The membership question comes down to one number: how many times a month you have to show up before the monthly plan beats paying at the door. We read the prices that 1,236 venues in our directory post on their own websites, and that number ranges from 3.1 for yoga to 7.0 for CrossFit.
The CrossFit maths runs like this. The median drop-in at the 38 boxes that post one is $25; the median monthly membership across 50 boxes is $175. Seven classes a month — not quite twice a week — and the membership has paid for itself. Yoga is the other way round. A single class costs a median $29 (137 studios), a month costs $90 (197 studios), and anyone who goes four times a month or more is better off on a plan.
Here are the seven activities where at least 30 venues post both a single-visit price and a monthly one:
| Sport | One visit | One month | Visits to break even |
|---|---|---|---|
| CrossFit | $25 (38) | $175 (50) | 7.0 |
| Gyms | $25 (132) | $125 (223) | 5.0 |
| Dance | $22 (63) | $95 (43) | 4.3 |
| Boxing | $30 (45) | $125 (71) | 4.2 |
| Martial arts | $35 (46) | $140 (74) | 4.0 |
| Pilates | $35 (57) | $129.50 (72) | 3.7 |
| Yoga | $29 (137) | $90 (197) | 3.1 |
Medians of the lowest posted price per venue; number of venues in brackets.
Gyms sit in the middle at 5.0 visits: a day pass at the median is $25 and a month $125. But the middle hides a wide spread: the cheapest quarter of gym memberships comes in under $50.50 a month, while the dearest quarter starts above $182.50 — more than three times as much.
Single classes are far more uniform than memberships. Half of all yoga studios that post a drop-in charge between $22 and $35; half of gym day passes fall between $20 and $30. Dance is the cheapest way through the door in our table, with a median drop-in of $22 across 63 studios, though a month of dance ($95) costs more than a month of yoga.
The combat sports reward commitment. A martial arts class costs a median $35 on its own and $140 a month; at boxing gyms it is $30 and $125. Train twice a week and you are past the break-even point in both. Pilates, at $35 a class and $129.50 a month, pays off sooner than either.
Where you live matters, sometimes a lot
The West is the most expensive region for most of what we could compare. A gym month there has a median of $150 (78 gyms), against $107.50 in the South (72) and $99 in the Midwest (56). Martial arts academies in the West charge a median $155 a month (39 academies) against $129.50 in the Midwest (18). Yoga and Pilates are the exceptions. For Pilates the Midwest has the highest monthly median, $149 (15 studios). For yoga the Northeast has the highest monthly median, $109, although from only 17 studios, followed by the West at $96.50 (90) and the Midwest at $75 (42).
Pickleball, the newest arrival, has not settled on a drop-in habit yet — fewer than 30 clubs post a single-visit price — but 40 post a monthly one, and the median is $77; the middle half of those clubs charge between $49.75 and $124.25 a month. That is cheaper than a typical gym month and under the monthly median of every coached sport above.
What the posted prices look like
These figures come from what venues write on their own sites, and the wording varies. CorePower Yoga – Park Meadows lists “$31 / Single Studio Class”; YoYoYogi Yoga Studio lists “single drop-in • $32”; CrossFit United Lake Norman lists “drop in: $25”; Bot's Boxing Memphis lists “Drop-In Class: $30”. On the monthly side, Diamond Club Athletics lists “PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP $150/month”; Bay Area Ballplayers lists “$99/mo unlimited, with a 6 month committment”; Unicorn Jiu Jitsu lists “$145 per month”; Blue Suede Ballroom Dance Studio lists “$70.00/month single”. Prices change, so treat the venue’s own page as the last word; every listing on Americano Sports links to it, and the venue finder has a “price listed” filter.
Browse the sports in this report: CrossFit, yoga, gyms, martial arts, boxing, Pilates, dance and pickleball.
How we counted
When our crawler reads a venue’s website it keeps the price lines the venue publishes. We found 7,876 dollar amounts across the directory and sorted each line by what it buys: a single visit (drop-in, day pass, one class, admission), an hour, or a month (including “unlimited” plans). We set aside 2,474 lines for things that are not a session — shoe and gear rental, fees, parties and events, annual dues, class packs, private lessons, camps and leagues — and 2,656 lines that did not say clearly what they were for. Each venue then contributes its lowest single-visit price and its lowest monthly price. We report a sport only when at least 30 venues post that kind of price, and a region only with at least 10. Venues listed under more than one sport count in each. The break-even figure is the median monthly price divided by the median single-visit price. Data as of 2026-10-11.