How To Price Your Fitness Services
Hint: You Should Probably Be Charging a Whole Lot More
Unfortunately, 99% of gym owners are not charging the prices they should be. Usually it comes down to the limiting belief that they don’t think they can or should be charging more.
But Gym Owners, you are changing lives and changing the world with your services– you should be charging prices that reflect that. The goal is by the time you finish reading today, you know how to price your product, and determine the value of your service.
PRICE AND PERCEIVED VALUE
First, we need to understand why a higher pricing strategy is better for you AND the client.
The truth is you are in the business of getting results, so you need to do everything you can to set your client up for success. The lower your price, the lower your client’s investment is in the outcome.
When your customer has less of an investment stake in their results, they care less, they don’t work as hard (no matter how hard you try to coach them) and ultimately leave unhappy.
We often hear “Why do personal trainers charge so much?” The answer is because they have years of expertise, work long hours to get you results, and most importantly clients who pay, pay attention.
PRICING
So now you’re probably wondering what DO I charge for clients for personal training, semi private sessions, group sessions, etc?
We have found, after implementing price changes in thousands of gyms, that there is a sweet spot for each level of service. Before we break down the prices, you need to understand exactly what you’re charging for.
NUMBER OF SESSIONS TO OFFER
Most gyms offer a level of service that includes unlimited sessions. Simply put, that’s killing their business– more is not always better.
This goes back to the clients perception of their investment. Think of things that you get unlimited access to vs exclusive access to. Would you value a steak from Golden Corral more than a steak from Ruth’s Chris?
The human brain believes that the more access we have to something the less valuable it is.
So instead you should be offering 3 sessions per week.
Your service will now be perceived as more valuable and your capacity for members has increased.
LENGTH OF SESSIONS
The length of the session is also important in knowing how to price your services and increase your profit. Most gyms run 60 minute sessions back to back or with a 15 minute break.
Ultimately this is exhausting and limits your capacity.
Instead, offering 45, or even 30 minute sessions allows you to fit more sessions into a shorter amount of time. Which means more available capacity and higher profit margins.
NUMBER OF SESSIONS
Now let’s talk about how many sessions you should run per day. Typically we see gyms with 7 or 8 sessions a day. You still have to pay the trainer the same, even if those sessions aren’t full. That can turn into a huge waste of money.
Just decreasing the number of sessions you offer to 5, you decrease your payroll from 160
to 110 sessions per month. If you cut down to 4 per day, we’re talking 80-90 sessions to pay for.
This increases profitability by decreasing costs—even though there’s no change in the
membership base.
PRICING YOUR SERVICES
Now that you know what you’re charging FOR we can talk about exactly how to price your product.
Let’s start with how to price large group training sessions. For large group, 16 or more people per class, you’re going to want to charge $49 per week.
Next, semi-private training sessions ,with up to 6 members per session, should be priced at $125 per week.
And finally personal training sessions should be at least $199 per week.
BILLING CYCLES
It’s time to break out of the belief that you have to charge on a monthly basis. Most people will agree to pay the same price regardless of how often you bill.
Switching from monthly to weekly means that 4 months out of the year, you bill 5 times. In other words, if you switch to a weekly, bi-monthly, or 28 day billing cycle, you get an 8% increase in revenue.
That’s more money in your pocket with zero extra customer acquisition, tough conversations, or upsells.
BEFORE YOU GO…
If analytics, profit, revenue, and stats talk overwhelms you- you’re not alone. Gym Management Software built specifically for Gym Owners can make it easy to track your data AND know what it means. Grow your gym with data using GymDash.
