A $15 gym membership works because almost none of the money depends on any one member walking through the door. Planet Fitness closed 2025 with approximately 20.8 million members across 2,896 clubs, and its own annual report concedes that a portion of that base does not regularly use the clubs.
That single sentence, buried in a risk disclosure, explains more about the economics of commercial fitness than any marketing campaign. The industry's two dominant models — high-volume value clubs and premium athletic clubs — solve the same problem in opposite directions, and both are documented in filings anyone can read.
How does a $15 membership turn a profit?
Volume, and a cost structure that barely moves when a member shows up. A club is largely a fixed-cost box: a lease, equipment, utilities and a staffing floor. Planet Fitness reported $5.3 billion in system-wide sales for 2025 across its 2,896 locations — roughly $1.8 million per club per year by simple division of the filing's own figures.
The company sells the Classic Card starting at $15 per month to new members and the PF Black Card at $24.99 per month for new members, according to its 2025 annual report. At those prices, a club needs thousands of members to clear that average, which only works if the building is never asked to serve all of them at once.
The filing is candid about the trade-off. It states that "a portion of our member base does not regularly use our clubs and may be more likely to cancel their memberships," and that members "may cancel their memberships at any time after giving proper notification." Low usage is not a secret advantage the company hides; it is a disclosed risk, because the same members who rarely attend are the ones most likely to leave.
What does franchising change about the business?
It separates the brand's revenue from the club's revenue almost entirely. Of Planet Fitness's 2,896 clubs at the end of 2025, 2,604 were franchisee-owned and 292 were corporate-owned. Franchisee clubs generated $4.7 billion of the $5.3 billion in system-wide sales, while corporate-owned stores produced $552.2 million.
The parent company's own reported revenue for 2025 was $1.3 billion — roughly a quarter of what the system collected from members. The gap is the franchise structure working as designed. The filing describes a current 7% royalty rate, with the average rate across the system at 6.7%, alongside revenue from equipment sales into franchise locations.
For readers trying to make sense of gym behavior, that structure matters. The entity setting the brand's pricing and marketing strategy is not usually the entity paying the rent on the club down the street. Franchisees carry the local lease, payroll and equipment replacement; the franchisor's economics improve mainly when the store count and the system-wide sales base grow.
Why do premium clubs collect so much more per member?
Because they sell attendance rather than optionality. Life Time Group Holdings reported average revenue per center membership of $3,531 in 2025, up from $3,160 in 2024 and $2,810 in 2023, across 189 athletic country club destinations in 31 U.S. states and one Canadian province.
Life Time's 2025 annual report counts nearly 873,000 memberships representing approximately 1.6 million individual members, and says membership dues and enrollment fees rose to over 72% of total center revenue for the year. It also reports more than 122 million total visits to its clubs in 2025, an average of 149 visits per membership — close to three a week.
That is the inversion. The value operator is designed around a large member base with uneven attendance; the premium operator is designed around a smaller base that shows up often enough to justify a far higher price. Neither model is presented here as better training; they are different answers to the question of what a member is paying for.
| Metric (fiscal year 2025) | Planet Fitness | Life Time Group Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| Locations | 2,896 clubs (2,604 franchisee-owned) | 189 centers |
| Members / memberships | ~20.8 million members | ~873,000 memberships (~1.6 million members) |
| Headline price | Classic Card from $15/month; Black Card $24.99/month, new members | Average revenue per center membership: $3,531 for the year |
| Reported scale | $1.3 billion company revenue; $5.3 billion system-wide sales | Dues and enrollment fees over 72% of center revenue |
| Cancellation | Any time after proper notification | Any time upon advance notice |
Figures in the table are drawn from each company's 2025 annual report and are not adjusted for differences in how the two companies define a membership.
Who actually staffs the fitness industry?
A workforce that is larger and lower-paid than the sector's premium branding suggests. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 370,100 jobs for fitness trainers and instructors in 2024, with median pay of $46,180 a year, or $22.20 an hour, as of May 2024.
The same BLS occupational profile, last updated in August 2025, projects 12% employment growth from 2024 to 2034 — described as much faster than average — adding about 44,100 positions. Fitness and recreational sports centers employ 55% of these workers, with 14% self-employed and 8% each in civic and social organizations and in educational services.
Those numbers give context to a familiar complaint about front-desk turnover and inconsistent floor coaching at high-volume clubs. A business model built on low monthly prices constrains what a location can spend on labor, and the BLS wage data reflects where most of that labor sits.
Can you cancel a gym membership whenever you want?
Under both companies' stated terms, yes, with notice — but there is no single federal rule in force that guarantees an easy cancellation path for subscriptions generally. The Federal Trade Commission announced a final "click-to-cancel" rule on October 16, 2024, requiring sellers to make cancellation as simple as signup.
That rule did not survive. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis struck it down on July 10, 2025, days before its July 14, 2025 effective date, on the procedural ground that the agency had failed to conduct a preliminary analysis of the rule's costs and benefits. The court's decision was about process, not about whether cancellation friction is acceptable.
The FTC has since returned to the question. Its Negative Option Rule page points to a Federal Register notice dated March 13, 2026 — an advance notice of proposed rulemaking seeking public comment on updates to the rule, which the agency frames as helping consumers "avoid recurring payments for products and services they did not intend to order." State contract and auto-renewal laws still apply and vary; a reader with a specific dispute should consult a qualified professional rather than rely on a general explainer.
What should a training-minded reader take from this?
That the price on the sign is not the useful number. Life Time's disclosure of 149 average visits per membership offers a template for the arithmetic that actually matters: annual cost divided by realistic annual visits, judged against what a given facility provides for the training you intend to do.
It also explains why sign-up promotions are so aggressive and why cancellation is rarely a one-click affair. Planet Fitness's own filing identifies infrequent users as a cancellation risk, which means retaining them is a stated business priority — a fact worth knowing before a January promotion is presented as generosity.
This article is information about how the fitness industry is structured, drawn from public company filings and government data. It is not financial, legal, medical or training advice, and it does not evaluate any club's programming. For decisions about a contract, a purchase or a training plan, consult a qualified professional.
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