Studio and gym management

Your software should be doing more of the work.

Recess answers your leads, recovers failed payments, finds cover when a coach cancels, and chases the members who quietly stop turning up. You get your evenings back.

Book a demo See how switching works

100% free to use, no hidden fees. Members pay about 5% at checkout.

The Recess dashboard for Thursday 27 August showing six classes today, 41 booked and 3 needing attention, with utilization, show-up rate and recurring revenue above a class list and an attendance panel splitting members into on track, slipping and at risk

Trial booked, 11:04pmThe agent answered, nobody was awake

$139 recoveredDeclined card retried on its own

3 new sign-ups overnightWhile you were on the floor

Cover found in 4 minutesCoach cancelled at 6:12am

Summer Six challenge31 entries, leaderboard live

Fall season, 42 enrolledTen weeks, one purchase

Needs attention4

Failed payment$139

Failed payment$50

Card expiring$265

Card expiring$90

What makes it different

Every platform reports the problem. This one deals with it.

Any system can show you a list of people who stopped coming. The question is who is doing something about it at 9pm on a Sunday night.

smart_toyAn agent answers your leads

It knows your timetable, your programs and your intro offers. It answers the question, asks for a name and an email, and books the trial. The front desk reads the conversation in the morning.

autorenewFailed payments recover themselves

A declined card is retried on a schedule, the member is asked to update it, and the front desk can take payment from the same row. You see what failed, what is queued, and what came back.

swap_horizA cancelled class finds its own cover

When a coach drops out, every coach who can teach that class gets a text. The first yes takes it, the schedule updates, and everyone booked in is told. Nobody has to run the phone tree.

monitoringMembers who go quiet get chased

Attendance is sorted into on track, slipping and at risk, on your rules. The people slipping go into a win back sequence automatically, and you can message a whole band at once.

One inbox

Every message about a member, in one place.

Text and email in the same thread, with automated messages, marketing sends and staff broadcasts all filed against the person they went to. Their tags, birthday, attendance, packages and notes sit beside the conversation, so nobody has to open another screen to answer a question.

Texting is unlimited and free. No credits to buy, no per message rate, no monthly fee for the number. Sends go from your own domain, so a parent sees your studio's name and not ours.

The communication centre in Recess: a list of client threads on the left, and one member's thread carrying an automated welcome, an automated birthday message, a marketing email and a group broadcast sent to 214 parents, all filed in the same place as the coach's own reply. Her details sit beside it, with her tags, birthday, when she last attended, her current belt and the membership she is on with its price and renewal date

Your app

The app your members actually open.

Every studio gets its own client app in its own name and colors, and it can go on the App Store and Google Play under your own listing, all managed by Recess from inside your dashboard. Members book and pay, buy a pack, message you, watch your video library and see how far they have come.

Challenges, streaks and badges run inside it. Set a summer challenge with a leaderboard and the people chasing it turn out to be the people who keep showing up.

Three phone screens from a studio's own member app: a Summer Six challenge leaderboard with a family tab, a home screen showing Level 3 progress, a ten week streak, passes left and an upcoming reservation, and a badges screen showing a fifty class badge just unlocked

However you sell

Drop-ins, memberships, appointments, seasons, camps, belts. Often all at once.

Most platforms are good at two or three of these and awkward about the rest, which is why studios end up bolting a second tool on the side. In Recess the same member can hold a monthly plan, buy a season for their kid, book a private with a coach and drop into a Saturday class, without you touching another system.

event_availableDrop-ins and class packs

Single classes, ten packs and intro offers, with waitlists that move people up on their own when a spot opens.

credit_cardMemberships and contracts

Recurring plans, contracts, payment plans, freezes and account balances, with failed charges recovering themselves.

personAppointments and one to one

Personal training, assessments and privates, booked against a coach's real availability rather than a guess.

door_frontOpen gym and check in

Barcode, self check in and location based check in, plus Kisi door access so the room can open itself outside staffed hours.

calendar_monthSeasons, camps and afterschool

A ten week term sold once and paid monthly or in full, with make up credits and a family account covering several children.

military_techLevels, belts and skills

Signed off by a coach, and you can gate enrollment on rank, level or age so nobody books into a class they are not ready for.

One system

What changes once it is all in one place.

hubThe tools you stop renewing

Email marketing, two way text, video on demand, win back sequences and your own member app are part of Recess rather than four or five separate subscriptions. It also connects to ClassPass, Wellhub, Kisi door access, QuickBooks, Zoom and Meta and Google advertising.

contact_pageOne record per person

The conversation, attendance, packages, contracts, family and notes are on one screen, so nobody exports one system to answer a question about another.

account_balanceOne set of numbers

Revenue, attendance, payroll and outstanding balances come off the same data that ran the schedule. Connect QuickBooks and your costs arrive beside them, so what you spend, what is in the bank and how long the debt takes to clear sit on the same screen as the money coming in. That screen is Business Health, which is rolling out to studios now.

The Business Health screen in Recess, with tabs for Business Health, Forecast Input and Connect QBO. Under Revenue: Projected Revenue this month $57,800, Revenue YTD $452,600, Revenue YoY this month $9,600. Under Net Income: Projected Net Income this month $14,000, Net Income YTD $108,250, Net Income YoY this month $4,600. Under Cash and Debt: Bank Balance $88,000, and Debt $126,000 with a line under it reading About 9.0 months to clear at this rate. Below those, a Revenue Trend chart plots twelve actual months as a solid line and six more as a dashed line labeled Projected from scheduled renewals, and an Expenses by Category chart stacks Rent, Payroll, Utilities and G&A across the same twelve actual and six projected months

Built for your discipline

The words on your schedule are already in the software.

Belts and stripes for a dojo, levels and skills for a gym, seasons and recitals for a dance studio. Pick yours and read what it actually looks like.

accessibility_newBarre→sports_mmaBoxing and MMA→fitness_centerCrossFit→boltHIIT and bootcamp→groupsPersonal training→exercisePilates→rowingRowing→self_improvementYoga→music_noteDance→sports_gymnasticsGymnastics→sports_martial_artsMartial arts→

Pricing

The price is one line, and this is it.

There is no monthly platform fee, no charge per feature, and no setup cost. Recess earns a service fee of about 5% paid by the member at checkout, and card and bank processing is covered by Recess out of that rather than billed to you on top.

$0 / month

Every feature, from day one

Unlimited staff logins

Your own branded member app

Unlimited text and email

Unlimited video storage

No setup fee and no minimum

Your migration run by our team

Switching

You do not run the migration. We do.

Memberships, packages, contracts, families, attendance history, waivers and upcoming bookings come across, and our team runs it end to end. You are not exporting spreadsheets at midnight.

We move studios off these every week:

Akada

Arketa

DanceStudio-Pro

Glofox

iClassPro

Jackrabbit

Kicksite

Mariana Tek

Mindbody

Momence

MyStudio

PerfectMind

PushPress

Spark

Studio Pro

The Studio Director

Walla

WellnessLiving

Wodify

Zen Planner

Nothing goes live until you say so

Your old system keeps running while we load and check everything. You see the whole thing populated before a single member is affected.

Ask before you sign anything elsewhere

Some platforms will not release your stored card details, which means every member has to re-enter a card. Ask that question of anyone you are considering, including us. Our answer is that your data is yours.

Straight answer

Recess is not the right answer for everyone.

If one of these is you, we would rather say so now than six weeks into an onboarding.

You are bigger than about a hundred locations

Multi-location and multi-state operators run on Recess, and so do franchise groups. Above roughly a hundred sites, national chains at the scale of Equinox or Planet Fitness need things we do not build, and we would say so on the first call.

You want to pay a flat fee instead

A high volume studio with low transaction counts may pay less on a fixed monthly plan elsewhere. Put your own numbers in the calculator above and check. If the answer is that we cost you more, we would rather you knew.

You want to keep your own payment processor

Payments run through Recess, which is exactly what makes the software free. If you hold a merchant account or a negotiated processing rate you are not willing to give up, that does not carry across, and a platform you pay for monthly is the honest answer.

Questions

The things people ask first.

Does this work if we only run drop-in classes and memberships?

Yes, and that is most of what Recess runs day to day. Seasons, camps, belts and family billing are there the moment you want them and out of the way when you do not, so a pilates studio and a martial arts school can run on the same software without either one wading through the other's features.

Is Recess really free?

Yes. There is no monthly platform fee, no per-feature charge and no setup cost. Recess earns a service fee of about 5% paid by the member at checkout, and card and bank processing is covered by Recess out of that rather than billed to you on top.

Can it handle a ten week season with families in it?

Yes, and that is the part most platforms cannot do. A season is sold once as an enrollment, paid monthly or in full, with make-up credits, waitlists and a family account where several children on different programs are billed together.

Can I stop the wrong student booking into an advanced class?

Yes. Enrollment can be gated on rank, level, age or a tag, so a white belt cannot book into the black belt class and a Level 3 gymnast cannot book into Level 5. The rule is set once and applies everywhere.

Do members get their own app?

Yes. Every studio gets a branded client app in its own name and colors, and it can be published to the App Store and Google Play under your own listing. Members book, pay, message, watch video on demand and follow their own progress.

How long does switching take?

It depends on how much history you have, but our team runs it rather than handing you an importer. Your old system stays live while we load and check everything, and nothing changes for your members until you are ready.

What does Recess integrate with?

ClassPass, Wellhub, Kisi door access, QuickBooks, Zoom, JackedRabbit, CAP for CrossFit programming, and Meta and Google advertising.

See it running your own schedule.

Thirty minutes, with your own classes, memberships and members on the screen. If it is not a fit we will tell you.

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