Membership, Class Pack, or Drop-In: Pricing Models for Studios

Pricing structure is the most consequential decision a studio owner makes, and it is usually made by copying the studio down the street. Unlimited or pack, contract or month-to-month, one tier or four: each choice shapes attendance, capacity, cash flow, and retention in ways that compound. The owners who think about it clearly treat pricing not as a number to land but as a system that sorts every prospect into the plan that fits how they actually behave.

The Three Products Hiding in Your Price Card

A studio is really selling to three different people. The committed member wants fitness to be a routine and will happily pay for unlimited access. The deciding prospect is testing whether this fits their life and prefers the lower commitment of a class pack. The curious walk-in just wants to try one class. A price card with only an unlimited plan converts the committed and loses the other two; a card with only drop-ins monetizes nobody well. The portfolio exists because the customers are not one customer.

Mindbody's operational data is consistent on the value gap: unlimited members attend roughly 2.5 times more often and retain meaningfully longer than per-class buyers. That makes the unlimited member the most valuable head in the building, which is why the whole price card should be engineered to move committed prospects toward it. The way you find out who is committed before they buy is to ask, and a readiness and goals recommender captures exactly that, so your front desk steers each prospect to the tier that fits rather than guessing.

Why the Drop-In Price Is the Most Important Number

Owners obsess over the unlimited price and ignore the drop-in price, which is backwards. The drop-in is the anchor every other plan is judged against. A common structure puts the drop-in at $20 to $35, a class pack landing around $15 to $25 per visit, and an unlimited plan whose effective per-visit cost falls below $10 for a frequent attendee. Set the drop-in too low and the unlimited plan loses its reason to exist; set it high and commitment sells itself because the math obviously favors the plan.

This is also where capacity enters the pricing decision. An unlimited plan concentrates demand on peak slots, and if your room cannot absorb it, you have sold access you cannot deliver. Class packs spread demand and carry less capacity risk, which can make them the smarter core product for a studio with tight peak hours. The interplay between pricing and the physical schedule is the whole subject of class utilization and capacity, and you cannot set a membership model responsibly without it.

Tiering, Contracts, and the Trial Funnel

Three tiers is the workhorse: an entry tier to capture price-sensitive prospects, a core unlimited tier where most members should land, and a premium tier with personal training credits or priority booking. The job of tiering is to make the core plan the obvious choice, not to present a menu that stalls the prospect. More than four tiers creates decision paralysis and dilutes the core offer. On billing, month-to-month has become the boutique norm because it forces the studio to earn each renewal, while contracts suit convenience-led big-box models that compete on price and predictability rather than experience.

The trial offer sits at the top of the whole funnel. A free first class, a discounted intro week, or a short trial pack converts browsing into attendance, but only if it ends with a clear ask and a reason to commit. IHRSA and Mindbody operators measure the intro offer by trial-to-member conversion, not by how many trials they hand out. Every membership decision ultimately feeds back into retention, because the plan a member chooses shapes how long they stay, which is the link explored in member retention economics.

Founding-Member Pricing and the Pre-Sale Window

A model decision specific to new and relocating studios is the founding-member offer, a discounted lifetime or long-term rate sold during the pre-opening window in exchange for early commitment. Done well, it solves two problems at once: it generates cash before the doors open, when build-out costs are highest, and it seeds the studio with a committed core who fill early classes and create the social proof that converts later prospects. IHRSA and Mindbody commentary on studio launches consistently treat the pre-sale as a critical phase, because an empty studio in month one is far harder to grow than one that opens with a base.

The discipline is to cap the founding cohort and end the offer on a real date, because a permanent founding rate becomes a permanent discount that erodes the price card it was meant to anchor. The math has to be deliberate: a founding rate locked too low forever can cap the studio's revenue ceiling years later, when those members are still paying an opening-week price against current costs. The right structure is a genuinely limited window and a genuinely limited number, framed as a one-time launch decision rather than a standing plan, so the cash and the committed base are won without mortgaging the long-term pricing.

Annual Prepay Versus Monthly: A Cash-Flow Decision in Disguise

Offering an annual prepaid plan alongside monthly billing is less a pricing choice than a cash-flow and retention one. A member who pays a year up front, usually at a modest discount to twelve monthly payments, hands the studio working capital today and is mechanically locked into a full year of tenure, which lifts measured retention for that cohort. For a studio funding equipment or expansion from operations, that prepaid cash can be the difference between growing now and waiting, which is why many operators actively steer committed members toward the annual option.

The trade-offs are real and worth weighing. The prepay discount lowers revenue per member, and a member who prepays and then stops attending may not renew, so the locked year can mask a satisfaction problem that surfaces all at once at renewal. The decision framework is to use annual prepay where cash is the binding constraint and the member is genuinely committed, while keeping month-to-month as the default for newer members whose retention is unproven. The interaction with the contract-versus-monthly question is direct, because a prepaid year is a soft contract, and the same earn-the-renewal logic still applies the moment the year ends.

Raising Prices Without Triggering a Churn Wave

Every membership model eventually faces a price increase as costs rise, and how it is handled separates a routine adjustment from a cancellation event. IHRSA and IBISWorld both note the rising labor and occupancy costs that have pressured fitness operators in recent years, which makes periodic increases unavoidable for most studios. The recurring mistake is a surprise across-the-board hike that lands in a member's inbox with no warning, which reads as a takeaway and gives even satisfied members a reason to reconsider, especially the long-tenured ones who remember an older, lower rate.

The proven approach is to grandfather existing loyal members at their current rate while raising prices for new joins, or to give a long runway and a clear reason tied to genuine added value. Grandfathering rewards tenure, which is exactly the behavior the studio wants more of, and it lets new-member pricing rise to current costs without punishing the base that drives word of mouth. The principle connects straight to lifetime value: a small price increase that triggers a churn wave can destroy far more lifetime revenue than it adds, while a well-sequenced one protects both the rate and the relationship.

Corporate, Family, and Group Plans as Volume Models

Beyond the individual price card sits a model many studios overlook: group plans that acquire members in batches rather than one at a time. Corporate wellness arrangements, where an employer subsidizes or sponsors memberships, and family or household plans both trade a per-member discount for volume and, crucially, for retention, because members who join alongside colleagues or family have built-in accountability partners that make leaving harder. The social tie is the asset; a member whose spouse or coworker also attends faces a higher switching cost than a solo joiner.

The decision framework is to treat these as volume-and-retention plays, not just discounts. A corporate deal that fills off-peak daytime capacity with sponsored members is far more valuable than one that crowds an already-full evening peak, which ties the model choice straight back to class utilization and capacity. Family plans similarly work best when priced to add a household member at a marginal rate the studio can absorb, capturing the retention benefit of the shared routine without giving away the core membership value. Group models are where the membership structure stops being purely individual and starts using social ties as a retention mechanism.

Pricing for the Member You Want to Keep

The membership model is not just an acquisition tool, it is a retention and lifetime-value tool. An unlimited member who builds a habit and joins the community is worth far more over time than a string of drop-ins, which is the compounding logic detailed in member lifetime value. The right structure pays off twice: it converts more prospects at the door and produces members who stay long enough to become genuinely profitable.

Owners benchmarking their pricing against the field can stand up a structured lead generation and benchmarking setup for wellness businesses to capture prospects and qualify them by goal and budget in one motion. The dollar-level rate benchmarks that sit underneath these model choices are laid out in the existing wellness pricing guide, which pairs naturally with this structural view: the guide tells you what to charge, this post tells you how to package it.