How to price yoga and Pilates memberships and class packs

How do you price memberships and class packs, step by step?

Pricing a yoga, Pilates or barre studio is easier when you start inside your own business rather than outside it. Competitors' prices tell you what members will compare you with. Your costs, your capacity and your members' real behaviour tell you whether you can afford to match them. The method below takes about an hour with last month's accounts and a booking-software export.

• 1. Add up your monthly fixed costs: rent, utilities, software, insurance, equipment finance, cleaning, marketing and salaried staff.
• 2. Add your monthly teacher pay: classes per month times average pay per class.
• 3. Work out places per month: classes per month times average places per class.
• 4. Choose a planning fill rate you can actually reach from your own data, and multiply to get visits per month.
• 5. Divide total cost by visits, then divide by (1 minus your card and software fee rate). That is break-even revenue per visit, without tax.
• 6. For each product, divide the price without tax by the visits members actually use per pack or per month. Compare with break-even.
• 7. Check the steps of the ladder: each should be a little cheaper per visit than the one above, and none should accidentally beat the one below.
• 8. Write clear terms for credits, validity, pauses, renewal and cancellation, and check them against your local consumer rules.

What is break-even revenue per visit, and why does it matter?

Break-even revenue per visit is the average amount each visit must bring in, after discounts and fees, to cover all your costs at the fill you plan on. It turns a monthly profit-and-loss statement into a number you can hold up against every product on your price list.

It matters because studio products are sold in very different units. A drop-in is one visit. A ten-pack is ten credits, of which members may use nine and a half. An unlimited membership is a month of access that one member uses four times and another uses twenty. Converting everything to revenue per visit used puts them on the same scale.

It also shows why planning on full classes is dangerous. If you assume every place is sold, break-even looks low and every product looks profitable. Plan on a fill you have actually achieved over eight weeks, or a little below it.

What does a worked example look like?

Here is an illustrative two-room studio: an eight-bed reformer room and an eighteen-place mat room, running 49 classes a week. All figures are examples in one currency, without sales tax, and the studio includes 10% tax in its prices.

• The ten-pack and the unlimited membership both clear break-even comfortably at real use.
• The mat-only unlimited membership earns about 17.07 per visit against a break-even of 19.00, so it needs a decision: a price change with notice, a limit on what it includes, or a deliberate, small role in the mix.
• If the same studio planned on 90% fill, break-even would fall to about 14.80 and the mat membership would look fine. The planning fill is doing a lot of work, which is why it must come from real data.

How should the price ladder be shaped?

Most studios sell four kinds of product: the drop-in, class packs, memberships and an intro offer for new people, plus private or small-group sessions and workshops. Arranged as a ladder, each step down asks the member for more commitment and gives a lower price per visit in return.

Three checks keep a ladder healthy. First, each step is a little cheaper per visit than the one above at typical use, so members can see the reward for committing. Second, no product undercuts the one below it by accident: if a twenty-pack works out cheaper per visit than an eight-classes-a-month membership, members will find out. Third, every product clears break-even at real use, or you know exactly why it does not.

Reformer and mat classes often deserve different prices, because a reformer place costs more to provide: equipment, maintenance and fewer places per room. Many studios run separate ladders or a premium for reformer access.

Private and small-group sessions sit outside the class ladder. They use a teacher's time and a room, but not class places, so price them from the teacher's pay for the session plus the room's fixed cost per hour, then add the margin you need. Workshops and special events are priced per event: add up the teacher's fee, the room hours, any materials and your marketing time, divide by the number of places you can realistically sell, and check the result against what your members already pay per class.

Corporate and community arrangements, such as a lunchtime pack for a nearby office or a concession rate for a local group, are easier to manage when they are written as separate products with their own terms. That way you can see exactly how each one performs per visit and decide whether to keep it at the next price review.

How do intro offers fit into pricing?

An intro offer is priced to remove the risk of trying a studio, so it usually earns less per visit than it costs to provide. Judge it on what happens next: how many starters come back for a second class within a week, how many buy a membership or pack, and how long they stay.

A simple test: multiply intro starters by your conversion rate to get new members, multiply by the monthly value of a membership and the months members typically stay, and compare that with the shortfall on the intro classes. If conversion is low, the fix is usually the path after the first class, such as booking the second class before people leave, rather than a cheaper offer.

What rules apply to credit expiry and auto-renewal?

Credit expiry keeps pack pricing honest and stops old credits sitting on your books for years. It should never be a profit plan. Price on the classes people actually use, remind them before credits expire, and treat expired credits exactly as your published terms say. Some places restrict expiry on prepaid services and gift cards, so check your local consumer rules.

Memberships that renew automatically are under closer scrutiny. In the United States, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act requires clear disclosure and express consent for online recurring charges and a simple way to stop them, and many states have their own automatic renewal laws. In the United Kingdom, draft government guidance published in October 2026 says the subscription contract rules in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 apply to contracts entered into from 1 January 2027, with pre-contract information, reminder notices, cooling-off periods and an easy way to exit. In Australia, state consumer offices such as NSW Fair Trading publish guidance on fitness and gym contracts.

The direction is the same almost everywhere: clear terms before purchase, honest reminders and an exit as easy as the sign-up. Build that into your terms now, and ask a lawyer to check them for your location.

How do you change prices without losing members?

Give the notice your terms and local law require, and more if you can. Explain the reason in one honest sentence. Tell members how to change or cancel, and decide in advance what existing members pay and for how long. Many studios move new members to the new price first and give existing members a set period at the old price.

Review prices once or twice a year, not every month. Rerun break-even with your latest costs and real use, and change the products that need it rather than everything at once.

What are the most common pricing mistakes?

• Copying a competitor's prices without knowing your own break-even.
• Planning on full classes, which makes every product look profitable.
• Judging products on headline price per class instead of revenue per visit used.
• Letting a pack accidentally undercut a membership, or the reverse.
• Counting on unused credits as income.
• Pricing reformer and mat the same when they cost very different amounts to provide.
• Treating the intro offer as a revenue line rather than the start of a member's first month.
• Burying auto-renewal terms or making cancellation harder than signing up.
• Changing prices without notice or an honest reason.

What should you do this week?

Pull last month's costs and a booking export. Work out break-even revenue per visit at a fill you have actually achieved. List every product with its real use and revenue per visit, and mark any that fall below break-even. Then decide one change for your next price review, and write it into your terms before you announce it.

If you want the arithmetic done for you, The Yoga and Pilates Studio Manager from Bodhih Training includes a pricing calculator with break-even, a price ladder on real use, a revenue mix and intro offer scenarios. To check your own decision-making as an owner, AssessAll's Small Business Operating Decision Assessment for Shop, Service and Studio Owners is a useful starting point, and Jobulary's guide to a development plan that survives week six helps turn what you learn into a habit.