The Cost of Fitness: Gym Membership vs. Home Gym

A comprehensive look the cost of gym memberships. These are then compared to the estimated cost of starting a home gym to determine the more cost-effective choice. 

How many of you currently belong to a gym or have in the past? Did you use your membership or did you find it to be a waste of your time and money? Today I'm going to be looking at the costs of gym memberships and comparing them to the cost of starting and operating a home gym. 

My husband and I, both work out a lot but we don't belong to any gym. We set up a home gym in our apartment. It's quite an ingenious set up given our limited space (I'll post about it later), but we find it works great. We can workout whenever is most convenient for us and that's great given our changing schedules. 

So how much does a typical gym membership cost? I chose four different popular gyms in my area and looked at what a membership cost's there. 

Goodlife Fitness

Goodlife is the largest fitness company in Canada with about 300 clubs. Membership types vary here but you'll pay between $40-$60 a month, or $480-$720 a year.

YMCA

To get an accurate idea of the cost of membership you need to look up the location you would be going to. I chose one in Kitchener and that is where my numbers are coming from. However with your membership you have access to any other YMCA Canada-wide.

	Monthly		Annually
Membership Type	Individual	Add Family Member	Individual	Add Family Member
Membership Plus (18 yrs+)	$66.80	$56.78	$752.73	$639.82
General	$49.80	$42.33	$562.90	$478.47
Student 18 yrs+	$34.79	$29.57	$394.50	$335.33
Yourth (17 yrs and under)	$31.61	$15.81	$356.31	$178.16

Assuming you buy an annual general membership, you'll pay $46.90 a month, or $562.90 for the year. 

LA Fitness

To sign up for LA Fitness online, you'll pay a $99.00 initiation fee and an additional $29.99 a month. That means you're looking at $458.88 for the first year and $359.88 for the years after. This is only an American price, but it's safe to assume you'll be paying around $30-$50 a month or $360-$600 a year to be a member here.

World Gym

If you sign up online, World Gym has a promotion where you pay $10 or $19 a month, plus a $58 membership fees. You have to sign up for a 12 month contract, but your fees won't go up as long as you're a member. So you're looking at paying either $178 or $286 a year. 

Average Gym Membership

There are many more gyms out there and each one has it's own membership plans and promotions. On average it looks like you'll be paying around $40.00 a month or $480 a year to belong to one. 

Home Gym

If you want to get a basic workout there are a few pieces of equipment you'll need. You'll need a workout mat, bench, an exercise bike, and some free weights. There are always more pieces that you can acquire, but with those things you can do a basic workout. 

An exercise bike will cost between $200-$1600. That's quite a range, but I would say a good one like this one will cost $500.

A workout bench will cost between $60-$600. You don't want to skimp here because it's the basis for your workout. This is the one I have and it costs $250.

You can buy free weights in sets but to buy them individually they'll cost between $6-$20 each. I currently use 2 different weights and they cost about $60. 

An exercise mat will cost between $25-$75.

In total you're looking at spending between $315-$2355. I would estimate that our home gym cost us $885. We'll say that is a good average.

Analysis

To belong to a gym you'll be paying around $480 for the year. To start up your own home gym you'll have to pay around $885. While the raw numbers show that it is cheaper to belong to a gym than to make your own home gym, there are several other factors to include. 

You're going to keep paying membership fees to a gym until you quit, but once you make the initial investment in equipment, you own it. So while you'll likely want to upgrade your gym equipment over time, you always own it. So amortize the cost of the equipment over it's lifetime and you'll see you'll actually be paying less money. If you belong to a gym for 2 years you'll spend $960 in fees, but starting your own gym which you can use for the same 2 years will cost you $885. That's a savings of $75. 

If more than one person in your household belongs to a gym, you'll be exponentially increasing your costs. The cost for operating a home gym remain relatively the same, regardless of how many people use it. So if you're a family, having a home gym is definitely cheaper than belonging to one.

Conclusion

Fitness is very important to have in our lives and now there are so many different options for how to get it. I know many people who choose to belong to a gym and they like it. Personally my husband and I use a home gym because we like the convenience and cost of it better. The purpose of this post was to determine which was the more cost-effective choice. I've shown that while initially a gym membership can be cheaper, amortized over time having a home gym is cheaper. 

Ultimately to make the right decision you need to figure out how much you're going to work out. If you're committed to working out for the rest of your life, then making the investment in a home gym will definitely be the most cost-effective option. However, if you're unsure about working out belonging to a gym can be a great way to test your commitment level. For some people going to the gym is the only way they can work out because it motivates them and there are great classes.

Hopefully you've found this post informative and you can think more about what kind of fitness plan works for you. No matter the cost of the one you choose, think of the life-long benefits you'll get from working out and how priceless they are.