Mark your spot.
05:45, door open. 22:00, locked up. One system in between.
ZXN Fitness runs the whole day of an independent UK gym: the door and check-in, class booking, memberships, Direct Debit and card payments, waivers and PAR-Q, PT sessions, a staff app, reporting and member emails. Below is one day at a gym we made up, minute by minute. Open any moment to see that part in full.
Ferrous Yard is a gym we made up for this page: a strength and conditioning gym in a unit on an industrial estate, with one class room, a free-weights floor, a front desk, two coaches and an owner who would rather be coaching. It is not a real gym and not a customer: every name, number and minute in its day is made up to show what the software does.
Lane 01 The door
Who lets the first member in at 05:45?
Nobody has to. Sam holds a fob to the reader by the shutter. The software checks that Sam's membership is paid and allows this hour, opens the door for six seconds and records the visit. The owner is still asleep, and the first check-in of the day is already on the register.
- 05:45:02Fob read at the front door
- 05:45:02Membership paid, access allowed at this hour
- 05:45:03Door open for six seconds, check-in recorded
- Door access
- Check-in
- Recurring memberships
Lane 02 The floor
What happens when the 06:00 class is full?
Sixteen places, sixteen booked, two people on the waitlist. When a member cancelled from their phone at 05:20, both people waiting were emailed at once, and the first to tap the link had the place before the alarm went off. The coach opens the class list on a phone and sees who has paid, who is new and who has a health note.
- 05:20:41Cancellation, place freed in Conditioning 06:00
- 05:20:41Both on the waitlist emailed at once
- 05:22:07Place booked and paid by the first to answer
- 06:00:00Class list on the coach's phone, sixteen in
- Class booking
- Member accounts
- Staff app
Lane 03 The front desk
What happens when a member's payment fails?
Jo's monthly membership was due on a card, and the bank declined it. The software has already emailed Jo a secure link to update the card, set a retry for Thursday and kept Jo's bookings in place. A Direct Debit that came back unpaid on Monday is lined up to be collected again on the next allowed date. Nobody at the desk chases anyone.
- 07:10:15Card declined for a monthly membership
- 07:10:16Member emailed a link to update the card
- 07:10:16Retry set for Thursday, unpaid Direct Debit re-presented
- Recurring memberships
- Card payments
- Direct Debit
- Member accounts
Lane 04 The office
What does the owner check over coffee at 09:00?
Last week, on one screen: classes booked and attended, money in by card and by Direct Debit, failed payments and the ones recovered, who joined, who left and who has not been in for fourteen days. Every figure opens into the list behind it. The years on the old system came across when the gym moved over, so last year sits beside this one.
- 09:00:00Weekly figures ready, with last year beside them
- 09:02:30Opened: members not seen for fourteen days
- 09:03:10List saved as a spreadsheet for the accountant
- Reporting and export
- Migration from other software
Lane 05 The coaches' room
How does a member book a personal training session?
From a phone in the changing room. A member opens the gym's booking page, picks Alex, the coach, and takes Thursday's 07:00 slot. The session comes off the member's pack of ten, Alex's calendar shows it straight away, and both of them get a reminder the evening before. Alex does not have to answer a message about it.
- 12:30:08PT session booked with Alex, Thursday 07:00
- 12:30:08One session taken from a pack of ten
- 12:30:09Coach's calendar updated, reminders set
- PT appointments
- Member accounts
- Card payments
Lane 06 The front desk
How does a new member sign the waiver and PAR-Q?
On their own phone, on the way in. A new member picks a membership, reads the waiver, answers the PAR-Q health questions and signs with a finger. One answer is yes, so the software asks them to speak to a doctor before hard training and flags it for the coaches. The signed copy is kept against their account with the date and the version they signed.
- 16:00:12New membership started at the front desk
- 16:01:40Waiver and PAR-Q signed, one answer flagged
- 16:01:41Coaches told, signed copy kept with its version
- Waivers and PAR-Q
- Member accounts
- Recurring memberships
Lane 07 The floor
Who is in the building at 17:30?
The staff app knows. At peak the desk tablet shows everyone checked in, the class running in each room, who is due next and whose payment needs a word. A coach taps a name to see a PAR-Q flag before a spotting drill. If the fire alarm goes, the list of who is inside is one tap away.
- 17:30:00Peak: floor and class room both in use
- 17:31:22Coach opened a member's health flag
- 17:32:05Who is inside, ready for a fire roll call
- Staff app
- Check-in
- Waivers and PAR-Q
Lane 08 The noticeboard
Who gets an email from the gym tonight?
Everyone who has not been in for two weeks and has agreed to hear from the gym. The owner wrote the email once, in the spring. Since then the software sends it by itself, from the gym's own address, and takes anyone who comes back off the list before the next one goes. Nobody is sent it twice in a month.
- 20:00:00Not seen for two weeks: list built
- 20:00:01Members who said no to emails left out
- 20:00:05Sent from the gym's own address
- Marketing tools
- Member accounts
Lane 09 The ledger
How is the day's money counted at lock-up?
By the software, before the lights are off. The last member leaves, the door locks on its schedule and the day closes. Card payments, Direct Debits and PT packs are matched to the payouts the gym's bank will receive, refunds and failed payments are shown apart, and the day goes across to the accounts software. Nobody opens a spreadsheet.
- 22:00:00Door locked on schedule
- 22:00:30Day's payments matched to the coming payouts
- 22:00:31Day sent to the accounts software
- Reporting and export
- Card payments
- Direct Debit
- Door access
- API and webhooks
What is pinned on the noticeboard and kept in the ledger?
The reference a gym owner can use whatever software they choose: other vendors' published prices, read from their own pages, the number of fitness businesses in every part of the UK, and guides to fees and churn. Each one is dated and shows its sources.
The ledger
- UK gym software price index: what each vendor publishesEvery vendor’s published price, read from its own page. Updated .
- UK gyms dataset: fitness companies and mapped fitness sites by local authorityFitness companies and mapped sites in every local authority, from open data. Updated .
- Direct Debit and card fees for UK gyms: what it costs to collect a membershipWhat collecting a membership costs, worked out for each payment and for a month. Updated .
- Gym membership churn and revenue in the UK: published benchmarks and worked tablesPublished UK churn and revenue figures beside worked tables. Updated .
The noticeboard
- Gym software comparisons, from what each vendor publishesSide by side with other gym software, from each vendor’s own page. Updated .
- Docs: how ZXN Fitness is set up for a gymHow the software is set up and run, written from the software itself. Updated .
- Changelog: what has changed, and whenEvery change to the software and to this site, dated. Updated .
Which gyms is it for?
Independent UK gyms and studios: strength and conditioning gyms, boxing and combat gyms, martial arts clubs and class studios. Members book and pay on the gym's own website and in their own account, not in a marketplace app. There are pages for boxing gyms and for martial arts clubs.
What does it cost?
£49, £89 or £149 a month, plus VAT: one flat price for each plan, with no per-member bands, no set-up fee and no minimum term. The pricing page says what each plan covers. Our team sets up each gym, and the go-live date for each part is agreed in writing before the first payment.
Who builds and runs it?
ZXN Fitness is built and run by the zxn.uk team: the people at Mediant Partners Ltd, a company registered in Scotland with company number SC889184. The company details page has the registered office and VAT number, and the about page says who we are. To see it working, book a walk-through.
Does a gym need a website as well?
It can have one. The website plan includes a gym website with class booking built in, written, built and looked after by our team at its flat monthly price. The same team builds websites for other businesses as zxn.uk.
What do gym owners ask first?
Can a gym move over from the software it uses now?
Yes. Members, memberships, class history and signed waivers are brought across, and our team checks the import with the gym before the switch, so last year sits beside this one in the reports.
Who holds the money from memberships and bookings?
The gym does. Card payments and Direct Debits are collected into the gym's own accounts, so the money is paid to the gym and never passes through us.
How much does it cost?
£49, £89 or £149 a month, plus VAT, for the three plans, with no set-up fee and no minimum term. The pricing page has what each plan covers.
When does it go live for a gym?
On a date agreed in writing before the first payment. Our team sets up each gym, and the go-live date for each part is agreed with the owner first.