Keep Above
Gym membership: pay yearly or monthly
The same gym, two price tags. This calculator totals both over the months the membership would actually be used — with the annual side paying one whole payment for every year or part-year started, because that is the real shape of the deal when the going stops in month seven. The break-even month is stated as a fact, the month-by-month table shows the crossings, and no winner is declared.
A part-year still costs a whole annual payment
Put in the monthly price and the yearly price for the same thing. Nothing here is read from your budgets, and nothing is saved.
| Yearly | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|
| One payment | — | — |
| Payments over the period | — | — |
| Total over 12 months | — | — |
| Works out per month | — | — |
What happens if you stop going before the year is up?
The arithmetic above is about price; the thing it cannot see is the exit. A monthly membership is not always a month-to-month one — a minimum term can hold it for a set number of months whatever the billing rhythm says, and a notice period can add more on top. Where both apply, the months field is doing less work than it looks: the shortest real run is the term and the notice together, not the month you stopped going.
A joining fee is the other piece neither price carries, because it is paid once at the start, so it lands on whichever plan is taken and changes the first year more than any later one. Putting it on the annual price and on twelve months of the monthly one keeps the first year comparable; after that it drops out of both.
This is one of the tools built into Keep Above
Keep Above is a budgeting app where you enter your bills and income and it works out the balance you need to keep — so you can see what's safe to spend. No bank connection, no ads on your data.
A yearly bill is the plainest case for putting a little aside each pay rather than meeting it all at once — how budgeting apps handle money set aside for later bills.
About this calculator
Why does a part-year cost a whole annual payment?
Because that is how annual billing works: month 13 triggers a full second year, and a membership used for seven months still cost the whole annual price. Pro-rating would smooth away exactly the lumpiness this comparison exists to show; the month-by-month table makes each renewal's jump visible.
What does the months field do here?
It sets how long the membership would actually be used, which is where the two prices pull apart. The totals, the break-even month and the table all run over that span — and the annual side is charged a whole payment for every year or part-year inside it. What that number would be for any particular person is theirs to estimate; the page only does the arithmetic on it.
Why do the per-month figures show cents?
Rounding $119 a year to $10 a month beside a $10 monthly price would destroy the exact comparison the page exists for, so the per-month row keeps two decimals while everything else stays whole.
Does a minimum term change the break-even month?
Not the arithmetic — the break-even month comes from the two prices and nothing else. What a term changes is which months are actually available: if the monthly plan cannot be left before a set number of months, a span shorter than that is not a real option on that side, whatever the table prints for it. A notice period pushes the same floor further out again. The page has no box for either, so the months figure is the one place that knowledge can go.