select'.

For context, two gym platforms the site has not reviewed publish their rates. PushPress charges 4.99% + 30 cents on cards on its free plan and 2.89% + 30 cents on its $159-a-month Pro plan. Arketa's Individual plan ($49 a month billed annually) charges a 3% transaction fee on top of Stripe's 2.9% + 30 cents, about $3.84 on a $60 charge; its studio plans are priced on request.

Bank debit is where the money is

Dues collected straight from a member's bank account by ACH debit cost a fraction of the card price, and on most platforms the fee is capped, which matters for annual memberships paid in one go.

• GoCardless: 35 cents on its Standard plan (0.5% + 5 cents, capped at $5). Its Advanced and Pro plans cost more per payment, 0.75% and 0.9% plus 5 cents, in exchange for features such as automatic retries. GoCardless collects bank payments only, so you would still need a card processor for the front desk.
• Stripe: 48 cents at 0.8%, capped at $5, with standard settlement. Through Stripe Billing the 0.7% billing fee applies to ACH volume too, making it 90 cents.
• Helcim: 55 cents for a one-off debit at 0.5% + 25 cents, capped at $6. Through Helcim's recurring-payments tool it adds 0.4%, which Helcim says comes on top of its card or ACH fee, making 79 cents.
• Stax: 60 cents at 1%, capped at $10, on top of a $99-a-month subscription for businesses processing up to $150,000 a year.
• Square: $1 on a $60 payment, because its 1% ACH fee has a $1 minimum.

Vagaro's US rates article lists an ACH fee only for its Rent Collection feature. We found no option there for collecting member dues by bank debit. Mindbody supports ACH for dues, but its help centre gives only generic industry ranges for ACH fees, which it says vary by processor, rather than its own US price. PushPress charges 0.79% + 30 cents on ACH on its paid plans.

Scale changes how much this matters. A gym with 400 members paying $60 a month bills $24,000 a month. Collected by card at Vagaro's 3.5% + 19 cents, that costs $916 a month. Collected by bank debit at GoCardless's Standard price, it costs $140. The $776 difference is $9,312 a year, before any monthly software fee.

What bank debit costs you when it fails

ACH has two weaknesses a card does not. A bank debit can bounce for insufficient funds or a closed account days after it was sent, and a member can tell their bank the debit was unauthorized. Each failure carries a fee: GoCardless charges $5 per failed payment, Stripe $4 per failed payment and $15 per dispute, and Helcim $5 per return. A gym with a high failure rate can lose much of the saving.

Disputes are harder to fight. Mindbody's help centre says that when a member disputes an ACH payment, 'funds are returned to the account holder by default, and no recourse is possible'. The ACH network's operator, Nacha, also watches unauthorized returns: since 2015 its rules set a 0.5% threshold for unauthorized debit returns, above which an originator can face review. Card dues have a dispute process in which the gym can respond, at a cost covered in our guide to chargeback fees by processor. For more on how bank payments compare with cards, see pay by bank in 2026.

Gym software: where the payment price is often set

Most fitness businesses do not choose a processor directly. They choose scheduling and membership software, and the software either bundles payments or works with a short list of processors. Mindbody is the best known, and our review grades it C+. Its software starts at $79 a month per location, and the higher Accelerate and Ultimate plans are quoted rather than listed. Its card chargeback fee in the US is $15, refunded if you win. Clients delivered through the consumer Mindbody app carry a fee of 20%, capped at $30, on their first purchase only. Mindbody Payments is optional: the pricing page says you can use Mindbody software 'with a separate payment provider of your choice as well'.

Software that publishes its payment rates makes comparison possible. Software that quotes them, as Mindbody, Zen Planner and Glofox do, means asking for the card-on-file rate, the ACH rate and any cap in writing before you sign, alongside the length of the software contract.

Recurring billing comes with cancellation rules

Charging a member automatically every month brings obligations from the card networks and, in many states, from health club law. They tend to be enforced through the payment as much as through the contract.

• Visa's rules (the Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, 18 April 2026 edition) require a merchant billing on a recurring basis to provide 'a simple cancellation procedure, and, if the Cardholder's order was initially accepted online, at least an online cancellation procedure', and to notify the cardholder at least 7 days before a recurring charge when a trial, introductory offer or promotional period is ending. A member who cancelled and was charged anyway can dispute the charge with their card issuer.
• California's automatic renewal law has, since July 2022, required a business that lets a consumer sign up online to let them cancel 'exclusively online, at will'. Further amendments under AB 2863 apply to contracts entered into, amended or extended on or after 1 July 2025. California's health studio law separately gives buyers five business days to cancel a new contract.
• New York's health club law requires clubs to accept cancellation by methods including website, email, telephone, mail or in person, and a club that sells memberships through a website must accept cancellation through it.
• The FTC's federal click-to-cancel rule was vacated by the Eighth Circuit on 8 July 2025, before businesses had to comply with it. The FTC announced an advance notice of proposed rulemaking on 11 March 2026 (published in the Federal Register on 13 March), and no proposed rule had followed when we checked.

The FTC is also suing Fitness International, the operator of LA Fitness, in federal court in California. Announcing its August 2025 complaint, the FTC said members who tried to stop paying by stopping charges at their bank or card issuer 'find they are rebilled, often under new account numbers'. The case is pending, and the allegations have not been proven. The card networks' account updater services, which refresh a stored card when it is reissued, can make that possible, and our guide to subscription billing rules covers what the networks require of any business billing on a schedule.

What to do

1. Find your card-on-file rate, not your headline rate. On many platforms the price at the front desk and the price of monthly dues are different numbers.
2. Offer members bank debit for dues. On $60 dues, each member who moves from a 3.5% card rate to a capped ACH price of 35 to 60 cents saves the gym about $1.65 to $1.94 a month.
3. Count your failed payments before you switch. If more than a few percent of bank debits come back, the $4 or $5 failure fees charged by the processors above eat into the saving, and an unauthorized-return rate above 0.5% draws scrutiny.
4. If your software quotes payment rates instead of publishing them, get the card-on-file rate, the ACH rate, any cap, the chargeback fee and the contract term in writing.
5. Make cancelling easy, and online if members join online. It is a Visa rule, the law in California and New York, and the subject of a live FTC case. A member who cannot cancel tends to dispute the charge instead, and the dispute costs you more.