We make one of these, so read this with that in mind. What follows is our genuine read on which product suits which school — including the cases where ours is not the answer.
The schools in this market are not alike. A 40-student children's karate program, a 300-member BJJ academy and a mixed facility with a weights room have almost nothing in common operationally, and the product that suits one will irritate the others.
So the useful question is not which is best, but which is built for the shape of school you run.
Best for mixed facilities. Covers gyms and studios as well as martial arts, with a large add-on catalogue — website, marketing automation, branded app. The most complete package if you need that breadth and will pay for it.
Best safe choice. Martial-arts-only, close to twenty years in market, every feature at every tier, published pricing from $49/mo. Hard to go wrong with.
Best when the problem is sales. Built around lead conversion and trial closing. If your classes are half full rather than badly run, this is the one.
Best on a budget. Purpose-built for martial arts, with a free tier aimed at new and small academies.
Best lightweight option. Billing, attendance and scheduling without the surface area of the bigger platforms.
Best for multi-style schools that keep their own website. A separate rank ladder per discipline, gradings run end to end, and tuition through your own Stripe account into your own bank. Newer than the rest — that is the honest trade-off.
This page is the summary. The guide is the manual — written for people running a school, not for people shopping for software. Read what Axion Dojo covers, in detail, or start at the contents page.
There is no single answer. Kicksite is the safest general choice, Zen Planner suits mixed facilities, Spark Membership suits schools with a sales problem, PushPress suits tight budgets, and Axion Dojo suits multi-style schools that want to keep their own website and their own merchant account.
Rank ladders per discipline, gradings run as an event with fees and promotion, family accounts with siblings on one balance, and parent-signed waivers for minors. Generic gym software usually approximates all four.
Published rates run from a free tier for very small schools up to roughly $200–$290/mo at a few hundred members, before add-ons like a website or marketing automation. Figures checked September 2026.
That is the one we built. Start a free trial.