NinjAthlete

Recovery Payback
Calculator.

Every recovery modality a gym can add, with real equipment pricing and the honest evidence grade. Change the four numbers below and every payback period recalculates live.

Your facility

Start with what you actually have. The defaults are a typical 500-member independent gym.
Total active memberships
$/month add-on
% who upgrade
For a-la-carte pricing

How are you charging?

Tier gating has the best take-rate leverage. A-la-carte suits appointment-shaped services.
ModalityInvestNet / mo PaybackEvidence
Red light panels
2 commercial panels + bench. Demand third-party irradiance specs.
 $3,000 $5,175
17 days
 Mixed
Hyrox programming
$1,500/yr affiliation + starter gear. No space minimum.
 $5,000 $2,725
1.8 mo
 Strong
mHBOT chamber
⚠ FDA names sports injury as unproven and flagged fire risk in 2025. Attendant required.
 $27,000 $14,460
1.9 mo
 Weak
Float pod
Strongest evidence is anxiety & sleep, not athletic recovery. One person, 60–120 min.
 $25,999 $9,670
2.7 mo
 Mixed
Bimini O₂ HydroLounge
Foot immersion, not full body. No chiller. Bimini's own model is faster than this.
 $10,750 $3,780
2.8 mo
 Weak
Contrast suite
Sauna + plunge as ONE bookable appointment. Turns amenities into $60/hr.
 $22,000 $7,350
3.0 mo
 Strong
Full-body red light bed
Commercial entry bed. Cuts session time vs repositioning panels.
 $16,997 $5,100
3.3 mo
 Mixed
Compression lounge
4 Normatec sets + chairs. Lowest-complexity build on the list.
 $8,000 $1,900
4.2 mo
 Mixed
Cold plunge
⚠ Public pool/spa code. Daily logs. Blunts hypertrophy if used right after lifting.
 $10,990 $2,250
4.9 mo
 Mixed
Sauna (infrared)
Best evidence base here — though the cohort data is traditional sauna, not infrared.
 $12,399 $2,440
5.1 mo
 Strong
Bimini NanoJet Pro
Full-body commercial unit. Partner facilities often charge $100–200/session.
 $23,950 $3,750
6.4 mo
 Weak
Hydromassage
The amenity that built the Planet Fitness Black Card. Self-service, no plumbing.
 $12,000 $1,485
8.1 mo
 Mixed
Halotherapy room
⚠ 13 papers in 40 years. Generator is only 5–15% of the build cost.
 $75,000 $3,850
19.5 mo
 Weak

How each number is built

Tier revenue = members × take rate × tier price, split across the modalities in your tier. A-la-carte revenue = sessions/day × that modality's typical price × 26 days. Net subtracts real monthly opex — energy, water, chemicals, consumables, testing labour. Payback = total install cost ÷ net monthly. Equipment prices are current published commercial pricing, not MSRP guesses.

What the evidence grades mean

Strong — replicated human trials or large long-term cohort data. Mixed — real effects reported but inconsistent across studies, or the strongest evidence is for a different use case than the one being sold. Weak — very few studies, poor quality, unpublished, vendor-funded, or explicitly flagged as unproven by a regulator. A fast payback on a weak-evidence modality is still a real business risk: it is the one your best-informed members will ask you about.

Three things this calculator can't model

1. Health-department cost. Cold plunge and any shared water feature fall under public pool/spa code — permits, daily chemistry logs, CPO certification. Call your AHJ before you order.

2. Throughput ceilings. A float pod serves one person for 60–120 minutes. A sauna serves six for fifteen. Two modalities with the same payback here can have wildly different revenue ceilings.

3. Whether anyone actually shows up. Every model here assumes you can fill the sessions. That's a marketing question, not an equipment question.