PushPress Alternatives for BJJ Academies
PushPress is a well-built platform for functional-fitness gyms. If your academy runs on belts, stripes and a curriculum, here are four alternatives worth a shortlist — and who each one actually suits.
What PushPress Is, and Who It Fits
A fair read before the comparison: a lot of gyms are happy on PushPress, and for good reason.
PushPress is a polished gym management platform with a loyal following among functional-fitness boxes — CrossFit-style gyms, strength facilities and hybrid training studios. It covers the fundamentals well: memberships and billing, check-ins, a member-facing app, staff permissions and reporting. The interface is clean, onboarding is thought through, and there is a real community of owners behind it.
It also publishes its plan structure openly, which is more transparency than several vendors in this category offer. If you run a box, PushPress is a reasonable default, and this page is not an argument that it is a bad product.
The question worth asking is not whether the software is good. It is whether the way it models a gym matches the way a jiu-jitsu academy actually runs.
Why BJJ Academies Start Looking Elsewhere
Three things come up again and again when jiu-jitsu owners outgrow a general gym platform.
Belts are an adaptation, not the model
In a functional-fitness gym, progress is a benchmark time or a lift. In a jiu-jitsu academy it is a belt and its stripes, a promotion history, time in grade, and a curriculum tied to each rank. Generalist platforms hold that in custom fields, tags or notes. The information gets stored, but it does not drive anything — nothing tells you who is due for a stripe, and nothing connects what was taught to who has learned it.
Capability that arrives as add-ons
General gym platforms tend to price the core attractively and bill the rest separately: a branded app, lead capture and messaging, extra locations, a website. That is a normal way to sell software, but it means the number on the pricing page is rarely the number on your invoice. Price the full configuration you would actually run, not the tier you would start on.
The processing rate you never see
For most academies the subscription is not the biggest line — the percentage taken off every membership payment is. Vendors frequently quote that rate rather than publishing it, which makes the true monthly cost impossible to work out from a website. Ask for your specific percentage and per-transaction fee in writing before you sign, whoever you sign with.
None of that makes PushPress a bad platform. It makes it a platform shaped for a different kind of gym.
PushPress alternatives for BJJ academies
Four options worth shortlisting if a general gym platform is not the right shape for your academy — and who each one actually suits.
Kmura
Built specifically for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu rather than adapted to it — belts, stripes, and a fully customizable curriculum are the data model, not a workaround. $150 a month flat per location with card processing at 2.6% + 30¢, a nightly AI review that flags at-risk students and pre-drafts the follow-up for your staff to send, the whole platform in English and Portuguese, and free white-glove migration.
Best for: BJJ academies that want software matching how they already run.
Gymdesk
A generalist gym platform with genuine martial-arts roots and a clean, quick interface. It lets you bring your own payment processor instead of locking you to one, which is unusual in this category.
Best for: Schools wanting a polished generalist and control over processing.
Kicksite
Martial-arts software since 2007, with every feature available at every pricing tier. You never pay to unlock the basics as you grow, which suits schools that dislike feature gating.
Best for: Traditional martial-arts schools that want a long-established vendor.
BJJLink
BJJ-specific software with a technique library and LMS built in. The technique library is a real differentiator if delivering curriculum content to students matters to you.
Best for: Academies that want a built-in technique library above all else.
See the full comparison of BJJ school management software
Competitor figures read from each vendor's own published pricing page on August 27, 2026. Prices and features change; verify before you buy.
Where Kmura Fits
Kmura is built for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu specifically. Belts, stripes, promotion history and a fully customizable curriculum are the data model, not custom fields bolted onto a generic member record — so attendance rolls up into who is actually due for a stripe.
Instructor hours and classes taught are tracked (tracked — Kmura is not payroll software), and a nightly AI review reads your academy's activity, flags students who are drifting and pre-drafts the follow-up for your staff to send. It never sends anything on its own. Pricing is $150 a month per location, flat, with every feature included at every size and card processing at 2.6% + 30¢. The only thing billed outside that flat price is SMS, which is pay-as-you-go with the cost shown before you send. Migration is free and white-glove, and the whole platform runs in English and Portuguese.
A demo is a walkthrough with our co-founder, Todd Snider, Co-Founder & CEO.
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