Even Budget Gyms Make Their Money on the Top Tier

The article · 5 min read

How we sourced this. Every number below links to its source. Company figures come from annual reports and SEC filings. Where a figure comes from a broker report, a vendor survey or research outside fitness, we say so.

The market is pulling apart, and the middle needs a reason

In Germany, studio prices already split by type. The average gross membership in 2025 was €48.55 a month. Chains averaged €40.54, single studios €59.24 and special-interest studios €80.02.¹ Across Europe, the market grew to 75.5 million members and revenue rose 9.1% in 2025.²

In the US, the low-price end has grown fastest: Planet Fitness alone had 20.8 million members at the end of 2025.⁴

That does not mean the middle is dead. A UK market analyst estimated that around 70% of UK sites are mid-market and called the “squeeze” over-exaggerated.³ What it does mean: a mid-priced studio needs a clear reason to cost more than the budget gym down the road. A premium tier is one of the clearest ways to give it one.

Even budget gyms make their money on the top tier

The best public evidence on tiers comes from the budget chains themselves. At Planet Fitness, 66.5% of recurring-billing members pay for Black Card, the top tier, and average dues rose from $17.63 in 2021 to $19.51 in 2025.⁴ In November 2025 the company announced it would raise Black Card to $29.99 after the 2026 peak joining season.⁵

At Basic-Fit, about half of new joiners chose a higher tier after the late-2024 price restructure, and average revenue per membership at its own clubs rose 2.8% to €24.91 a month.⁶

If chains built on low prices grow through their top tier, an independent studio with real coaching has more to put in one.

What members actually pay more for

Look at what premium operators sell, and a pattern shows up:

• Life Time earned $3,531 per center membership in 2025, which includes spending in the club, not just dues. Its Signature tier adds small-group training and court time, and its personal training sessions grew 18% to over 220,000 a month.⁷
• Third Space in London charges from £257 to £345 a month, with more than 270 classes a week on average across its clubs, sauna and steam, and recovery tools such as compression boots; there is also an on-site private sports-medicine practice. Personal training is extra, from £85 an hour, and a recovery membership is a separate add-on.⁸
• Equinox Optimize, launched in 2024, costs $3,000 a month on top of a regular membership, with a six-month minimum, and bundles three personal training sessions a week, nutrition and sleep coaching, a monthly massage and biomarker testing.⁹

The common thread is not more square metres. It is more attention from people, recovery, and progress members can see. Community matters too: 67% of members agreed community is the biggest driver of their motivation and accountability (an ABC Fitness survey summarised by Les Mills).¹⁰

How to build your premium tier

Offer three options, and design the middle one for most people. When buyers see three options, the middle one tends to gain share. A 2016 meta-analysis found this effect robust, but its size varied a lot, and it tended to be weaker when options traded price against quality, which is exactly what membership tiers do.¹¹ Don’t rely on a fake “decoy” option to push people up: a 2014 study found the decoy effect usually did not appear once buyers saw or experienced the real options.¹² Every tier should be one you would happily sell.

Fill the top tier with attention, not space. Practical examples for a studio: a monthly check-in with a coach, a reserved small-group slot, access to recovery equipment, priority booking at busy times. These cost little per member and members notice them every week.

Make sure the extras get used. In a classic US study (late-1990s data), members paying over $70 a month averaged 4.3 visits a month, so more than $17 per expected visit, when a 10-visit pass at $10 a visit was available.¹⁶ People buy the intention to train. A premium tier earns its price when it turns that intention into booked sessions, so put the coach check-in and the small-group slot in the calendar, not just on the price list.

Price it against your own base and your market. In Germany, the gap between a typical single studio (€59.24) and a special-interest studio (€80.02) shows the room a clearly different offer can command.¹ The premium has to be visible from the first week, or it becomes a discount problem in reverse.

Stop buying members with discounts

Discounts fill the calendar but bring in weaker members. Research outside fitness is consistent: customers won with a 35% discount were worth about half as much over time as full-price customers,¹³ and customers won with free trials had 59% lower lifetime value.¹⁴ These studies cover newspapers, groceries and digital TV, not gyms, so treat them as a strong analogy. Gyms already lose many members early: in one study of a single gym, 63% of new members stopped before the third month.¹⁵ Discounted joiners make that worse, not better.

A fractional CFO writing for Athletech News put the studio version simply: when intro offers never end, a $16 list price turns into a $12 average seat, and that is a discounting problem, not a marketing one.¹⁷

Your rollout checklist

1. Write down what the premium tier adds in one sentence a member would repeat. If you can’t, it isn’t different enough yet.
2. Keep current members on their price and invite them to upgrade.
3. Schedule the extras (check-ins, small-group slots) in the booking system from day one.
4. End open-ended intro offers. Keep one time-limited trial at most.
5. Track monthly: tier mix, revenue per member, churn by tier, and the share of premium perks actually used. Review after 90 days.

This guide is for gym and studio operators. Figures are from the linked sources, as of October 2026. Spotted something that needs correcting? Tell us and we’ll fix it in public.