1. The website that comes with your software
Most martial arts schools already pay for member software: Spark Membership, Kicksite, Zen Planner, Gymdesk or something like them. Several of them now offer a website or landing pages as part of the package, which raises a fair question. If the gym software website is already included, why pay anyone to build another one?
Sometimes you should not. A bundled site is convenient, it talks to your schedule and billing without any setup, and it costs nothing extra. This page lays out what each platform says it includes, where a bundled site does the job, and where a site built for your school earns its keep.
2. What each platform includes
From each company's own pricing and product pages, checked November 11, 2026:
| Software | Listed price | Website offering |
|---|---|---|
| Gymdesk | $75 to $200 a month with Gymdesk Payments, $100 to $240 without | "Every plan includes unlimited staff accounts, a responsive gym website, and every feature we build." (Gymdesk) |
| Zen Planner | Studio $99, Essentials $198, Ultimate $348 a month | A "customizable, branded website" on Essentials and Ultimate, or a standalone Website product from $99 a month (Zen Planner) |
| Kicksite | $49 to $199 a month by active students | Customizable landing pages for lead capture on every tier, and website design offered as a separate service (Kicksite) |
| Spark Membership | $199 a month | A "no code" page builder and drag-and-drop landing page builder for sales funnels (Spark Membership, Spark Membership) |
The details change often, so ask each vendor what you get on your plan. The point is that "included" ranges from a full site to landing pages you build yourself.
3. Where a bundled site is enough
- Booking and billing in one place. A visitor can see the live schedule, book a trial and sometimes buy a membership without leaving your software. That is a real advantage, and hard to match with a separate site.
- No extra bill. If the site comes with a plan you already pay for, it is free at the margin.
- Little to maintain. Class times and prices update from the software, so the site does not drift out of date.
- Early days. A new school with mostly referral students needs a clean, accurate site, and a bundled one is that.
4. Where a site built for your school wins
- It looks like you, not the platform. Bundled sites are built from templates shared by every customer of that software, and some platforms serve every kind of gym, not only martial arts. A parent comparing three schools can often tell. A site built around your instructors, your colors and your own photos stands apart.
- Somebody writes the words. Software gives you the boxes; you still write the copy for every program. Copy written for your buyer, the nervous adult beginner or the parent who wants a confident kid, is what moves a visitor to book.
- A page per program. Kids, teens, adults, women's classes, BJJ and Muay Thai each deserve their own page, with their own photos and trial button. Templates tend to squeeze them into one list.
- Search. Ranking in your city for each class you teach takes titles, headings, schema, internal links and content you control. Check how much of that your platform lets you edit. See SEO for martial arts schools.
- Portability. When the site lives inside your software, changing software means rebuilding the site. A site on your own domain and hosting stays when your billing system changes.
- Follow-up. The site is only half of it. Every form should start a text, a call and a reminder within minutes. Some software does this well, some partly. A marketing partner can wire whichever you use.
5. You do not have to choose
This is not software vs agency. A school can keep its member and billing software exactly as it is. The custom site handles the first impression and the trial booking, links to the software for schedules or payments where that makes sense, and hands every new lead to follow-up straight away.
That split keeps the strengths of both: the software stays the system of record for members, and the website and ads are built to bring new ones in. If you are weighing a builder like Wix or Squarespace instead, see agency vs website builders.
6. Questions to ask before you decide
- Can I give each program its own page, with its own URL and title?
- Can I edit page titles, headings and descriptions for search?
- How fast does the site load on a phone? Test it with Google's PageSpeed Insights.
- What happens to a trial form the moment it is sent? Who gets a text, and how fast?
- If I leave the software, what happens to my site and my domain?
- How many other schools in my city use the same template?
7. What we build
We build martial arts school websites on your own domain, around your school: a free trial button on every screen, a page per program, real photos and reviews, and forms that feed straight into automated lead follow-up. You keep your member software. See finished sites on our martial arts website examples page and the results behind them, like River City Kung Fu's 20 new students in 30 days on a site we designed. The site is built inside the free first month.
8. Sources
Every figure on this page comes from one of these pages, checked on November 11, 2026. Prices change, so confirm on the vendor's own page before you budget.