Head to head
Two Gulf islands on one weather calendar, which leaves the money and the last leg of the journey to decide it.
Updated 2026-10-14 · 1 comparison includes Koh Samui
Koh Samui is cheaper by the month and Koh Phangan is cheaper by the week and by the private hour, so the answer depends on how long you are staying rather than which island is cheap. Both run on the same weather calendar, driest January to April and wettest roughly October to December, so the season settles nothing here and the last leg of the journey settles a lot: Samui has an airport and Koh Phangan has a ferry. These are also the two best documented regions on this site, and that is worth more than either verdict.
Decide on conditions
You are staying a month, which costs less here at both ends of the range than anything on Koh Phangan
You want to land and train the same day, because this is the island with the airport
You want something besides Muay Thai in the week, which one camp here adds with boxing and Brazilian jiu jitsu
You have never trained before, and all 3 camps here say in writing that beginners are welcome
You are staying a week or two rather than a month, which is cheaper here through the middle of the range
You want private sessions, which start 300 baht an hour below anything on Samui
You want the bill settled before you choose, because 3 of the 4 camps here charge the same 10,000 baht a month
You are coming to stay a while, which is what all 4 camps here read as being built for
What each one costs
Camp by camp
The detail
The month and the week pull in opposite directions, which is why asking which island is cheaper has no answer. A month of unlimited training runs 7,500 to 9,600 baht across the 3 Koh Samui camps listed here and 8,800 to 10,000 across the 4 on Koh Phangan, so Samui is cheaper by the month at both ends of the range. A week runs 2,500 to 3,500 on Samui against 3,000 to 3,300 on Koh Phangan, which puts the single cheapest week on Samui and the cheaper typical week on Phangan. Privates are the plainest gap of all: every Samui camp charges exactly 1,000 baht an hour and Koh Phangan starts 300 baht below that.
Both islands tell you what things cost, and almost nowhere else in Thailand does. Every camp on both islands publishes a group rate, a week, a month and a private, and no other region on this site with more than one camp in it manages that; Bangkok manages it at 2 camps of 11. Koh Phangan goes further and is close to uniform: 3 of its 4 camps charge the same 10,000 baht a month and all 4 run exactly two sessions a day. Samui spreads 2,100 baht between its cheapest month and its dearest, and the two Samui camps that publish a timetable run two sessions a day and four, so on Samui the camp you pick still decides something.
Season is the one thing that does not separate these two. Both sit on the Southern Gulf calendar, driest January to April and wettest roughly October to December, so a badly timed trip to one island is a badly timed trip to the other, and the usual advice to swap coasts does not apply between them. What separates them is the last leg. Samui has an airport and Koh Phangan does not, so every arrival on Phangan finishes with an open water crossing that rough weather cancels. In the wet months that is the difference between landing and training on the same day and losing a day at each end of the trip.
Koh Samui sits on the floor of what this site will compare. Three camps is the fewest we will write a comparison off, one of those three does not say whether it has rooms, and across all 7 camps on both islands exactly one publishes a nightly rate. The training prices on both islands are unusually solid and the cost of a bed is not, so neither island can be costed end to end from what the camps themselves publish.
Koh Samui
Chaweng, Koh Samui, mid-size camp
The main established training option on Koh Samui, running a mixed programme with fitness classes alongside Muay Thai. Works well for a training-and-holiday split, or for someone travelling with a partner who is not training.
Muay Thai / Boxing / BJJ
From the camp's own site,2026-09-02Lamai, Koh Samui, mid-size camp
Four public classes a day, two of them labelled beginner, and beds on the gym's own plot rather than farmed out to partner hotels. The rooms are priced by the night and published, which almost no camp in Thailand bothers to do. Fighter classes run but are not open to drop-ins, so the public timetable is the beginner and advanced sessions, six days a week. The gym is mid-move to a second site three and a half kilometres away and its own pages disagree about which address the classes run at, so confirm before booking. It also answers the two questions most camps dodge: the trainers have basic English with the fluent English at the desk, and there are no women-only classes but women train in every session.
Muay Thai
From the camp's own site,2026-10-14Koh Samui, small camp
Two group sessions a day, Monday to Saturday, priced in two columns so training once a day costs a good deal less than training twice. Every tier from one week to one month is published in both columns, which makes it unusually easy to work out what a stay costs before arriving. Privates run in the gap between the two group classes rather than alongside them, so they need booking ahead. Nothing on the site mentions rooms, which makes accommodation here unknown rather than absent. The gym names its founder, a former champion, and dates itself to 2014.
Muay Thai
From the camp's own site,2026-10-14Koh Phangan
Nai Wok, Koh Phangan, small camp
Koh Phangan camp with a strong long-stay and wellness crossover crowd. Relaxed pace and a small group size. Progress depends heavily on who else happens to be on the island that month, which cuts both ways.
Muay Thai
From the camp's own site,2026-09-02Woktum, Koh Phangan, mid-size camp
A multi-discipline academy at Woktum running two Muay Thai sessions a day, with a separate all-access membership covering the other classes, the ice bath and the open gym. If Muay Thai is all you want, the Muay Thai pass is the cheaper way in and the membership is not worth the gap. Three bungalows sit on the gym grounds without a published rate. It also sells a six month membership that includes documents for a visa application, which says plainly who it is built for.
Muay Thai / Boxing / Kickboxing
From the camp's own site,2026-10-14Koh Phangan, small camp
Two two-hour group sessions a day, priced in two columns so one a day costs less than two. Accommodation is on the gym's own plot and sold by the week or the month rather than the night, starting with the option of sleeping in the gym itself, which is as cheap as training in Thailand gets. A private with the head coach costs roughly three times a session with a trainer, which tells you how the place is organised before you arrive.
Muay Thai
From the camp's own site,2026-10-147 answers