Is it cheaper to keep golf club members or recruit new ones?

Keeping a golf club member is usually cheaper than recruiting a new one, but not by the “five to 25 times” often quoted. On our illustrative 770-member club at the CMAA median attrition of 4.3%, saving a wavering member costs about US$1,875 against about US$3,200 to recruit one: 1.7 times. A waiting list and an initiation fee can flip it.

At a glance

• The question in members’ words: “is it cheaper to keep my members or find new ones?” Answer it per member, in dollars, not with a slogan.
• The base inputs: the Club Management Association of America (CMAA) 2022 Finance and Operations Report (2021 data, 440 clubs) gives golf and country clubs an average of 770 members, median attrition of 4.3% and median full family dues of US$8,850.
• The asset: the Save-or-Replace Grid below, nine cells of recruit cost against save cost. Only one of the nine reaches the 5x end of the popular rule; four favour recruiting.
• The exception: 48% of the UK members’ golf clubs in the Hillier Hopkins 2024/25 survey had a waiting list. A club with a queue and a joining fee replaces leavers cheaply.
• What to do first: price your own two numbers, cost per join and cost per save, before you fund either a retention programme or a recruitment campaign.

Is it cheaper to keep golf club members or recruit new ones?

It depends on two numbers every golf club can work out and almost none do: the all-in cost of one new member, and the all-in cost of one saved member. Divide the first by the second. Above 1, keeping is cheaper; below 1, recruiting is. The Save-or-Replace Grid runs that division across three assumption bands for each side. The inputs are built in the two sections below and are labelled assumptions, not measured data. Replace them with your own.

The quotable version: a golf club should keep a member when its cost per join divided by its cost per save is above 1, and the mid-case ratio on our model is 1.7, not 5. The grid also shows what moves the answer most. A club that cannot save more than one wavering member in ten should put its effort into recruiting.

What does it cost a golf club to recruit one new member?

The cost of one new golf club member is everything spent to produce that join, divided by joins. Clubs usually count only the advertising and miss the membership director’s hours and the first-year discount. Our three bands, all assumptions:

Director hours are the line clubs underestimate: a join is rarely one tour. Our page on how many enquiries, tours and proposals a country club needs each week builds that funnel stage by stage, so this page does not repeat it.

What does it cost to keep a golf club member who is about to leave?

The cost of saving one golf club member is the cost of every at-risk conversation divided by the members who actually stay. You will talk to people who were never going to leave, and to people who leave anyway, so the save rate matters more than the cost of any single call. Our assumptions:

• Time per at-risk member: 1.5 hours of general manager or director time to find, call and follow up, at US$50 loaded: US$75.
• Concession offered, averaged across everyone contacted: US$300 (a category switch, a dues freeze, a lesson package).
• Cost per at-risk member contacted: US$375.
• Save rate: 30% / 20% / 10% of those contacted stay. So the cost per save is US$375 ÷ 0.30 = US$1,250, ÷ 0.20 = US$1,875, or ÷ 0.10 = US$3,750.

No club body publishes a save rate, and we have not found one with a disclosed method; that is why it is the widest band here. A save is also not permanent. Someone kept by a dues freeze this year may leave next year, so record whether saved members renew a second time before you trust your own save rate.

Does the “five to 25 times cheaper to keep a customer” rule hold for golf clubs?

Not as a rule of thumb. The line is often cited from a 2014 Harvard Business Review article by Amy Gallo, which says acquiring a new customer is “anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive” than retaining an existing one, “depending on which study you believe, and what industry you’re in”. The article names no single study behind the range. That qualifier is the point: it is a range across industries, not a golf figure. On the Save-or-Replace Grid, the 5x end appears in one cell of nine, and only when recruiting is expensive and saving works well.

Golf clubs differ from the businesses behind that line in two ways. A new member often pays an initiation fee, which a saved member does not, so recruiting can partly fund itself. And attrition is already low: at a 4.3% median, most members are not leaving, so a retention programme spends most of its time on people who would have stayed. The retention case at a golf club rests on the save rate, not on a slogan.

When is recruiting cheaper than keeping a golf club member?

Recruiting is cheaper when a club has a queue and charges to join. Hillier Hopkins’ 2024/25 survey of 69 UK members’ golf clubs found 48% had a waiting list, averaging 53 people, and 72% charged a joining fee averaging £1,830. In the US, the National Golf Foundation reports that member rosters and waiting lists at many popular private clubs have swelled; it describes that as operator and anecdotal feedback rather than a count.

We call this the waiting-list exception: if your waiting list covers a full year of leavers and you charge a joining fee, replacing a golf club member costs less than saving one. Members who have already resigned are a third option between the two, covered in how to win back lapsed club members.

How many members does my club need to save or replace each year?

The number of members a golf club must save or replace each year is members multiplied by annual attrition. At the CMAA average of 770 members and the 4.3% median attrition, that is 33 leavers a year. In the UK, the Hillier Hopkins members’ clubs averaged 63 leavers and 75 joiners in 2024, and 22% of those clubs had more leavers than joiners.

Run the mid case on that 770-member club. Contact twice as many at-risk members as you expect to leave (66 people) at US$375 each: US$24,750. At a 20% save rate that keeps about 13 members (13.2), which would have cost about US$42,240 to replace at US$3,200 each. The programme saves roughly US$17,500 a year, and the club still has to recruit about 20 new members. Retention reduces the recruiting target; it never removes it.

What is a saved golf club member worth this year?

A saved golf club member is worth at least one more year of dues plus what they spend in the club. At the CMAA median full family dues of US$8,850, one save protects more than four times its mid-band cost in dues alone. CMAA also reports that membership dues were 49.5% of operating revenue across all responding clubs, with food, beverage and social events at 24.7%, so a member’s spend in the clubhouse is real money too. That is a one-year view only. The full multi-year calculation, with churn, margin and a horizon cap, is a separate method; our golf club lead generation guide for Australia shows how membership sits beside corporate days and function hire in one club’s revenue.

What does running a retention programme yourself cost?

A do-it-yourself golf club retention programme needs three things: a list of at-risk members (lapsed bookings, unpaid accounts, falling round counts), someone to call them, and a record of who stayed. At 66 conversations and 1.5 hours each, the mid case is about 100 hours a year of senior staff time, concentrated in the weeks before renewals, when the same people are busiest. The tooling is a spreadsheet and a phone. What breaks is consistency: calls slip, nobody records the outcome, and the save rate becomes a guess.

Recruiting has the same failure mode at larger volume. If enquiries wait for a weekday office, the cost per join rises before any advertising changes; see how fast a club should answer a membership enquiry. For the US market, our comparison of lead generation agencies for US golf clubs sets out who does the recruiting side and how each one charges.

Frequently asked questions

Is it really five times cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new one?

Not as a fixed rule. The figure is often cited from a 2014 Harvard Business Review article by Amy Gallo, which says acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining one, depending on the study and the industry. On our illustrative golf club model the mid-case ratio is 1.7, and recruiting is cheaper in four of nine cases.

What is a normal attrition rate for a golf club?

The CMAA 2022 Finance and Operations Report executive summary gives a median member attrition rate of 4.3% for golf and country clubs, based on 2021 data from 440 responding clubs of all types. It is one year of data from a survey of US clubs, so treat it as a reference point rather than a target.

How much does it cost to recruit a new golf club member?

No golf body publishes a cost per join with a disclosed method. On our labelled assumptions it runs from about US$1,000 to US$6,500, counting advertising, the membership director’s time and any joining incentive. Most clubs undercount it by leaving out staff hours and waived fees.

Should a golf club with a waiting list bother with retention?

Less than a club without one. If the queue covers a full year of leavers and new members pay a joining fee, replacing a leaver costs little. Spend retention effort on members whose clubhouse spend, family membership or corporate connections would be hard to replace.

Which members should a golf club try to save first?

Members whose reason for leaving is fixable: a fee they could cover in a different category, a tee-time access complaint, a life change that suits a flexible membership. Members leaving because they moved away or stopped playing are rarely saved, and calling them lowers your save rate.