For gym owners
Total member count is the number every owner knows and the one that explains the least. These eight explain almost everything.
Track MRR, average revenue per member, monthly churn, member lifetime value, visit frequency, lead-to-member conversion, class utilisation and staff cost as a share of revenue. Review them monthly. Member headcount on its own can rise while every one of these gets worse.
| Metric | How | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| MRR | Sum of active recurring memberships | Falling while headcount rises = discounting |
| ARM (avg revenue per member) | MRR ÷ active members | The quiet erosion nobody notices |
| Monthly churn | Leavers ÷ members at month start | 5–7% typical; under 3% is strong |
| Member LTV | ARM ÷ monthly churn | The number your ad spend must stay under |
| Visit frequency | Visits ÷ active members per month | Below 4 predicts cancellation |
| Lead conversion | Joins ÷ enquiries | 30–50% is a reasonable target |
| Class utilisation | Attended places ÷ capacity | Under 50% = timetable, not demand |
| Staff cost ratio | Staff cost ÷ revenue | Usually 35–45% in a staffed gym |
LTV = average revenue per member ÷ monthly churn rate. At €50 a month and 5% churn, that is €1,000 per member. At 7% churn it is €714.
This single figure sets your marketing budget. If a member is worth €1,000 and you convert one in three trials, you can afford considerably more per lead than most gyms think — and if your churn is 10%, you can afford much less than you are probably spending.
Everything else on the list is a lagging measure: by the time churn moves, the members are gone. Visit frequency moves first, per member, weeks in advance.
The operationally useful version is not the gym-wide average but the per-member trend: who went from eight visits a month to four. That list, reviewed monthly and acted on with a phone call, is worth more than any other report you will run.
Twenty minutes with those five, monthly, will tell you more about the business than a year of watching the headcount.
Monthly recurring revenue, average revenue per member, monthly churn, member lifetime value, visit frequency, lead-to-member conversion, class utilisation and staff cost as a share of revenue. Together these explain performance in a way that total member count does not.
Divide average revenue per member by the monthly churn rate. At 50 per month with 5 percent monthly churn, lifetime value is 1,000. This figure sets the ceiling on what you can sensibly spend to acquire a member.
Roughly 30 to 50 percent of enquiries converting to memberships is a reasonable target for a staffed gym, though it depends heavily on lead quality and whether trials or day passes are part of the process.
Consistently above 50 percent of capacity, measured by time slot rather than overall. Persistently low utilisation in specific slots usually indicates a timetable problem rather than a lack of demand.
None of these numbers are hard to calculate. They are hard to assemble, because membership, billing and attendance usually live in three places that do not talk to each other.
NutriMacro Gym is gym and studio management software: members and billing, QR attendance, class and online session booking, trainer tools, shop and stock, reports and an AI assistant — on the web, plus a branded member app on iOS and Android that carries your gym's name. See gym software.
Figures quoted are industry benchmarks and typical market rates at the time of writing, intended as orientation rather than as a forecast for any particular business. Nothing here is financial, tax or legal advice.
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