PushPress vs Gymdesk for Martial Arts: An Honest Head-to-Head

For a martial arts academy in 2026, PushPress and Gymdesk are two of the most credible picks you can shortlist—PushPress wins on a genuinely free entry tier and a standalone CRM, Gymdesk wins on martial-arts-native depth (a rank engine that predates PushPress's by years, every feature included at every price, and a bill that stays predictable as you grow).

The real question isn't which one is "better." It's whether you want a generalist platform that recently built out a martial arts vertical (PushPress) or a platform that started in martial arts and grew outward (Gymdesk).

Full disclosure before I get into this: I work at Gymdesk. We're one of the two companies in this comparison. I like Gymdesk.

So here's the deal I'll hold myself to. I'll tell you where PushPress genuinely beats us, where we genuinely beat them, and how to decide based on what your school actually runs on—not on which logo I'd rather you pick.

Every price below was checked on each vendor's own pricing page in June 2026. Where I couldn't confirm a number, I say so.

At a Glance: PushPress vs Gymdesk for a Martial Arts School

If you've already narrowed to these two, this table is the answer. The rest of the post is where I back up every line of it.

^{‍Pricing verified on pushpress.com/pricing, pushpress.com's martial arts page, and gymdesk.com/pricing in June 2026. Both vendors change tiers and add-ons, so reconfirm before you commit.}

Where PushPress Genuinely Wins

A comparison that won't say where the competitor wins isn't a comparison. It's an ad.

So let me start with the parts of PushPress I'd point you toward even though it costs me.

The free plan is the big one. PushPress Core is genuinely $0 a month. No time limit, no credit card.

You get scheduling, billing, member profiles, digital waivers, and a member app. That's enough to actually run a new school.

Gymdesk has nothing like it. Our cheapest plan is $75 a month once the trial ends.

If you're opening with a dozen students and a folding table, "free until you grow" is a real answer. It's one I can't give you.

One thing to know before you fall for the zero, though. PushPress's card processing on the free plan is 4.99% plus 30¢ a transaction. That's high.

Run $5,000 a month in card payments and the gap between that rate and their own paid-plan rate (2.89% on Pro) is about $100 a month—every month, straight to the processor. The monthly fee is free. The swipe isn't.

(And there's a second catch, this one specific to martial arts schools. I'll get to it in the pricing section. The free plan itself is no gimmick.)

Then there's Grow, their CRM. It's a separate product at $329 a month, and it does the whole lead-nurture job: automated email, SMS, WhatsApp, capture forms, landing pages, the works.

Gymdesk has marketing automation built in, but it lives inside the platform. It isn't a standalone CRM you run as its own thing.

If chasing leads is a real job at your school instead of a tab you check on Sundays, PushPress treats it like one.

They've also closed a gap that used to be ours. Family billing with automatic sibling discounts was a Gymdesk-only win for a while; PushPress does it natively now, so I'm not going to pretend that's still a deciding factor.

And they're big. PushPress reports 5,000+ gyms across 46 countries and over $750 million in billing volume a year, with serious BJJ rooms on their martial arts page: Alliance, Ralph Gracie, 10th Planet, Checkmat.

Well funded, moving fast, clearly investing in this category. Pretending none of that mattered would just cost me your trust for everything else on this page.

Where Gymdesk Wins for a Martial Arts School

Our side of the ledger is narrower and deeper. Almost all of it traces back to one fact: Gymdesk started as martial arts software and grew outward, not the reverse.

Start with rank tracking, because for a dojo that's the whole game.

PushPress added it in 2025, and it works. But Gymdesk's rank-and-curriculum engine is the oldest, most worked-over part of the product.

Promotions tie to things the platform actually measures: attendance, time in rank, skills checked off. It handles BJJ stripes and belts through black, karate kyu and dan, taekwondo geup and poom, judo kyu, and whatever custom system your school runs, with full per-student history.

Both platforms can track a belt. One has had years to trip over every weird thing a grading curriculum does and fix it. And it sits on the $75 plan, not behind an upgrade.

That last part matters on its own: everything ships at every tier.

Family billing, multi-program scheduling, minor waivers, automated billing with failed-payment recovery, the member app, the rank engine. No à la carte menu. No "oh, that's a Pro feature."

The number on the pricing page is close to the number you actually pay. That's rarer than it should be.

The trial works the same honest way. Thirty days, no card, no sales call, and you get the whole product.

Import your students, build a family plan, run a mock belt test before you spend a dollar.

A free plan that locks the martial arts features lets you test everything except the reason you went shopping.

The last advantage is the hardest to fit in a feature table.

Our founder is a BJJ black belt, and you feel it in the small stuff: sibling discounts that just work, minor waivers attached to the kid's profile, a schedule that already expects gi and no-gi to rotate.

The receipts are our Gymdesk Originals interviews, where actual owners go on the record about running their schools on it: ITC New York, Combat Sports Academy, and Doggpound MMA.

Pricing: Total Cost of Ownership, Not the Advertised Base

"Free" and "$159" are the numbers on the billboard.

The number that decides anything is what you're paying in month 12, after you've added the things you didn't know you'd need.

Here's how that plays out at three sizes. Every figure was verified in June 2026.

Brand new, under 30 members? PushPress wins outright. Core is free, Gymdesk is $75 a month after the trial. No contest on day-one cost.

The picture flips once you're growing, somewhere in the 50-to-150 range.

PushPress Pro is $159. Add Grow for real follow-up ($329) and the white-label app ($81 to $97) and you're well past that, or you take the bundled Full Stack at around $559 a month.

Gymdesk is $100 up to 100 members and $150 up to 200, everything included.

So you're weighing roughly $400 to $559 against $100 to $150. That's not a rounding error.

By the time you're established, 200-plus members across a few programs, PushPress Max is $229 before add-ons and north of $550 with them. Gymdesk is $200 up to 400 members, all in.

The gap gets wider as you grow, not smaller.

What "free" actually costs a martial arts school

PushPress's free plan is the most persuasive thing they have, so it deserves a straight look instead of a wave-off.

Here's the catch that matters for your school specifically: rank tracking isn't on the free plan.

PushPress's own martial arts FAQ says paid plans unlock it. Belt tracking is the single most martial-arts thing a piece of software can do. To get it, you have to be on a paid plan starting at $159 a month.

The free tier runs your scheduling, billing, and member app beautifully. It just doesn't do the one thing that sent you looking for martial arts software.

And that's on top of the processing premium from up top. The free plan doesn't just gate rank tracking. It charges you more on every card you run until you pay to bring the rate down.

None of this makes Core a trick. For a brand-new school not running formal promotions yet, $0 to start is genuinely the right call, and I'll say so to anyone.

But the day you need belt tracking, which for most schools comes fast, your real entry price is $159 a month. That's above Gymdesk's $75 to $100.

The advertised number and the operating number are two different numbers. Make any vendor, us included, tell you both.

Those are my numbers, not yours. Drop your own member count and the add-ons you'd actually use into our PushPress vs Gymdesk cost calculator and you'll get your real month-12 total for both, instead of taking my example for it.

Who Should Pick PushPress for a Martial Arts School

None of these are consolation prizes. Pick PushPress if:

If one of those is you, PushPress is a good answer and I'm not going to talk you out of it.

Who Should Pick Gymdesk for a Martial Arts School

This is the more common case, at least among the schools I talk to. Pick Gymdesk if:

What About the Other Martial Arts Software Options?

PushPress and Gymdesk aren't the only two on the board. Kicksite, Zen Planner, Martialytics, and a handful of others all want your dojo.

If you haven't actually gotten down to two finalists, a wider nine-platform breakdown will serve you better than this head-to-head.

And if you're a BJJ academy specifically, the gi/no-gi scheduling and stripe-and-belt details have enough quirks that it's worth reading our BJJ gym software comparison before you commit.

The Honest Answer for a Martial Arts Academy

Both of these are real answers.

I'm not going to pretend the company that signs my checks has no serious competition, because it does. And you'd see through it anyway.

So here's the whole thing in a breath.

PushPress is the call if you want a strong generalist platform that recently built out martial arts, with a free on-ramp and a real CRM.

Want a platform that started on the mat and grew outward, where rank tracking is the deepest thing it does and every plan includes every feature? That's Gymdesk.

For most established schools, that depth and that steady bill are what tip it.

That's my bias, out in the open. The lowest-pressure way to check my math is to just use the thing.

Gymdesk is free for 30 days, no card, no sales call. Set up your programs, run a mock promotion, see how the rank engine and family billing feel under your own students.

It's all on the martial arts software page when you're ready.