BJJ is not a cheap hobby and is relatively expensive compared to other martial arts. With this being said, it is quite new compared to other combat sports such as kickboxing, karate and judo. As a result of this, there are fewer instructors and this will increase over time.
Many gyms will not show their prices upfront, whilst I would agree this is not a good practice, it is still quite common. This is beginning to change as there is more transparency about prices being put online. Some gyms will now show how much it costs per month in advance, rather than luring you in for a trial class and trying to get you to sign up.
With that being said, just because a gym does not show its prices on their website, does not mean it is shady. There are warning signs for bad gyms which I will outline below, but this is not one of them. If a gym is willing to give you a free trial class and then show you the price, I feel this gives you enough opportunity to say yes or no.
To get this out of the way to begin, obviously the cost of a gym will massively vary on the city you’re living in. For example, if you’re living in New York you would expect to pay considerably more money at Unity compared to a small gym in the center of rural Ohio.
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USA
Expensive – Up to around $250 per month for some areas of NYC and California
Average – $110 per month for a gym with a decent instructor in a nice city
Cheap – $60 per month at various small gyms
UK
Expensive – £150 per month at RGA in London
Average – £60 per month at a gym with a decent black belt instructor
Cheap – £40 per month, the further north in England you go the cheaper it will be due to the cost of living decreasing.
Europe
This will vary from country to country, in general you should compare your cost of living to the USA or UK and then decide if the gym is a good deal. Overall it will be harder to find a black belt instructor, but this is changing over time and is not necessary as a beginner anyway.
Warning signs for a BJJ Gym (Why you shouldn’t sign up)
- They make you pay for a “belt test” (Paying for promotion)
To be honest I do not like belt tests because I think it is a lazy way to evaluate a students progress and does display overall knowledge. An instructor should look at the student and know what level they are on a day-to-day basis. Making you pay for this “test” is a huge red flag.
2. You are able to consistently beat higher belts
If you are not an international competitor then you should not be consistently beating higher belts. I’m sure there are lots of gyms that will have a resident out of shape brown or purple belt who has trained inconsistently for many years, if you are beating them, this is fine, but not everyone else. In summary if you are beating most of the higher belts in the gym then there could be a problem.
3. The instructor will not roll with the students
Unless the instructor is a very old Brazilian with chronic injuries, then there is no real excuse to not roll. If the instructor is not sparring white belts regularly then this is no problem, but if he is absolutely never sparring any other higher belts then there is probably a reason why.
4. No women
Women do not train BJJ as much as men, I don’t want to guess the ratio, but it is certainly considerably less. However if there is no women, or just a single woman in a large gym there could be some sinister reasons why this is.
5. Forcing you in to a long term contract
Some gyms may give discounts when signing up for one year in advance, this is a fine practice and there is nothing wrong with it. However if a gym is forcing you to sign a contract for one year after you have had a single trial class this is bad. In my opinion it is financially predatory and you should certainly not sign up.
Other Costs
A brand new Gi isn’t particularly expensive these days, but they are not cheap either. You can pick up a decent quality branded Gi for under $100 (this will last you a couple of years), especially if there is a sale on.
If you are really on a tight budget then it may be worth checking eBay. There are often bargains to be had for gis which have only been worn a handful of times. A lot of people will lose interest after a couple of months and sell their gear online.
Competitions are an optional extra and vary from event to event. To be honest, because BJJ is still in its infancy in the western world, these are still quite expensive. You can expect to pay around $100~ for an IBJJF event and around half of this for a local competition (again varying from city to city).
Overall BJJ is a good value hobby for the price. It is not a cheap martial art, however compared to other sports it really isn’t too bad. You would expect to pay more money for other sports. For example, to train under a world class instructor in BJJ might only cost $120 per month, it would be much more than this in other hobbies.
