Most small venues set their prices once, by looking at the gym down the road, and then add to them for years: a student month, a morning pass, a 10-class card because somebody asked, a summer offer that never ended. Two years later the price list has eleven lines, the desk needs a minute to explain it, and nobody knows which pass actually brings in the money.
A good price list for a small gym or studio is short and has a shape. Here is how to build one.
Three kinds of pass are enough
Almost everything a small venue sells is one of three things:
- A single entry. One visit, today. For first-timers, visitors and people who come once in a while.
- A pack of visits. 8 or 12 visits to use within a set number of days. For people who come often, but not on a fixed rhythm.
- A period pass. Unlimited visits for a month, or three. For the regulars, who are the venue.
Three to five lines in total is plenty: a single entry, a pack of 8, a monthly pass, perhaps a three-month one. Every extra line is another question at the desk and another reason to "think about it" and leave without buying.
These are exactly the three kinds of pass Abonatus knows: unlimited for a number of days, a number of visits within a number of days, and a single entry valid on the day it is sold.
Every step up costs less per visit
The price list should nudge people towards the pass that keeps them coming. That means the price of one visit drops at every step. Say a single entry costs 100 (lei, euros, whatever your currency; only the ratios matter):
| Pass | Price | Per visit |
|---|---|---|
| Single entry | 100 | 100 |
| 8 visits in 30 days | 640 | 80 |
| Unlimited month | 800 | about 60 at three visits a week |
With these numbers somebody who comes twice a week is better off with the pack, and somebody who comes three times or more, with the month. The point where the month starts to pay off, here ten visits a month, is the most important number on the list. Put it where you want your regulars to be.
The single entry is the most expensive way in
The single entry is not where you make your money. It is the price that makes everything else look sensible. If one visit costs nearly as much as a visit from the pack, nobody buys the pack. Keep it clearly the most expensive way to come, so that a second visit in the same week is the moment the pack starts to make sense.
How long a pack should last
A pack needs a deadline. Too short and people feel cheated. Too long, or "valid until used", and they drift: 8 visits spread over four months is not a habit, and an unused pack in a drawer is a member you have already lost.
Take the pace you hope for and add a little slack. 8 visits at twice a week take four weeks, so 30 to 35 days. 12 visits at three a week take the same. Say on the price list that unused visits end with the pass; we wrote about this and other rules in Pass rules every small gym should write down.
Price the month for the regulars you have
How often do your members really come? Take a month of reports, divide the visits by the number of different people who came, and you have the average visits per person. Abonatus shows both numbers at the top of its reports, for any period.
If most people come five or six times a month, a monthly pass that only pays off at twelve visits will sell badly, and the pack should be your main pass. If they come ten times or more, the month is the pass to put first.
Discounts: their own line, not an exception
Students, families, couples, a friend of the owner. Two rules keep discounts from eating the price list:
- A discount for a group of people is its own pass, for example "Monthly, student". It is the same for everyone in that group, the desk doesn't have to decide, and you can see how many you sell. The reports in Abonatus list what sold by pass name, so a student month shows up on its own line.
- A one-off discount is typed at the sale, with a word in the member's notes saying why. The desk can change the amount when selling a pass; the day's takings show what was really paid.
Avoid selling mainly through offers. If there is always a promotion, the full price becomes the price nobody pays.
One way to try
Pick one way to try the venue and say it everywhere: a free first class, a paid single entry, or a trial week (a 7-day period pass). Free brings more people through the door; paid brings more who stay. Either way it is a line on the price list, not something the desk invents each time. In Abonatus a free trial is a single entry sold for 0. What to do with somebody who comes to try is in From a first visit to a member.
Raising prices
Prices go up, and members accept it when it is fair and announced:
- Say it a month ahead, on the wall and in a short message.
- Passes already sold keep the price they were sold at. If you like, let members renew at the old price until the day of the change.
- Change the price list on the day. In Abonatus a pass copies its price when it is sold, so editing the price list never touches a pass somebody already paid for, and a pass you stop selling is switched off rather than deleted, so the old ones still show where they came from.
Look again after three months
Open what sold over the last three months:
- A line almost nobody buys can go.
- If single entries sell more than packs, the single entry is probably too cheap, or the pack's deadline too tight.
- If nearly everyone buys the month but comes twice a week, the month may be too cheap for what it gives.
Then change one thing at a time, and look again three months later.