Day pass or membership at a Bali gym: which is cheaper?

What the day pass actually wins

Freedom to pick the gym by the day you are having. Bali's best training is spread across four towns and the day pass lets you lift at TOPGYM in Batu Bolong on Monday, plunge at Body Factory in Berawa on Wednesday and take the Les Mills class in Seminyak on Friday without owning three memberships; the prices are on the day-pass page. It also protects you from the two things that ruin a membership here: rain that turns a Pererenan ride into a swim, and a gym that is not what its Instagram promised. At the local rooms the day pass is close to free (Boom Gym and Massa's 40,000-50,000, Pucuk 50,000) and at the premium floors it includes the recovery wing (Body Factory 350,000, Reload 549,000), which is a separate ticket almost everywhere else.

The trade-off is the price per visit once you settle. Ten days at Titi Batu is 3.1 million against a 1.45 million month; ten at Ubud.Fitness 2.75 million against 1.85 million. Past the break-even in our table, every extra day pass is money handed to the desk for the privilege of not deciding.

What the month actually wins

A price per visit the day pass never reaches. At Pucuk a month is 400,000, which at twenty visits is 20,000 a session; at Bali Fitness Seminyak a 700,000 month at fifteen visits is 47,000 against a 150,000 door price; at PATH, 1.6 million of unlimited recovery is 80,000 a plunge at twenty visits, where the published pack is 135,000. The month is also what unlocks the parts of a gym that are not on the day ticket: group classes at Titi Batu are often outside the day pass, Ubud.Fitness sells its recovery area separately to day visitors, and Avenue Fitness and Nirvana Life both say their plans run from daily to annual but price the longer ones only in the booking widget.

The trade-off is commitment to one room and one town. A month at RAW Gym in Canggu is useless the week you decide to move to Ubud, and most memberships here are not transferable. The second trade-off is the hidden cost at the top: Reload's 3.3 million month and Nova's 2.9 million are more than a flight to Singapore, and Gymnasium Bali's month has climbed sharply year on year.

The weekly pass: rare, and worth asking for

Three venues on our lists publish one. Pucuk's 175,000 week pays for itself on the fourth visit against its 50,000 day, which makes it the best-value week in Canggu for anyone who just wants a bar and plates. Reload's 1.69 million plus tax buys seven consecutive days of gym, classes and the recovery wing, about 241,000 a day, which beats its own 549,000 day pass on the fourth visit and is the only published week with an ice bath inside it. Adda Yoga's 900,000 unlimited week breaks even on the sixth class against a 160,000 drop-in. Everyone else sells days or months; several desks will quote a week if you ask, and a two-week visitor should, because the published month at a 300,000-a-day gym is a bad buy for fourteen days and the day pass is a bad buy for ten.

The honest tie-breakers

Under a week in one town: day passes, and spend them on the floors with recovery included. Two weeks, training every other day: day passes at a local room, or a month at a cheap one; at the premium floors you are at the break-even and the month is only worth it for the classes. A month or longer, one base: the month, chosen by the ride from your bed rather than the equipment, because the gym you will actually reach three times a week beats the gym you would love twice. Recovery rather than lifting: a pack, not a month; Alchemy's twenty passes at 275,000 a session and Terapung's twenty at 200,000 are private rooms, and PATH's unlimited month at 1.6 million is the only recovery month on the island that competes with them. Working from Canggu for a season: look at the ice bath price page before you choose a gym, because the recovery wing decides which month is worth it more than the squat rack does.

Not for

Do not buy a month on the first visit, anywhere: train on a day pass first and buy the month on the way out, which every gym on this list allows. Do not buy a month at a gym that prices its plans only in a widget without reading the plan page on your phone at the desk; "from" prices and "++" are where the surprises live. Do not compare a 500,000 day at RITE with a 50,000 day at Pucuk as if the difference were a markup; one is a spa day with a training floor attached and the other is a training floor. And do not pay for a recovery month if you plunge twice a week: ten visits at PATH's pack price (1.35 million, valid three months) is cheaper than the 1.6 million month for anyone under twelve visits, and the pack does not expire at the end of the calendar.