Owning a Home Gym: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

This article was updated from it's original version on March 21, 2025

Investing in a home gym was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

It has saved me no money whatsoever, but it has saved me a ton of time and helped me stay on track with my training. It gives me the flexibility to move my training around whenever it needs to be so I can squeeze in my workouts on busy days. And, I never have to wait for equipment!

Costs

At this point, I have more equipment than anyone truly needs. A lot of my stuff are "luxuries" and I'll continue to add to those luxuries as I go. What I write about in this article mostly pertains to what I started with, and how it's benefitted me immensely.

Here are the first purchases I made:

• Half Rack - Fitness Reality - Amazon - Roughly $200 at time of purchase

• Bar and collars - Rogue Bar - $265, clips off Amazon - $15

• Weights - I found a really lucky deal through a friend, so I started with about 625 pounds for ~$700

• Weight tree - Walmart - $60

• Bench - Titan Fitness - $100

• Platform - Built it myself - ~$150 all in

• Fractional plates - Microgainz - $40

Plus some hefty shipping costs on some of these items. In total, it was about $1750 upfront.

After some other upgrades I've made, some excellent Facebook Marketplace scores, and some very generous Christmas gifts from family, I have a gym that carries a value of ~$3000.

I have owned my gym for about 4 years now. So if I use $3000 as my total cost

$3000/48 months = $62.50/month

This is a slightly higher cost than my previous monthly gym membership (~$50/month), so in that sense, I've spent more money, and lost access to some equipment.

Benefits

Only using dollars in my bank account as my method for accounting is an incomplete measure in this instance. So let's examine some of the benefits, and how they contribute to dollars saved when taking a more complete accounting picture.

The benefits of a home gym are many, but chief among them is the time I save. I save somewhere between 40 minutes and an hour each day by not having a commute to the gym. My hourly dollar value more than makes up any gap between home gym cost and gym membership cost. I save on gas, traffic time, and frustration. It's hard to put an exact number on all of these these items besides gas (if I had tracked every fill up over the last four years) but the value of the time saved is immense.

As an added benefit, due to greater time flexibility I no longer have to train in the wee hours of the morning. This means I'm getting 1-2 extra hours of sleep each training day. I don't know the dollar value on that, but the long term health benefits are enormous in their dollar value. It is certainly important to my quality of life, and my being well-rested makes for safer, better training.

Having a newborn at home can make it very challenging to stick to a gym schedule. Having a home gym allows it to happen. Again, pricing this can be tough, but being able to maintain my training schedule instead of losing the mental and physical benefits of training is of enormous value.

I save time while training, too. There are no lines for equipment in my home gym!

As a bonus, you can decide how to decorate the gym and what music gets played - which adds another element of fun. It's might not have a dollars benefit, but it certainly adds value to the experience.

Plus, it's always nice being the strongest guy in the gym!

Other variables

One of the more-personal factors when considering a home gym is the element of community. For some of us, the gym is a social environment. It's a place where we make and maintain friendships. It's a place where find great support. This can be difficult to replicate in a home-gym environment, so for some this will feel like a huge sacrifice of owning a home gym. It can kill the good vibes of going to the gym by making you feel alone. If this is a big problem, you can, you know, invite friends over to your gym.... but probably don't charge them for a guest pass.

For others of us, not having others at the gym is a huge benefit. We are there for a specific goal, and we socialize in other settings. It helps us focus and enjoy the session. Or, if you are someone with a family, the home gym can become an amazing place to bond with your spouse or children. So in that sense, it can be a place of greater community.

This aspect of your decision will be very personal. For me, it's never bothered me working out alone. Maybe one day I'll crave being around more people, but I get plenty of time around people at work all day and don't find myself needing to fill more time with interaction. I get a much bigger boost out of being able to set my schedule and get some time to myself working on a goal.

Conclusion

I'd highly recommend owning a home gym to anyone who is thinking about it. It has an initial steep price, but over time it builds value through time saved, gas money saved, convenience, and creating consistency with a flexible schedule. It might not match your current social needs, but the time you save might allow you to maintain friendships in other ways and places.