A gym membership looks cheap when you divide the fee by months. The better question is what each visit costs. Cost per use turns the fee into a price per visit, so you can judge the membership against how often you really go.
Cost per use is the total price divided by the number of times you'll use it. For a membership, the total price is what you'll pay over the period, and the number of uses is the visits you expect in that time.
Suppose the membership costs $600 a year. If you go three times a week, that's 156 visits, so each visit costs $3.85. Go twice a week and it's 104 visits, or $5.77 each. The table shows how the cost changes with your habits.
| Visits per week | Visits per year | Cost per visit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 52 | $11.54 |
| 2 | 104 | $5.77 |
| 3 | 156 | $3.85 |
| 5 | 260 | $2.31 |
A low cost per visit only helps if you keep going. Be honest about the visits you actually make, not the ones you plan. Many people pay for a full year and visit mostly in the first few months, and cost per use shows that gap quickly.
Compare the membership with other ways to exercise, too. A home workout plan or a run club also has a cost per session, and you can measure it the same way.
Enter your own fee and visits in the Worth It? calculator to see your cost per visit. The calculator estimates the cost. It can't tell you whether you'll keep going.