Consultancy for fitness studios and health clubs

Pricing work starts when the structure set at launch has never been tested against what members actually do. Pricing & Profitability finds what each class, pack and membership earns before anyone decides what it should cost.

Three signals say the work is due: few people moving from an introductory offer to paid visits, members using their membership far more or less than it was priced for, and a sold-out evening class charged the same as a quiet early one. Early return visits are another, and membership retention and rebooking covers what to watch. How each model should then be priced, and how a change is made, belongs to the pricing work itself.

Instructor cost and the shape of the timetable sit with Operational Excellence: who teaches what, when, on which pay structure, and which classes earn their slot.

A fixed payment per class leaves the studio carrying the risk of low attendance when the class runs. The instructor's exposure depends on the agreed cancellation terms and whether any pay varies with attendance. Hourly pay with guaranteed hours adds a further commitment, since the studio pays for the agreed hours whether or not classes fill them, in exchange for more say over the instructor's week. A salary extends both the commitment and the say. A class running well below capacity can be moved, merged, given to a different instructor, or kept on purpose because its members go on to book other classes. Attendance alone cannot choose between those. Put realised revenue and direct cost beside attendance for the class, compare it with similar slots, and where possible trial one change at a time. Follow the class's members into their later bookings before calling it a feeder, and leave the review long enough to see past seasonal swings. Before changing who teaches a class, check how many of its regulars come only to that instructor.

Whether to open a second studio or club is a Commercial Strategy question before it is a property question: what the first site earns without the founder on the floor, and whether that can carry another lease.

The fitness-specific part is the instructor bench. A second site needs its own instructors and its own timetable, and a timetable that fills at one address may not fill at another. Franchising is the other route, trading capital against control, and what a fitness brand gives up by franchising or owning sets out both sides.

A premium studio has to be clear about what it offers that the next studio does not, and that work starts in Brand Intelligence, which reads the category and the competition before a position is chosen.

The same 2026 report found independents made up a greater share of private-sector club closures than chains, 58.2 per cent against 41.8 per cent, and the write-up drew from this the importance of clear differentiation for independents. The write-up does not state the period those closure shares cover, and they are shares of closures, not closure rates. What they mean for one studio depends on its own street. Comparing competitors' homepages can reveal promises absent from the pages reviewed, as what ten London reformer studios' homepages leave out illustrates. An omitted promise only becomes a position once members confirm they want it, so ask current members which differences they use and would pay to keep.

Some decisions arrive with a deadline: a landlord's terms, an investor's offer, a partnership proposal, a lead instructor resigning. Strategic Counsel is senior judgement on calls like these when they cannot wait for a full engagement.

The useful version is specific. A proposed lease gets tested against the cash needed through a slow opening. A lead instructor's departure gets tested against who can cover her classes and what those classes contribute. A fast view still depends on the numbers behind the decision being shared.