Most BJJ schools charge anywhere from $100-250 a month, with the average price being around $150/mnth and that comes with a 6 mnth - 1 year contract!!
I don't understand why it costs that much money. I recently looked up hot yoga studio's in the nice part of town (which is an extremely expensive city to begin with) and the average cost is $120 a month and they have insanely high hydro bills and pay people to teach there. Other martial arts like Judo and TKD don't charge nearly as much
So why the fuck is it so expensive?
lol because they need to make money to survive. You are crazy as fuck if you don't think successful TKD schools don't charge that much as they def do. As for judo, most judo schools are clubs that don't churn out competitors and get by more on donations (countries w high level judo guess what? Have schools that are not dirt cheap).
If you want proper mats, showers, running electricity, different times to train and multiple people to teach you pay for it. Its hilarious how people sometimes think that the bjj lifestyle means pay dirt cheap prices and somehow magically get great facilities. Life don't work that way.
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Hunter V - lol because they need to make money to survive. You are crazy as fuck if you don"t think successful TKD schools don"t charge that much as they def do. As for judo, most judo schools are clubs that don"t churn out competitors and get by more on donations (countries w high level judo guess what? Have schools that are not dirt cheap).
If you want proper mats, showers, running electricity, different times to train and multiple people to teach you pay for it. Its hilarious how people sometimes think that the bjj lifestyle means pay dirt cheap prices and somehow magically get great facilities. Life don"t work that way.
Hunter V - lol because they need to make money to survive. You are crazy as fuck if you don"t think successful TKD schools don"t charge that much as they def do. As for judo, most judo schools are clubs that don"t churn out competitors and get by more on donations (countries w high level judo guess what? Have schools that are not dirt cheap).
If you want proper mats, showers, running electricity, different times to train and multiple people to teach you pay for it. Its hilarious how people sometimes think that the bjj lifestyle means pay dirt cheap prices and somehow magically get great facilities. Life don"t work that way.
Why can't BJJ go the Judo route? Most BJJ students aren't in it to win the mundials - the ones that are can go to Atos or AOJ where they appropriately charged +$200/mnth
It's not just top schools that charge that. Schools around my area without showers, without great mats (i.e. puzzlemats) and without blackbelt instructors charge $125/mnth. Those are too far for me though (1 hour commute 1 way), and the only one is reasonable distance does have showers and high quality mats but not black belt instruction and charge $175/mnth with contract ($25 dollar drop in). Being a broke ass student (literally struggling just to pay rent in a shitty place), I've resorted to playing sports and doing weights at the local recreation centre instead of doing BJJ.
How do schools promote poor youth/adults in BJJ when they could really use it? It's becoming elitist like golf. Imagine if Nate Diaz had to pay $200/month when he first started. We wouldn't know who the fuck he was at this point.
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Why can't BJJ go the Judo route? Most BJJ students aren't in it to win the mundials - the ones that are can go to Atos or AOJ where they appropriately charged +$200/mnth
Because those Judo schools are run by instructors who have day jobs, hence those schools usually only run 2-3 times per week. And that's the culture in Judo. BJJ instructors look to become full time instructors, which means either having full time facilities or teaching in multiple locations in order to make enough money to live. Add on to that the costs of running a school, and making enough money so there is a profit at the end of each month (profit isn't a dirty word), and you end up at $150+
I can guarantee that if u went to. Pedros judo centre, u will be paying similar fees.
If it's run full time with the appropriate facilities, then that's the standard.
If u want cheap, then expect to train 3 days a week, pull. Out. And lay the mats and also pack them. Away. U probably pay $10-20 a lesson for the privilege
If ur broke, then sorry.. Life can be hard
I don't think all this is a fair comparison, at least not all over the states. In my area (southeast), most schools that don't teach BJJ are priced at $60-100/month, and that's with climate controlled, locker rooms, multiple instructors, and classes 6 days a week with lunch classes.
this was true of the karate places, a karate/kickboxing place, and several mma gyms (both of which churned out a bunch of Amy and low level pros, and one of which sent someone to the UFC).
when the first black belt BJJ guy came in, it was $125/month with a contract, and that's with a smaller school, buying gi's from him, 6 month or yearly contract, and not many amenities at the school. Without the contracts, I think it was $150 a month, and this was like 7 or 8 years ago.
the owners of the other schools have managed to make a living while charging half the rate month to month (I know a few school owners well enough to know they don't have other jobs and to see what their houses look like); it's a false dichotomy to say "they have to charge that or they'd go out of business", at least in my area.
BJJ has a lot
and for products and services with elastic demand, you maximize profits by finding the sweet spot in terms of price; if you charge $0 a month, you get zero profit no matter how many customers, and if you charge $1000/month, maybe you sometimes have one rich oddball who can pay, so somewhere between the two points will be your sweet spot. Like if you charge $200 and get 10 people, but then decide to only charge $100 and get 30 (because more people who were on the fence or couldn't afford 200 decide to sign up now) you have better profits even though you've slashed the price.
conversely, if you have 30 customers at $100/month, the jack up the price to $150 and have 28 customers, you're making a lot more money.
it would be really hard for the average school owner to fiddle around with that until they found whatever the point would be for them, but aggregately the markets self-select for the appropriate pricing point by having services that are too cheap or too expensive do poorly impaired to appropriately priced ones, so I wonder if the real reason that BJJ on average costs what it does is just because that's the price that the market has told BJJ instructors will make them the most money. Certainly a lot of us value quality BJJ more than other arts (I'll pay more for BJJ than I will for most other martial arts for whatever reason).
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I think Pedro is a poor example for this argument, too. He's too accomplished as a competitor and practitioner for his school to be a fair comparison point for the average BJJ club run by a regular joe black belt (not diminishing the enormous accomplishment of achieving a BJJ black belt, and I hope to someday, but an unusually famous or skilled instructor gives the school the perceived value to charge more; look at the Gracie academy, or Marcelo Garcia's school and website. I dunno what either charge, but I know people who have travelled to both just to be able to train at those schools for a while, which means people place a higher value on the instruction because of the game and success of the instructors).
your point about a professional, well-run, commercial-quality gym is well-taken, though. I just don't think most of the BJJ schools in my area meet that standard you describe, even the ones who charge $150 or $170/month.
You want to make money at BJJ, a decent living wage, then you charge accordingly.
V
Go open your own gym then and charge 80 bucks a month. Let me know how it works out
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Expenses to opening a gym
1. Rent (likely a couple thousand)
2. Mats (from 5-10k)
3. Marketing 400 a month
4. Utilities (from a couple hundred to 1k per month)
5. Insurance (150-500 a month)
6. Taxes (varies)
7. Affiliation fees (200-500 a month)
8. Supplies (200-400 a month)
if the average gym has about 80 students, do you see why the costs are what they are? It's not like the instructors are rolling up in a mclaren from their mansion.
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TKD and Karate schools are cheaper for a number of reasons; first, the sheer number of students they're able to fit on a mat. Students in those schools really only need about 3-4 sqft of space (Enough room for them to practice and follow along) where as in BJJ you need about 10sqft for each pair (5sqft per person) which means on a 1,000sqft of mat space you're looking at ~285 TKD students vs 200; Right there you are able to charge 30% less per month and have the same amount of revenue.
Second, and this one might be even bigger. Kids Programs. Look at a TKD or Karate schools schedule and you will see that it's 75% kids classes. Why doesn't BJJ do that? Because it's harder to talk a parent into watching their kid get mauled on the mat. It's a lot easier for soccer moms to watch their kids punch and kick imaginary enemies than to watch their little baby boy get stacked on their neck and arm bared. There are a lot more kids willing to do martial arts than adults; so the client pool is way larger. You suddenly have the ability to grab 100 students easily as opposed to struggling to grab 50. So now you have twice as many students and 30% less overhead on mat space requirements.
Can you see the trend here? Let's say your monthly overhead costs are $5,000/month, that means you would need 50 students at $100/month in order to just break even, that's without any salary for the professor or being able to save any money for renovations. Conversely, a TKD school that's able to pull 100 students only has to charge $50; However, you only require 70% of the overhead, which now puts your overhead at $3,500/month, meaning your break even monthly rate is $35/month. By the time you add in salary and savings for renovations, you're looking at roughly a $75-$100 a month difference.
That's not even taking supply and demand (far fewer qualified BJJ instructors out there) into account or perceived value (concept that things are worth what people will pay for it) into account. Add those in and you'll see and even larger price difference between the two
Also, as a broke college kid, if you want to start your own club you can. Gracie Academy is like $20 a month. Find some people on there in your area and start training together.
its hilarious as you can always tell who has never ran a school or been part of school finances who talks and whines about expenses. Hell most people that bitch about paying a 125 tuition per month use that same shit on skanks at bars on the weekend (w no return investment). Now I am not into paying 150+ per month and being required to pay for brand specific gi's only that are 200+, being required to do seminars, etc, etc. Then you would have a point. But the other points are pure bullshit. People rant and rave about how instructors should get paid and athletes too and then wonder where all the magical money should come from as whhaaaaaaaaaaaaa I don't like paying.
And as for you complaining about driving distance you get zero sympathy from me cheapskate. And I say this as I started bjj in college this decade and went from white through purple myself. My bjj academy was 3hrs away EACH WAY. I went and got a private and trained w a group class twice a month and drilled w judo people back at college. If you want it you can get it, quit eating out and drinking on the weekends and watch how much cash you save.
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Conor Mcgregors return on investment seems pretty good
checkuroil -Expenses to opening a gym
1. Rent (likely a couple thousand)
2. Mats (from 5-10k)
3. Marketing 400 a month
4. Utilities (from a couple hundred to 1k per month)
5. Insurance (150-500 a month)
6. Taxes (varies)
7. Affiliation fees (200-500 a month)
8. Supplies (200-400 a month)
if the average gym has about 80 students, do you see why the costs are what they are? It's not like the instructors are rolling up in a mclaren from their mansion.
If your gym has 80 students you need to either move or bring in an investor and make your school better if the location is tight. A BJJ gym cant survive without at least 150 students IMO.
Thats charging $100mo
Judge Mental -checkuroil -Expenses to opening a gym
1. Rent (likely a couple thousand)
2. Mats (from 5-10k)
3. Marketing 400 a month
4. Utilities (from a couple hundred to 1k per month)
5. Insurance (150-500 a month)
6. Taxes (varies)
7. Affiliation fees (200-500 a month)
8. Supplies (200-400 a month)
if the average gym has about 80 students, do you see why the costs are what they are? It's not like the instructors are rolling up in a mclaren from their mansion.
If your gym has 80 students you need to either move or bring in an investor and make your school better if the location is tight. A BJJ gym cant survive without at least 150 students IMO.
Thats charging $100mo
I agree but this includes start up gyms in their first year as well
Hunter V - its hilarious as you can always tell who has never ran a school or been part of school finances who talks and whines about expenses. Hell most people that bitch about paying a 125 tuition per month use that same shit on skanks at bars on the weekend (w no return investment). Now I am not into paying 150+ per month and being required to pay for brand specific gi's only that are 200+, being required to do seminars, etc, etc. Then you would have a point. But the other points are pure bullshit. People rant and rave about how instructors should get paid and athletes too and then wonder where all the magical money should come from as whhaaaaaaaaaaaaa I don't like paying.
And as for you complaining about driving distance you get zero sympathy from me cheapskate. And I say this as I started bjj in college this decade and went from white through purple myself. My bjj academy was 3hrs away EACH WAY. I went and got a private and trained w a group class twice a month and drilled w judo people back at college. If you want it you can get it, quit eating out and drinking on the weekends and watch how much cash you save.
You seem really upset. I'm assuming you run a school and charge those prices.
The point I'm making is that it seems pretty ridiculous that the Mendes bros/Marcelo Garcia charge $200/month and Joe Blow fucking purple belt charges $150-175/month.
triforce -Hunter V - its hilarious as you can always tell who has never ran a school or been part of school finances who talks and whines about expenses. Hell most people that bitch about paying a 125 tuition per month use that same shit on skanks at bars on the weekend (w no return investment). Now I am not into paying 150+ per month and being required to pay for brand specific gi's only that are 200+, being required to do seminars, etc, etc. Then you would have a point. But the other points are pure bullshit. People rant and rave about how instructors should get paid and athletes too and then wonder where all the magical money should come from as whhaaaaaaaaaaaaa I don't like paying.
And as for you complaining about driving distance you get zero sympathy from me cheapskate. And I say this as I started bjj in college this decade and went from white through purple myself. My bjj academy was 3hrs away EACH WAY. I went and got a private and trained w a group class twice a month and drilled w judo people back at college. If you want it you can get it, quit eating out and drinking on the weekends and watch how much cash you save.You seem really upset. I'm assuming you run a school and charge those prices.
The point I'm making is that it seems pretty ridiculous that the Mendes bros/Marcelo Garcia charge $200/month and Joe Blow fucking purple belt charges $150-175/month.
a) Marcello charges more than $200/month, Pretty sure AOJ does too.
b) that's not the point you were making at all; your complaint is about how expensive BJJ training is compared to other martial arts. We've Addressed that, in detail. Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean that you can change your initial point.
ItsMy1stDay -triforce -Hunter V - its hilarious as you can always tell who has never ran a school or been part of school finances who talks and whines about expenses. Hell most people that bitch about paying a 125 tuition per month use that same shit on skanks at bars on the weekend (w no return investment). Now I am not into paying 150+ per month and being required to pay for brand specific gi's only that are 200+, being required to do seminars, etc, etc. Then you would have a point. But the other points are pure bullshit. People rant and rave about how instructors should get paid and athletes too and then wonder where all the magical money should come from as whhaaaaaaaaaaaaa I don't like paying.
And as for you complaining about driving distance you get zero sympathy from me cheapskate. And I say this as I started bjj in college this decade and went from white through purple myself. My bjj academy was 3hrs away EACH WAY. I went and got a private and trained w a group class twice a month and drilled w judo people back at college. If you want it you can get it, quit eating out and drinking on the weekends and watch how much cash you save.You seem really upset. I'm assuming you run a school and charge those prices.
The point I'm making is that it seems pretty ridiculous that the Mendes bros/Marcelo Garcia charge $200/month and Joe Blow fucking purple belt charges $150-175/month.a) Marcello charges more than $200/month, Pretty sure AOJ does too.
b) that's not the point you were making at all; your complaint is about how expensive BJJ training is compared to other martial arts. We've Addressed that, in detail. Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean that you can change your initial point.
a) It is in-line with the initial point I made - I made the point that top level BJJ clubs charge (like AOJ) charge $200+/month and that was REASONABLE, yet gyms without blackbelt instructors/adequate facilities charge relatively close to that I am asking why.
b) Please re-read