Fitness Premier franchise unit economics
Fitness Premier franchisees run a 7,500 to 20,000 square foot full-service health club selling memberships, personal training and recovery services. Ten company clubs averaged $698,258 of sales and kept 22.5% after every cost and every franchise fee. The range is the warning: club-level margin runs from 3.2% to 31.6%, each club named with its address, square footage and opening year.
- Primary source
- Fitness Premier Franchising, LLC, 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document
- Items read
- Items 5 and 6 for fees; Item 7 for cost to open; Item 19 for sales and any profit figure; Item 20 for the location count
- Population
- 11 of 6 locations
- Our calculations
- Marked on the page with an asterisk. Method
- Last reviewed
- 26 September 2026
Disclosure-based. Not a forecast, not an offer to sell a franchise, and not advice.
Across ten named company clubs, rent is the difference between them: 9.0% of sales at Monticello and 29.0% at Champaign. Champaign bills 2.6 times what Monticello does and keeps a smaller share of it.
- Rent runs 9.0% to 29.0% of sales across ten named clubs. $26,975 at Monticello against $229,032 at Champaign, on sales of $298,511 and $790,412.
- Plainfield bills $411,824 and is left with $13,250, 3.2%. Rent at 24.8% and labor at 40.2% take 65.0% between them.
- Sales per square foot runs $44 to $100. Mahomet earns $97 a foot on 6,390 square feet; Minooka earns $82 on 15,000.
- The continued assistance fee is $3,150 a month, flat. $37,800 a year, 12.7% of the smallest club's sales and 3.1% of the largest's.
- Five converted clubs grew monthly sales 22.2% to 152.3% in their first year. From the last full month before conversion to month thirteen after it.
How much does a Fitness Premier franchise make?
The average Fitness Premier unit reported $698,258 of revenue in the 2026 FDD. The brand’s disclosure document puts the profit line at 22.5% of revenue. Fees come off the top first, at about 11% of sales across royalty, brand fund and the rest of the stack. Revenue is not income. Rent, wages, cost of goods and the franchise fees all come out before an owner is paid. The figures for the highest-selling and lowest-selling businesses are below.
Rent, labor & mix
Two lines and a revenue mix.
| Club | Sales | Labor | Rent | Both together | Share kept |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minooka | $1,231,994 | 28.6% | 14.6% | 43.2% | 31.6% |
| Coal City | $662,050 | 28.5% | 16.6% | 45.1% | 30.7% |
| Crete | $458,234 | 25.8% | 13.8% | 39.6% | 28.6% |
| Monticello | $298,511 | 33.6% | 9.0% | 42.6% | 22.2% |
| Manteno | $783,452 | 40.9% | 12.9% | 53.8% | 21.4% |
| Bourbonnais | $1,010,390 | 35.9% | 20.4% | 56.3% | 20.9% |
| Morris | $713,190 | 29.6% | 21.2% | 50.8% | 20.6% |
| Champaign | $790,412 | 27.2% | 29.0% | 56.2% | 19.8% |
| Mahomet | $622,523 | 39.7% | 22.7% | 62.4% | 13.1% |
| Plainfield | $411,824 | 40.2% | 24.8% | 65.0% | 3.2% |
Ours throughout, from the filed dollar figures.
Rank the clubs by labor plus rent and you have ranked them by what they keep. The three best all sit under 46% on those two lines; the three worst all sit above 56%. The only club that breaks the pattern is Monticello at 42.6%. It slips because at $298,511 of sales the flat $37,800 continued assistance fee costs it 12.7 points.
Labor runs 25.8% to 44.6% and excludes the owner entirely. Blue Ridge, the one franchised club disclosed, runs the highest at 44.6%. That is what an owner paying staff to do what a company club's management team absorbs looks like. Crete runs the lowest at 25.8%, and it also has the highest direct gross profit at 74.2%.
Rent per square foot range wider than sales per square foot. Champaign pays $21.81 a foot and Monticello $3.97, 5.5 times, where sales per foot run $44 to $100, 2.3 times. In a format taking 6,390 to 15,000 square feet, the rent rate matters roughly twice as much as the sales density it buys.
Where the money comes from.
| Club | Monthly membership | Annual membership | Training | Recovery | Other | Direct gross profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bourbonnais | 35.7% | 4.9% | 29.3% | 24.2% | 5.8% | 64.1% |
| Manteno | 40.6% | 4.8% | 28.9% | 21.6% | 4.2% | 59.1% |
| Crete | 63.7% | 6.9% | 16.0% | 7.5% | 5.9% | 74.2% |
As the brand reported it.
The more a club sells beyond the membership, the lower its direct gross profit. Crete takes 70.6% of its revenue from memberships and keeps 74.2% at the gross profit line. Bourbonnais takes 40.6% from memberships and 53.5% from training and recovery, and keeps 64.1%. Training and recovery need a person in the room; a membership needs a turnstile.
Recovery is 24.2% of Bourbonnais’s revenue and 7.5% of Crete’s. On 200 square feet of relax and restore suite at both. The same small room produces $244,919 at one club and $34,504 at another. The widest ratio on any single revenue line, and the clearest evidence that these ancillary services are sold.
Top performers
What separates the top Fitness Premier performers
Fitness Premier publishes one average, $698,258, and nothing else. The gap between its best and worst locations is not in the filing.
Decided before you open
- Capacity, fixed at build.Locations run 6,390 to 15,000 square feet. What you can sell is set by the build, and the build does not change after opening.
- What you spend to open.Opening costs $456,900 to $1,591,600, a 3.5× range inside one brand. The high end usually buys more capacity, so the cheapest build is not always the cheapest route to the top band.
Live operating levers
- Members, the operating driver.This model bills on members. The owner watches how many people join, how many cancel, and what a member spends beyond the plan. It is worth watching every week, because by the time it turns up in a monthly close the quarter is half gone.
- Fees, and where the minimum bites.Fees run about 11.0% of sales. A minimum sits underneath the percentage, so the low-volume location pays the higher effective rate. The brand charges the weakest locations the most. Work out the sales level where the percentage overtakes the minimum and know which side of it you are on, because the answer changes what an extra dollar of sales is worth.
Context you underwrite around
- The reporting screen.11 of 6 locations are behind these figures. Locations open less than the full year, brand-owned, or not meeting the reporting criteria are excluded, as are locations under the brand’s current size standard, so the numbers describe locations that cleared that screen, not the system as a whole.
- What the disclosure leaves out.Item 19 publishes no median, no performance bands, no attainment figure. The brand’s own locations are the only margin signal in the document, and they are run by the people who wrote the playbook.
- What the rest of the category shows.Across the 32 Fitness brands in this library that do publish bands, the top group sells 3.1× the bottom at the typical brand, and a median 43% of locations reach their own average *. Assume a spread of that order here until the franchisor shows you otherwise.
Ten clubs, ten P&Ls
Every club, named, with its own profit and loss.
| Club | Gross sales | Square feet | Sales a square foot | Labor | Rent | After disclosed expenses | After franchise fees | Share kept |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minooka | $1,231,994 | 15,000 | $82 | 28.6% | 14.6% | $537,122 | $389,328 | 31.6% |
| Bourbonnais | $1,010,390 | 10,125 | $100 | 35.9% | 20.4% | $339,027 | $211,556 | 20.9% |
| Champaign | $790,412 | 10,500 | $75 | 27.2% | 29.0% | $266,480 | $156,787 | 19.8% |
| Manteno | $783,452 | 8,425 | $93 | 40.9% | 12.9% | $273,777 | $167,424 | 21.4% |
| Morris | $713,190 | 12,000 | $59 | 29.6% | 21.2% | $250,405 | $147,203 | 20.6% |
| Coal City | $662,050 | 8,500 | $78 | 28.5% | 16.6% | $300,550 | $203,423 | 30.7% |
| Mahomet | $622,523 | 6,390 | $97 | 39.7% | 22.7% | $175,686 | $81,823 | 13.1% |
| Crete | $458,234 | 7,485 | $61 | 25.8% | 13.8% | $210,408 | $131,009 | 28.6% |
| Plainfield | $411,824 | 9,120 | $45 | 40.2% | 24.8% | $88,590 | $13,250 | 3.2% |
| Monticello | $298,511 | 6,800 | $44 | 33.6% | 9.0% | $134,945 | $66,413 | 22.2% |
| Blue Ridge, franchised | $453,458 | 8,000 | $57 | 44.6% | 9.1% | $160,743 | n/a | 35.4% |
| Ten company clubs * | $698,258 | n/a | n/a | 32.7% | 18.8% | $257,699 | $156,822 | 22.5% |
Gross sales, square footage, sales per square foot, the two results columns and the underlying labor and rent dollars are all as the brand reported it for each named club.
The margin runs 3.2% to 31.6% on sales that vary 4.1 times. Minooka keeps $389,328 of $1,231,994 and Plainfield keeps $13,250 of $411,824. Between them sits Coal City, which keeps 30.7% on $662,050, half Minooka's sales and almost the same margin. Scale helps here, but it decides far less than the lease does.
Champaign and Monticello are the pair worth staring at. Champaign bills $790,412 and keeps 19.8%. Monticello bills $298,511, 38% as much, and keeps 22.2%. The difference is $229,032 of rent against $26,975. A club can out-sell another by half a million dollars and still finish behind it on the strength of one signature.
Mahomet earns the second-highest sales per square foot and the second-lowest margin. $97 a foot on 6,390 square feet, and 13.1% kept. Labor at 39.7% and rent at 22.7% take 62.4%. A small, busy club with an expensive lease and a heavy roster is the combination that fails.
Across all ten, $257,699 survives the disclosed expenses and $156,822 survives the franchise fees. 36.9% and 22.5% of the $698,258 average. Both figures still have to pay the owner, interest, tax, depreciation, professional fees, administrative costs and everything else outside the five disclosed expense lines.
Fees and what it costs to open
What the fees come to, club by club. (Items 5 and 6)
| Club | Sales | Royalty, fund and local marketing at 11% | Continued assistance and technology | Total | Share of sales | Assistance fee alone |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minooka | $1,231,994 | $135,519 | $41,388 | $176,907 | 14.4% | 3.1% |
| Bourbonnais | $1,010,390 | $111,143 | $41,388 | $152,531 | 15.1% | 3.7% |
| Ten-club average | $698,258 | $76,808 | $41,388 | $118,196 | 16.9% | 5.4% |
| Coal City | $662,050 | $72,826 | $41,388 | $114,214 | 17.3% | 5.7% |
| Crete | $458,234 | $50,406 | $41,388 | $91,794 | 20.0% | 8.2% |
| Plainfield | $411,824 | $45,301 | $41,388 | $86,689 | 21.0% | 9.2% |
| Monticello | $298,511 | $32,836 | $41,388 | $74,224 | 24.9% | 12.7% |
Ours, built from the filed rates: a 6% royalty, a 2% brand development fund fee, a 3% minimum local marketing spend, a technology fee of $299 a month which may rise to $1,250. A continued assistance and support fee of $3,150 a month.
$41,388 a year lands on every club regardless of size. The $37,800 continued assistance and support fee plus $3,588 of technology. At Monticello's $298,511 of sales that is 13.9% of the top line before a single percentage-based fee; at Minooka's $1,231,994 it is 3.4%. The whole reason the all-in rate runs 14.4% to 24.9% on identical terms is that one line.
The technology fee can quadruple. $299 a month today with a stated ceiling of $1,250, $15,000 a year against $3,588. At the smallest club that would take the flat component from 13.9% of sales to 17.7%. Worth modeling at the ceiling.
Converting an existing club halves the franchise fee. $49,500 becomes $24,750 for an operator with a comparable full-service health club, and veterans receive 10% off. A multi-unit agreement adds $35,000 for a second club and $25,000 each for the third through tenth, with a minimum commitment of three.
Opening a club.
| Item | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee | $49,500 | $49,500 |
| Construction and building work | $150,000 | $840,000 |
| Lease deposits, three months | $5,000 | $30,000 |
| Furniture, fixtures and equipment | $190,000 | $500,000 |
| Signage | $8,000 | $12,000 |
| Computer, software, tech package and point of sale | $15,000 | $26,000 |
| Grand opening marketing | $10,000 | $20,000 |
| Initial inventory | $2,000 | $12,500 |
| Utility deposits | $400 | $1,600 |
| Insurance deposits, three months | $1,000 | $3,000 |
| Travel for initial training | $2,000 | $5,000 |
| Professional fees | $7,000 | $30,000 |
| Licenses and permits | $2,000 | $12,000 |
| Additional funds, three months | $15,000 | $50,000 |
| Total | $456,900 | $1,591,600 |
As the brand reported it.
Construction and equipment are $340,000 to $1,340,000 of the total. 74% and 84% of each column. Against a ten-club average of $698,258 in sales, the low-end build is 0.65 times a year of revenue and the high end 2.28. The clubs in the tables above run 6,390 to 15,000 square feet. So an owner choosing the small end of the format halves the capital and, on this evidence, loses little sales density.
Three months of working capital is carried at $15,000 to $50,000. The thinnest working capital assumption of any fitness brand in this library, against a build that can exceed $1.5 million. Plainfield's $13,250 of annual result is a reminder of what a thin cushion buys when the lease goes wrong.
Conversions & the network
What conversion does.
| Club | Converted | Last full month before | Month 13 after | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morris | May 2022 | $24,534 | $61,890 | +152.3% |
| Crete | September 2016 | $15,494 | $36,580 | +136.1% |
| Blue Ridge, franchised | May 2023 | $12,884 | $26,879 | +108.6% |
| Minooka | March 2019 | $43,033 | $76,949 | +78.8% |
| Plainfield | July 2021 | $32,225 | $39,395 | +22.2% |
As the brand reported it, including the growth percentages.
Four of five converted clubs at least doubled their monthly sales inside a year. Morris went from $24,534 to $61,890. The fifth, Plainfield, grew 22.2%, and Plainfield is the club that now keeps 3.2% of its sales. The same club that converted worst is the one carrying the worst economics today.
Conversion is the cheapest way into this system. The franchise fee halves to $24,750, the technology package falls from $15,000 to $26,000 down to $2,500 to $12,000, and an existing club arrives with members and equipment. On the evidence of these five, it also arrives with an immediate revenue step.
The network of locations.
| Year | Franchised start | Franchised end | Company start | Company end | Total end |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2 | 3 | 15 | 15 | 18 |
| 2024 | 3 | 4 | 15 | 14 | 18 |
| 2025 | 4 | 6 | 14 | 12 | 18 |
As the brand reported it.
The system has stood still at 18 outlets while its ownership changed hands. Franchised clubs went 2, 3, 4, 6; company clubs went 15, 15, 14, 12. That is a franchisor converting its own estate, which is worth reading alongside a filing where ten of the eleven disclosed clubs are company-owned.
Six franchised clubs exist and one is disclosed. Blue Ridge, in Georgia, billing $453,458. Of the other five, two opened during 2025 and three were excluded as unrepresentative. So an owner comparing themselves against these numbers is comparing themselves largely against a management company operating in its home market.
What territory you get.
Your designated territory is the smaller of 2.5 road miles or 50,000 people. With a stated minimum size of zero, set once a site is approved, and identified by postcode, boundary streets, highways, county lines or market area. A club inside a shopping mall may have its territory limited to the mall itself. Relocation is entirely at the franchisor's discretion and assessed case by case.
Questions we get asked
Questions owners ask.
What should a club be billing?
The ten named company clubs billed $298,511 to $1,231,994 in 2025, averaging $698,258. The one disclosed franchised club, Blue Ridge in Georgia, billed $453,458. Sales per square foot ran $44 to $100 on clubs of 6,390 to 15,000 square feet. These are Illinois and Indiana clubs owned by the franchisor's affiliate plus one in Georgia, so the sample is a home market.
What does a club keep?
After labor, rent, facility maintenance, utilities, insurance and marketing. After every franchise fee, the ten company clubs kept 3.2% to 31.6% of sales, $13,250 to $389,328, averaging $156,822 or 22.5%. That figure still excludes owner compensation, interest, tax, depreciation, professional fees, administrative costs and everything else outside those five disclosed expense lines.
What decides whether a club works?
Labor plus rent. Ranked by those two lines together, the clubs rank almost exactly by what they keep. The three highest-selling sit under 46% and the three lowest-selling above 56%. Rent alone runs 9.0% to 29.0% of sales, $3.97 to $21.81 a square foot, and is a wider range than sales per square foot. Champaign bills $790,412 and keeps less of it than Monticello, which bills $298,511, entirely because of a $202,057 difference in rent.
What does the brand cost each year?
A 6% royalty, a 2% brand development fund fee, a 3% minimum local marketing spend, a $299 monthly technology fee that may rise to $1,250. A $3,150 monthly continued assistance and support fee. That is 11% of sales plus $41,388 flat, 14.4% of the largest club's sales and 24.9% of the smallest's. The flat portion alone is 3.4% at the top and 13.9% at the bottom.
Who does bookkeeping for a Fitness Premier franchise?
The franchisor’s own clubs report in a fixed format. Gives the close an exact target. Gross sales split five ways, then managerial and non-managerial labor separately, then rent, facility maintenance, utilities, insurance and marketing, then the franchise fees. Reporting to that shape lets an owner benchmark line by line against ten named clubs. Three things deserve their own attention. Split labor into managerial and non-managerial, because the difference between clubs lives mostly in the non-managerial line. Track recovery and training revenue separately against the 7.5% to 24.2% and 16.0% to 29.3% ranges these clubs show. Because those two lines have the labor that the membership line stays free of. And have the $3,150 monthly assistance fee plus the technology fee as fixed costs, together they are 13.9% of a $298,511 club’s sales. Averan provides bookkeeping, controller, and fractional CFO support for franchise owners and has Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors on the team.
- No median. Only an average is published, which a few large locations can lift on their own.
- No cost lines. Wages, rent and cost of goods are not broken out, so margin cannot be rebuilt from the document.
- No range. The filing does not show the highest and lowest locations, so the spread inside the system is unknown.
- No attainment figure. The filing does not say how many locations reached the average it publishes.
Questions worth putting to Fitness Premier
The filing answers what it answers. These are the gaps an owner or a buyer should close directly.
- Is the profit figure in Item 19 before or after owner pay, and how many locations sit below it?
- What did the highest and lowest locations sell last year, and what explains the gap?
- How long does a new location take to reach the average you publish, and what does the build-up look like month by month?
- At what level of sales do the minimum charges stop applying and the percentage take over?
- How many Fitness Premier locations closed, were sold, or changed hands last year, and why?
Run your own numbers.
The Franchise Finance Diagnostic runs the same checks on your own numbers. It scores where you stand and compares you with Item 19 of your brand’s FDD. It works out what one location earns and spends, and builds a 13-week cash forecast. Checks whether you are ready to open another one. It is free and it runs in your browser.
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A structured review of your unit economics, cash forecast, and reporting, built around the two lines that rank these clubs.
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