Recess vs Wodify
Wodify is built around the athlete and the workout, and on that ground it is genuinely good. The difference is what your bill is made of. Wodify publishes no price for any of its three plans, prices your own app as an add-on on all of them, and charges a card rate that changes depending on which plan you are on. Recess has one version, no plan fee, and a rate that does not move.
Every Wodify figure on this page was read on Wodify's own website, its help center and its terms, on 31 August 2026. Each one is numbered and linked at the bottom.
Recess has no monthly platform fee, no per-feature add-ons and no setup cost. It earns a service fee of approximately 5% paid by the member at checkout, and card and bank processing is covered by Recess out of that fee rather than billed to you on top.
Recess is not built for chains past about a hundred locations. Past that, centralized franchise tooling matters more than we can serve, and we would say so on the first call.
The two products divide along a clean line. Wodify's center of gravity is the whiteboard: personal records, benchmarks, leaderboards and programming delivered into your calendar every week. Recess does not write your scores at all. Our center of gravity is the other half of a gym, the half that is not a workout: families on one card, terms and camps with a start and a finish, classes that are not bookable by someone who is not ready for them, coach pay, and the door at five in the morning. Work out which half you spend your Sundays on, and the rest of this page is arithmetic.
What each one is built around.
Wodify's column below came off their own pricing page, their own product pages, their own help center and their own terms on 31 August 2026. Where a row says their help center carries no article on something, that is a statement about what they publish, not a claim about what their software can be made to do. All of it can change without notice.
Performance tracking is their home ground and they are very good at it. Wodify Perform detects a personal record three different ways, estimates a one rep max on a named formula, keeps history charts per movement, and puts all of it on a Coachboard, a Whiteboard and a public display that members can like and comment on. Their Workout Marketplace maps named programming partners' tracks into your calendar and publishes the week for you.
Recess has nothing equivalent and is not building it. We integrate with CAP for programming, and we hold the ladder around the workout rather than the workout itself. If the board is the product at your gym, that is a real reason to stay, and nothing further down this page outweighs it.
Your gym's own app on the App Store, included rather than rented. Wodify builds a proper branded listing and submits it for you, which is worth crediting. It is priced as a $79 a month add-on on every tier, Ultimate included, and you open and pay for your own Apple Developer account at $99 a year on top. On Recess every gym gets its own app under its own listing on the App Store and Google Play, from the first day, at no charge and with no developer account to run.
On Wodify the plan you choose changes what every card sale costs, and the cheapest plan is the most expensive place to take money. Their own rate card puts a US card at 3.8% on Essentials against 2.7% on Ultimate, which is why the Ultimate card advertises "Our Lowest Processing Rates". Essentials is also the tier without belts, without family groups, without lead management, without the insights dashboards, without the custom report builder and without API access, all marked as such on their own plan table. So the entry plan costs you more per sale and does less. On Recess there is one version, every feature is in it, and the number does not move when you grow.
Two price lists, and only one of them is on the pricing page.
The subscription, which they do not price. Three tiers are named on the pricing page and not one of them carries a number. Each card shows the same promotional banner and a button that books a demo. The only monthly figure on the page is a headline reading "starting at $199 $99/month per location", with the $199 struck through and the $99 tied to an offer dated to the end of August. Their startup program page states a third number, "our pricing starts at $79 per month". Pricing is per location and explicitly not per member: their plan table promises "Unlimited Clients & Employees" on all three tiers. There is also an onboarding fee, which the pricing FAQ describes as "a small onboarding fee" and never quantifies; the only setup figure published anywhere on their site is a one-time $149 attached to their program for gyms that have not opened yet.
The card rate, which they do price, and which is the interesting one. Wodify publishes a full rate card by tier and by country inside their Payments FAQ, last updated 17 August 2026. That is more disclosure than most of this category offers and it deserves saying. It also shows something their marketing does not: the tier ladder is a processing ladder. Their marketing site says only that card transactions "can be as low as 2.7% + 30c". The rate card shows where that low number lives.
On a single sale that spread looks small. Run it across a year and it stops looking small. A gym taking $25,000 a month on cards pays about $11,400 a year in processing on Essentials and about $8,100 on Ultimate, a difference of roughly $3,300 a year, and the two plans have different subscription prices as well, neither of which is published. Work out both halves before you choose a tier, because the cheaper monthly plan can easily be the more expensive year.
The add-ons, six of which have no published price. Performance Tracking, Custom Websites and Unlimited Automations are add-ons on Essentials and Accelerate and included on Ultimate. The Branded App, 24/7 Access, the Workout Marketplace and Heart Rate Tracking are add-ons on all three, Ultimate included. Only one of the seven carries a price on their site: the Branded App at $79 a month, plus your own Apple Developer account at $99 a year.
The metered parts, which are newer than the product. Workflow automations are capped at two on Essentials, fifteen on Accelerate and unlimited on Ultimate, a limit their help center says was introduced from 1 January 2026 with anything built before that grandfathered. Ask Wodify runs on a monthly credit allowance that varies by tier, with two paid top-up plans whose prices are inside the product rather than on the site. Text messages are allowanced at 250 a month on Accelerate and 1,000 on Ultimate, with no allowance stated for Essentials and a footnote saying additional usage fees may apply.
Leaving. Their pricing FAQ is clear that there are no long-term contracts on any tier and that the service is month to month. Their help center adds a minimum of 30 days' notice on Wodify Core, cancellation by email to support with a reason given, and a warning to download your reports before deactivation because access to them ends with the environment. Their published terms describe pre-renewal notice for plans of twelve months or longer that renew automatically, say any early termination fee will be disclosed upfront without naming one, and state that a Master Services Agreement controls over the published terms where the two conflict. That agreement is not on their site, so the document that actually governs your term is the one on your own order form. Read it rather than the website.
Recess is one thing at one price. There is no plan to pick, no tier to outgrow, no seat count, no setup fee and nothing metered. Recess earns a service fee of approximately 5% paid by the member at checkout, and card and bank processing is covered by Recess out of that fee.
That is a trade rather than a free lunch, and on a single transaction Wodify's processing is cheaper than our fee. The difference is who pays it and what else is attached to it. If you would rather absorb a monthly bill yourself and keep the checkout total clean, that is a reasonable preference and a subscription platform serves it better than we do. Put your own numbers in below, then check the answer against your own bank statement rather than either company's marketing.
Move the sliders to your own gym.
Their side uses $79 a month per location, which is the lowest monthly figure Wodify publishes anywhere on its site, and their published Essentials card rate of 3.8%. The 30 cents a transaction is left out on purpose, and so are the branded app, the add-ons, the onboarding fee and any text messages, so the number below is lower than a real Wodify bill rather than higher. Treat it as their floor, not their price.
Your members pay a service fee of about 5% at checkout on Recess, which is how the software is free for the gym. That is the honest other side of this number, and the point of the sliders is that you can see both sides of it.
Before you move: the things worth checking.
A service fee of approximately 5% of what they are buying, added at checkout, and that is the whole of how Recess earns anything on your account. There is no monthly platform fee, no per-feature add-on, no setup cost and no plan to outgrow. Card and bank processing is covered by Recess out of that fee rather than billed to you on top. If you would rather carry a monthly bill yourself and keep your checkout total clean, that is a reasonable preference and a subscription platform serves it better.
Yes, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Recess does not write your scores, does not detect personal records and does not keep benchmark history. Programming comes through our CAP integration, which is where many boxes already write and track it, and what Recess holds is the ladder around the workout: clubs, challenges, points, milestones, leaderboards, badge artwork, printed certificates and a progress view each member sees in your own app. If personal records and the whiteboard are the reason your members chose you, Wodify does that better than we do and that is a real reason to stay.
We cannot tell you, because they do not publish it. Their three plan cards carry no price and every button books a demo. The pricing page headline says "starting at $199 $99/month per location" with the $199 struck through, their startup program page says pricing starts at $79 a month, and there is an unquantified onboarding fee on top. Pricing is per location rather than per member, and unlimited clients and employees are promised on all three tiers. Ask them in writing for the price of the specific tier you need, the onboarding fee, and the price of any add-on you are counting on, before you sign anything.
Yes, and this is the part most owners miss. Their own rate card, published in their Payments FAQ, puts a US card at 3.8% plus 30 cents on Essentials, 3.0% on Accelerate and 2.7% on Ultimate. Bank payments are 1.5% plus 30 cents on all three. Their marketing site quotes only the low end, "as low as 2.7% + 30c". On $25,000 a month of card volume the gap between the entry tier and the top tier is roughly $3,300 a year, which can be larger than the difference between the plans themselves. On Recess there is one rate and it does not move: processing is covered out of the member fee and nothing is billed to the gym.
On Recess, yes, included, from the first day, under your own listing on the App Store and Google Play, with no developer account for you to open or maintain. Wodify also builds a real branded listing and submits it for you, which is a proper job rather than a web wrapper, but their product page prices it as a $79 a month add-on on every tier including Ultimate, and you open and pay for your own Apple Developer account at $99 a year alongside it.
Yes, and as things in their own right. A term has a start and a finish, enrolling a student books their sessions, siblings sit on one account and one card, sibling discounts recalculate when a child pauses or leaves, make-up credits and waitlists work inside it, and students age up into the next program automatically. Wodify has Groups with guardians and dependents, which is well built, but for family pricing their own FAQ tells admins to put one "Family Membership" on the guardian's profile and give every other family member a $0 membership. Their camps article builds a camp as one one-time class per camp day, repeated. Their help center carries no article on semesters, terms or make-up credits.
No. Two-way text and email are included, sent on your own domain, with no per-message charge and no monthly allowance, and there is no cap on sequences or automations. On Wodify the workflow builder allows two automations on Essentials, fifteen on Accelerate and unlimited on Ultimate, a limit their help center says began on 1 January 2026 with earlier automations grandfathered. Text allowances are 250 a month on Accelerate and 1,000 on Ultimate, none stated for Essentials, and their SMS is documented as available in the United States and Canada only.
Yes. If personal records, benchmarks and the whiteboard are the center of how your gym runs, theirs is deeper than ours and we would rather you stayed than found that out afterwards. If you want programming from a named partner delivered into your calendar every week, they sell that and we do not. If you want live group heart rate on the wall, they sell that and we do not. And if you would rather pay a predictable monthly figure than have your members see a service fee at checkout, that is a real preference and their model serves it better than ours.
Every Wodify claim here was read on Wodify's own website, its own help center and its own terms on 31 August 2026. Nothing comes from a review site, a software directory or a summary of either. Their help center articles carry a last-updated date and the ones used below were updated between May and August 2026. Wodify can change its prices and packaging at any time, so verify anything that matters to your decision.
1.Pricing page: the three tiers, "starting at $199 $99/month per location", the per-tier feature table including the exclusions on Essentials, the add-on grid, "Unlimited Clients & Employees", the SMS footnote, and the FAQ answers on the set-up fee, training, cancellation and "as low as 2.7% + 30c". 2.Startup program page: "our pricing starts at $79 per month", month to month, and the one-time $149 setup fee, which is scoped to that program. 3. Help center, "Wodify Payments FAQ", updated 17 August 2026: the rate card by tier and country embedded in that article, and "No setup fees, No batch fees, No PCI fees, No higher fee for rewards cards, No annual fees". 4.Branded App page: "The Branded App is a $79/month add-on to your Wodify plan", "Apple Developer account ($99/year)", and "its own app in the Apple App Store and Google Play".
5. Help center, "Explore Perform: The Workout Builder" (6 August 2026), "Track PRs" (5 August 2026) and "Track Your Performance" (5 August 2026): the three personal record logics, the Brzycki estimated one rep max, the movement history charts and the boards. 6. Help center, "Learn about Workout Marketplace", updated 28 August 2026: the partner list and "every week we will automatically publish workouts and coaching notes into your Wodify account". 7. Help center, "Learn about Progression Building & Tracking" (4 August 2026): belt levels, promotion criteria, auto-promote, the Custom Dictionary rename and the certificates. 8. Help center, "Groups, Dependents, and Shared Payment Methods" (29 July 2026): guardians and dependents, shared payment methods, and the "Family Membership" plus "$0 membership" answer.
9. Help center, "Create and Manage Your Summer Camp" (15 May 2026): "One-Time Class", "Repeat for each camp day or session" and the one week class plan. 10. Help center, "Learn About Membership Enforcement" (4 August 2026) and "Understand Contract and Waiver Enforcement" (18 May 2026): "Prevent sign-ins" and "Can I quickly bypass this on an as-needed basis? Unfortunately, no." 11. Help center, "Payroll Tracker (Beta): Creating and Assigning Pay Rates" (29 July 2026) and "Set Up & Process Payroll" (31 July 2026): the pay rate types, minimum and maximum pay, and "Processing Payroll in Wodify does not issue payments". 12. Help center, "Understand Two-Way SMS" (5 August 2026) and "Understanding Workflows by Package" (4 August 2026): "only available to our customers in the U.S and Canada", the 250 and 1,000 message allowances, and the two, fifteen and unlimited automation limits from 1 January 2026.
13. Help center, "Understand Chargebacks & Failed Transaction Fees" (5 August 2026): the $15 chargeback, and "$.30 per failed credit card transaction and $3.80 per failed ACH transaction". 14. Help center, "Cancel Your Business's Wodify Subscription" (5 August 2026), and the Terms of Service: the 30 days' notice, cancellation by email, the pre-renewal notice for twelve month plans, the early termination clause and the Master Services Agreement that controls over the published terms and is not published. 15. Help center, "Deactivating your Wodify Core Account" (5 August 2026): "You will no longer have access to these when your environment is deactivated." 16. Help center, "Understand Wodify Retain" (21 August 2026). 17.Wodify home page: "Our team handles data transfers, setup, and training so there's no downtime."
Nothing on this page needs a processing assumption, which is unusual for a comparison of this kind and is to Wodify's credit: their card and bank rates are published by tier and by country, so every fee figure here is theirs rather than ours. The one number we chose is the $79 a month used in the calculator, which is the lowest monthly figure Wodify publishes anywhere on its site, so the calculator understates their bill rather than overstating it.
Where this page says Wodify's help center carries no article on something, that is a statement about what they publish, not a claim about what their software can be made to do. Their help center is large and current, and where an article exists we have linked it so you can read it yourself rather than take our summary of it. Where their own pages give two different answers, both are stated above and neither has been treated as a gotcha.