Is a squash club membership worth it?
Work out your cost per game, and how many games it takes to beat paying per court.
In most of the country this is an open question. In Finchley and Barnet it is close to academic, because five of the six local venues are members-only and the nearest pay-and-play squash of any size is Southgate. Still worth knowing what you are paying per game.
Most North London squash is members-only, so the real question is not whether membership is cheap but whether you will play often enough to beat the pay-and-play alternative — which for Barnet means travelling to Southgate.
Where the default numbers come from
The £235 default is a full adult squash membership at The Temple Fortune Club in NW11, the only local squash fee published openly as of September 2026. The £12 pay-and-play default is a typical UK club court fee for a 45-minute peak slot — check the actual rate at whichever venue you would use, because leisure-centre and private-club pricing diverge sharply.
Forty-four weeks rather than fifty-two is deliberate. Most people lose eight weeks a year to holidays, illness, work and a partner who cancels. Putting 52 in the box produces a flattering number you will not hit.
The honest reading of the result
Two games a week, most of the year. Membership wins comfortably and it is not close. At 88 games a year, £235 works out under £3 a game, which no pay-and-play venue in London will match.
Once a week. Still usually favours membership, but the margin narrows enough that other factors decide it — whether the club has a ladder you would actually use, whether you can get a court at the time you want, whether you like the people.
Once a fortnight or less. The arithmetic turns against you, and the honest answer is that a members-only club is the wrong structure for how you play. This is the point at which padel becomes the more sensible spend locally: pay per session, no annual commitment, nothing wasted in the months you do not play.
What the fee buys beyond court time
The calculator compares court access, which understates membership. At the local clubs the fee also covers league entry, ladder play, use of the gym or bar where the club has one, and — the part that matters most for anyone new to the area — a fixed pool of opponents at roughly your standard. Finding a regular squash opponent is harder than finding a court.
Against that, membership is a sunk cost from January. If your playing pattern is seasonal, you are paying through the months you do not use it.
Related tools
For padel, the equivalent split works differently because the court fee is shared four ways rather than two — use the padel cost calculator.
Local fees and access rules
Court counts, access rules and published membership prices for all six North London squash venues are on the squash courts page, each with the source it came from and the date it was last checked.