How much is gymnastics around you?

[mommyoffive]

We have been doing gymnastics with our park and rec for the last 7 years.  Crazy affordable.  It usually is around $3 an hour or so.  Sometimes as high as $4.50.

 

Only problem is they don't have any boy equipment so we are looking into going some place else.

 

I am so surprised at how much this is. 

 

I am looking at $15-$19 bucks an hour for a group class.

 

Is this on par?  

[Janeway]

Where we live, it is about $20 per hour for the gym. 

[Sk8ermaiden]

Almost all the gyms in our major metro are $17 per hour for recreational gymnastics.

 

ETA: I actually find this is true for just about every recreational sport here that is a year-round, hour-a-week type class. They're all in the ballpark of $70 a month. Except swim lessons, which are the same price for half the time.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Sk8ermaiden

[fdrinca]

Our gym is $75/month for one weekly class.

[Storygirl]

My son did gymnastics for years. He's not in it any more, and I don't recall exact figures. But it's expensive. And the costs will only go up if he stays in it and joins a team.

 

Even so, we considered it worthwhile. It was a great sport for him.

 

It's hard to find gyms with boys' equipment, so you may not be able to shop around much. If you can compare prices, though, you'll probably find that they are similar to each other. I wouldn't travel far to get a cheaper price, because if he sticks with it and joins a team, he is likely to end up being at the gym three to four times a week by the time he is eight or nine. Factor in how much the drive will add (considering the value of both time and money) before choosing a gym that is farther from your house.

[mommyoffive]

My son did gymnastics for years. He's not in it any more, and I don't recall exact figures. But it's expensive. And the costs will only go up if he stays in it and joins a team.

 

Even so, we considered it worthwhile. It was a great sport for him.

 

It's hard to find gyms with boys' equipment, so you may not be able to shop around much. If you can compare prices, though, you'll probably find that they are similar to each other. I wouldn't travel far to get a cheaper price, because if he sticks with it and joins a team, he is likely to end up being at the gym three to four times a week by the time he is eight or nine. Factor in how much the drive will add (considering the value of both time and money) before choosing a gym that is farther from your house.

 

Yeah the only gyms with boys equipment is 45 to 50 mins away from our house.  :(

[carriede]

DD4 takes a one hour per week class at a private gym (not a city rec center) for $65 a month. So I guess $13-16.25 a week, including the odd 5 Wednesdays month.

[Dmmetler]

Rec, 1 hour/week, $65/month, $110 for 2 hours/week. And it goes up from there, since after level 3 you don't have a rec option.

[Kassia]

We pay $77 a month for a 75 minute class once a week.  The coach is fantastic.  

[ElizabethB]

It is that much in larger cities. In cities of smaller size, a bit more affordable but still expensive. COL factors in for coaches, but costs for equipment and insurance are really expensive. Our gym in TX actually lost money on team kids but made up for it with rec kids, and most of the parents thought it was expensive.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Looked at the two closest places.  The non serious place that caters mostly to girls (my son went there last year and they only had one boy class available and not really any boy specific equipment) is $18 an hour.  The serious place with multiple boy class offerings and top of the line equipment is $34 per hour. 

 

So the range is huge! 

[mom2scouts]

I live in a LCOL area and that sounds right for our area.

[AmandaVT]

About $75-$100 a month for a once a week 45-1hr class. 

[BarbecueMom]

We pay $65/month for boys rec.

[lanabug]

My girls do recreational gymnastics. The fee is $150 for a 9 week session, one hour a week. They do give a 15% discount for subsequent children, but there's also a $35 annual fee.

 

Lana

[Crimson Wife]

Special Needs gymnastics would be $96/mo. for one weekly 45 min class plus $50/year gym registration fee. There are probably cheaper options for regular gymnastics through parks & rec but I'm not confident my youngest could handle being in a mainstream class yet.

[mommyoffive]

My girls do recreational gymnastics. The fee is $150 for a 9 week session, one hour a week. They do give a 15% discount for subsequent children, but there's also a $35 annual fee.

 

Lana

 

Yeah I love places that give big family discounts.

 

One place gives 10% off the 2nd, 20% of the 3rd, and the 4th is free.

[catz]

$12-$20(+) would be typical of a group setting class here depending on the size of the class and the quality of the program.  $3 an hour for anything is unheard of. 

[Kerileanne99]

$150 per month but dd6 goes 2 days/week for 2 hour sessions. But there are always LOTS of extra fees as well. I should say that is for the team as she maxed out on the rec league. It was actually more per month because she was taking two classes per week, for fewer hours! However, there were no other fees.

[SKL]

It depends on how many hours my kids go.  There is a maximum fee for the family.  It used to be a great deal with my kids attending a total of 10 classes per week / 500 hours per year, and the cost averaged out about $6/hr I guess.  Now with the kids in fewer but longer classes, it's more like $10/hour +/-.  This is recreational gymnastics.  I looked into the cost of the nearest competitive gymnastics option, and it was comparable.

[Sk8ermaiden]

It is that much in larger cities. In cities of smaller size, a bit more affordable but still expensive. COL factors in for coaches, but costs for equipment and insurance are really expensive. Our gym in TX actually lost money on team kids but made up for it with rec kids, and most of the parents thought it was expensive.

 

This is true of almost every gym. Team kids require more hours with the most experienced coaches. At our gym, rec is $17-18 an hour, the pre team is like $6 an hour, and the team (say level 5) is just over $4 an hour. Because if the level 5 girls paid rec rates, gym would cost $1300 a month ($2200 by level 9/10!!) And of course that's just coaching fees, and not even the costs to compete.

 

But of course, successful teams often draw kids to rec and so it kind of helps the gym that way.

 

(You might already know that of course but I remember learning it last year and being amazed. You'd think with all the money team parents shell out, that it would be a money maker, but no.)

[Arcadia]

$18/hrs for boys recreational gym. My parks and rec does gym class at a private gym center, so cheaper to enrol directly at the gym center than to go through parks and rec.

 

COL factors in for coaches, but costs for equipment and insurance are really expensive. Our gym in TX actually lost money on team kids but made up for it with rec kids, and most of the parents thought it was expensive.

They have compulsory fundraising for team kids like selling chocolates and selling other things. The recreational program kids don't need to fund raise.

[SJ.]

We pay $190/month for 6 hours a week.  This is for competitive gymnastics.  

[slackermom]

DD does dance rather than gymnastics, and we pay $10 per class, which is low for our area. I think it is because lessons are held in a church hall, instead of a dedicated dance studio. Those places would run closer to $20 per class.

[Corraleno]

For rec level classes, it's $87/month for one 75-minute class per week, and $120/month for a 2-hour class. Team classes range from $200-$440/mo, depending on the number of hours. The higher the level the better the deal on a per-hour basis, ranging from $17/hr for the lower classes to less than $5/hr for the highest class.

[mommyoffive]

It is that much in larger cities. In cities of smaller size, a bit more affordable but still expensive. COL factors in for coaches, but costs for equipment and insurance are really expensive. Our gym in TX actually lost money on team kids but made up for it with rec kids, and most of the parents thought it was expensive.

 

 

So it is the insurance and equipment that jacks up the price so much?  I didn't really think about it before.

[mommyoffive]

$12-$20(+) would be typical of a group setting class here depending on the size of the class and the quality of the program.  $3 an hour for anything is unheard of. 

 

Yeah everything through our park and rec is that price or cheaper.  Things like soccer, baseball, tee ball, football.... are way way cheaper.  Some things like track and field have been free.

But things like gymnastics, dance, TKD, and others are around the $3 an hour.

 

So I was surprised to see the prices at other places.

[mommyoffive]

It depends on how many hours my kids go.  There is a maximum fee for the family.  It used to be a great deal with my kids attending a total of 10 classes per week / 500 hours per year, and the cost averaged out about $6/hr I guess.  Now with the kids in fewer but longer classes, it's more like $10/hour +/-.  This is recreational gymnastics.  I looked into the cost of the nearest competitive gymnastics option, and it was comparable.

 

That is nice they had a max for the family.  I haven't seen that.

[mommyoffive]

This is true of almost every gym. Team kids require more hours with the most experienced coaches. At our gym, rec is $17-18 an hour, the pre team is like $6 an hour, and the team (say level 5) is just over $4 an hour. Because if the level 5 girls paid rec rates, gym would cost $1300 a month ($2200 by level 9/10!!) And of course that's just coaching fees, and not even the costs to compete.

 

But of course, successful teams often draw kids to rec and so it kind of helps the gym that way.

 

(You might already know that of course but I remember learning it last year and being amazed. You'd think with all the money team parents shell out, that it would be a money maker, but no.)

 

Learn something new everyday.  Thanks.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Most places here don't max for the family but will give discounts for additional family members.

 

The rec place we were going to just went up again.  It's now $72 for the month.  Kind of expensive.  We are going on Saturday to see a dance school with very reasonable rates.  My younger kid plans to try hip hop dance.  Supposedly they give discounts for boys. Their website says half price for boys.  Their Facebook says free.  Either way it's only $42 for the month regular price.  And no registration fee if we go to the open house on Saturday.

 

 

 

 

[ElizabethB]

So it is the insurance and equipment that jacks up the price so much?  I didn't really think about it before.

 

Yes.  Insurance may be cheaper for Y's if they can get their plans on a national basis.  I forget exactly how much it was, but I remember being shocked and it is so expensive that the gym paid it quarterly; it was a major part of their costs.

 

The equipment is expensive for several reasons--there are only a few manufacturers because they get sued a lot and there are a limited number of beams/vaults/bars/training equipment etc that can be sold, there are only so many gyms.  

 

If you buy the exact same mat for use for special needs students to crawl around on, it costs several times less than if sold for gymnastics purposes because they don't need to make back the lawsuit insurance money.  If these mats get ripped, the kids may start eating the foam or tripping on them, they get sold to gyms or parents who just turn them over or repair with duck tape and use for gymnastics purposes.

 

Our gym in Illinois had some specialized vault trainers that were really helpful, the gym in Texas was smaller, they could not afford them so they just stacked up mats to provide the same type of drill and progression.  I was going to suggests them but when I looked up the price, realized that the gym would not be able to afford it based on their enrollment levels and the price which they wanted to charge to be as affordable as possible.  (The gym in Illinois got a lot of use out of the vault trainers and had more classes and more kids and more gym floor area, so they were paid for in enrollment and use.)

 

Our gym in Texas was actually much cheaper than many of the quotes for competitive gyms, I can't remember the exact costs, but the owner was always finding good deals for equipment needs--a gym going out of business, a high school quitting doing gymnastics and selling off equipment, etc.  

 

The pit foam needs to be updated every once in a while, too, or it gets unsafe, and some of the other equipment also has a safe life span and needs to be replaced to keep the gym as safe as possible. 

Edited August 2, 2016 by ElizabethB

[mommyoffive]

All things I never really thought about since I know nothing of the sport.  Thanks.

[SparklyUnicorn]

None of our Ys even have gymnastics anymore. It's a bummer because they were one of the more affordable places.  The most popular sports at our Ys are basketball and swimming.  Both my kids aren't into that.

 

 

[La Condessa]

Before our gym closed a few months ago, it was $133/ month for dd1 (= about $5.50 per hour) and $53/ month for dd2 (= about $13 per hour).

[purplejackmama]

So, OP you are currently paying $12 a month for weekly gymnastics classes? Am I reading this wrong?

[Sk8ermaiden]

Oh yeah, I remember looking up equipment once and seeing that a spring floor was somewhere in the ballpark of $22,000? I don't even know if that's right, I was just looking at a few websites. And our gym has 2 or 3. I was just floored. They replace pit foam I think every year, probably because the gym has extremely high enrollment, but we have a LOT of pits, so I know that is $$$ too. I can't even imagine what the insurance is. 

[tm919]

Rec classes average out to $18-23 an hour... most things really seem to land in that range. There are those bizarre things that end up being like $2 an hour (usually run by high schoolers, but for $2 I'm willing to forgive a lot). Swim is $23-25 for 1/2 an hour though.

Edited August 3, 2016 by tm919

[Mandamom]

Oh yeah, I remember looking up equipment once and seeing that a spring floor was somewhere in the ballpark of $22,000? I don't even know if that's right, I was just looking at a few websites. And our gym has 2 or 3. I was just floored. They replace pit foam I think every year, probably because the gym has extremely high enrollment, but we have a LOT of pits, so I know that is $$$ too. I can't even imagine what the insurance is. 

We just replaced the top layer of our floor and that was about $6000. The equipment is very expensive. The foam cubes run between $40-70 per cube. 

[Myeightkiddies]

I'm not sure about all the gyms in the area as I haven't searched, but one charges $75 a month for one hour weekly class (so roughly four hours a month). This is for children 9 and under.  

[mommyoffive]

So, OP you are currently paying $12 a month for weekly gymnastics classes? Am I reading this wrong?

 

You are reading that right.  So I was just checking to see what is normal. 

 

That is run through our park and rec dept.  It used to be sweet since they were able to use the university for the class.  But now they use the high school which doesn't have as nice of a space. 

 

Anyway they don't have any boy equipment which is what prompted the look for a different place.