Martial Arts Gym Scheduling Software: Classes, Belts, and Billing

A martial arts gym running Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, and kids' karate needs each discipline scheduled as its own recurring class series, further split by level — fundamentals, intermediate, advanced — rather than one undifferentiated calendar. Members need to see and book into the specific class that matches their program and rank, not a generic time slot.

Class capacity also varies by discipline and space — a mat-based grappling class might cap lower than a striking class using bags and pads — so the scheduling system needs per-class capacity limits, not one blanket number applied across every class the gym runs.

Belt promotion in most martial arts is gated partly by attendance — a student needs a minimum number of classes at their current rank before they're eligible for testing. If the scheduling system tracks class check-ins, that attendance data should feed directly into belt-rank eligibility rather than living in a separate log an instructor keeps by hand.

This also helps instructors plan testing cycles. Being able to pull a list of students who've hit their attendance threshold for the next belt, straight from the same system that runs the class schedule, removes a manual reconciliation step that otherwise falls on the head instructor.

Open mat sessions let students drop in for unstructured practice outside of formal class time, and gyms typically want some visibility into who's showing up, both for capacity and liability reasons. This is different from a formal class booking since there's no instructor-led curriculum, but it still needs a reservation or check-in mechanism.

Open mat also needs its own capacity rules, often separate from class capacity, since a gym might allow more students on the mat for open practice than it would run through a structured class with one instructor supervising.

Martial arts gyms commonly offer both recurring monthly membership with unlimited or capped class access, and class-pack pricing for students who train less frequently or are trying the gym out before committing. The scheduling and billing system needs to apply the right access rules automatically based on which plan a student is on.

This matters at check-in time specifically — a class-pack student should have their pack decremented by one when they check into a class, while a monthly member checks in without any change to their billing, and the front desk shouldn't have to manually verify which type of student is walking in.

Private and semi-private lessons are common at martial arts gyms, particularly for students preparing for a belt test or competition, and these need to book against a specific instructor's calendar separate from the regular class schedule. Two instructors teaching the same discipline might have different availability, and the system needs to reflect that rather than treating all instructors as interchangeable.

Private lesson pricing also tends to differ from group class pricing and is often sold in packages, so the booking system needs to track package balances the same way it would for class packs, just tied to a specific instructor relationship instead of general gym access.

Courtlines schedules recurring class blocks by discipline and level, tracks attendance from check-ins, and ties that attendance history to belt rank so instructors can pull eligibility lists for testing straight from the same system running the calendar. Membership billing and class-pack pricing run side by side, with pack balances decrementing automatically at check-in and Stripe handling all payments, renewals, and package purchases under the hood.

Every night, the AI business advisor reviews the last 30 days of class attendance, membership activity, and private lesson bookings and returns three ranked recommendations with dollar estimates and confidence scores, useful for spotting a program that's under-attended or a class-pack cohort at risk of lapsing. Courtlines runs under the gym's own name and domain rather than a generic third-party booking app, the same platform currently powering Pickleland ATX in Austin, Texas.