Overdue gym memberships: when to expire, when to cancel

A membership paid up to the 15th covers the 15th. From the 16th, a member who has not paid is no longer a paying member, and the simplest honest thing is for your records to say so.

A grace period sounds kind, but it moves the deadline without telling anyone. Members learn that the real due date is a week later than the one they were given, staff have to remember who is inside the grace window, and the list of paid-up members stops being true. Most unpaid days at a gym are not a decision by the member — they are a date nobody noticed.

Expiry is not a penalty. It is a status: nothing is charged and nothing is deleted. It only stops your lists — and, if you run fingerprint readers, your door — from treating an unpaid member as paid. In Metric the due-date reminder says it plainly: the membership expires today, please pay today to stay active.

An expired member has not left. In Metric they sit on the Expired list with the number of days since their due date, and what they owe for the month still counts in your revenue report — the gap between what members owe and what you have collected is exactly the money still out on the floor. The guide to billed and collected revenue explains how to read it.

By now the member has had their reminders, so another text rarely changes anything. This is the time for a person: a word at the desk or a phone call finds out what a message cannot — that they are travelling, injured, short until pay day, or unhappy with something you can fix. The renewal reminder guide covers the messages that come before.

When an expired member pays, Metric starts their new period on the day they pay. A monthly member who was due on 15 Nov and pays on 20 Nov is next due on 20 Dec.

Paying early works the other way: the member keeps their due date. A monthly member due on 15 Nov who pays early, on 12 Nov, is still next due on 15 Dec — paying ahead never costs them days.

The alternative — dating the new period from the missed due date — charges the member for days they could not use the gym, and it usually ends in an argument at the desk. Starting from the payment day keeps the rule simple to explain: you pay for the month you get.

The trade-off is real and worth knowing: the days a membership sat expired are not billed to anyone. That is one more reason to follow up early rather than late. When you record a payment, enter the date the member actually paid, so their next due date is right.

Two weeks is long enough to cover a trip, an illness or a late pay day, and short enough that your renewal lists stop filling with people who have already left. In Metric, a membership still unpaid 14 days after its due date is cancelled automatically: the member drops out of the renewal lists and out of what members owe each month, so your figures describe the gym you actually have.

Cancelling is not deleting. The member’s record, payments and message history stay. If they come back and pay, the same record is reactivated and they get a welcome-back SMS with their new due date. If you run fingerprint readers, a cancelled member is blocked at the door, and a returning member walks back in without enrolling their finger again.

• A membership is paid through its due date, and no further.
• Expire it the day after — no grace period.
• The due-date reminder says it expires today.
• After expiry, a person follows up — not another text.
• A late payer’s new period starts on the day they pay.
• Cancel after 14 days unpaid, and keep the record.
• A returning member is reactivated, not registered again.