Martial Arts School Membership Billing Software (2026)
A martial arts school runs on recurring monthly tuition, plus belt testing fees, gear sales, and seminars that are one-off charges on the same account. ShowTheReceipts ($15/mo) bills monthly tuition on autopay, handles family and multi-student plans, invoices testing and gear as separate lines, and keeps a card on file so a failed payment is fixed in a day instead of a month.
How we picked
Entry-plan prices as published in 2026, taken from each vendor's own pricing page or a recent third-party summary. Judged on the small school owner's workflow — recurring tuition, family plans, testing and gear charges, and failed-payment recovery — not on gym access control, class check-in kiosks, or multi-location franchise reporting built for chains.
| Software | Starting price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| ShowTheReceipts That's us | $15/mo | Small dojos: monthly tuition autopay, family plans, testing and gear lines |
| Square Appointments | Free / $29/mo+ | Simple booking and card processing |
| Zen Planner | $117/mo+ | Schools wanting belt tracking and class check-in |
| Kicksite | $79/mo+ | Martial arts schools with attendance and rank management |
| Mindbody | $139/mo+ | Multi-location studios with a marketplace presence |
Tuition is the business; everything else is seasoning
A school’s revenue is basically monthly tuition times active students, and nothing else comes close. Testing fees, gear, seminars, and camps matter, but they’re spikes on a line that has to stay steady.
Which means the most important feature in a martial arts business isn’t class scheduling — it’s autopay that doesn’t quietly fail on you.
1. ShowTheReceipts — $15/mo
Monthly tuition on autopay, family and multi-student plans, testing and gear as separate invoices, card on file with failed-payment recovery.
2. Square Appointments — Free / $29/mo+
Simple booking and card processing.
3. Zen Planner — $117/mo+
Belt tracking, class check-in, and member management.
4. Kicksite — $79/mo+
Martial-arts-specific attendance and rank management.
5. Mindbody — $139/mo+
Built for multi-location studios wanting a consumer marketplace presence.
The lines a dojo bills
- Monthly tuition — by program and age group
- Family / multi-student discount
- Registration or enrollment fee
- Belt testing fee — by rank
- Uniforms, sparring gear, patches
- Seminars, camps, and tournaments
- Private lessons — hourly, above tuition
- Membership freeze or hold — stated terms
Chase the failed card the same week
A declined tuition payment recovered in three days is a retained student; one noticed five weeks later is usually a lost one. Expired cards are the leading cause of “quiet quitting” in membership businesses — nobody cancels, they just stop paying and stop showing up.
Publish the testing fee schedule
Surprise fees damage trust with parents faster than high fees ever do. Put the rank fee schedule in writing at enrollment and invoice a week ahead, and that conversation just never happens.
Frequently asked questions
What actually kills a small school's revenue?
Failed cards nobody chases. A school with 80 students and a 5% monthly failure rate is losing four tuitions a month quietly — recovering those is worth more than any marketing campaign you could run for the same effort.
How should family plans be priced?
First student at full tuition, additional family members at a stated discount, all on one account and one payment. Families are the most retentive students you have; making them easy to bill is the whole point.
Should testing fees be included in tuition?
Either way works — but decide once and publish it. Schools get in trouble when testing fees appear as surprises, not when they exist. If they're separate, invoice them a week before the test, not on the day.
Do I need class check-in and rank tracking software?
Those are useful features, and they're a different job from getting paid. If your billing is the thing leaking money, fix the billing first — attendance tracking has never once collected a failed tuition payment.