Planet Fitness is on a tear to the tune of more than 600 new locations over the last five years. The bulk of that growth is courtesy of its multi-unit franchisees, whose club counts are swelling as they bet on strong unit economics and younger generations embracing fitness.
Some gym goers squatted, pressed and strained against weights. Others swatted away sweat as their legs churned on treadmills. More than a few snapped workout selfies while sipping energy drinks, but lunk sightings remained elusive at this Baltimore area Planet Fitness
“Lunks,” the term Planet Fitness uses to describe someone who “grunts, drops weights or judges,” are the antithesis to the type of environment the franchise aims to offer at its 2,700-plus gyms. Instead, Planet Fitness leans into its “Judgment Free Zone” mantra and courts casual gym goers and first-time users who, on average, visit one of the brand’s locations roughly six times per month.
That market positioning and a low-cost membership starting at $15 a month helped Planet Fitness eclipse 20.8 million members earlier this year—that’s an average of 7,530 members per location—and it’s part of what gives Justin Drummond the confidence to march toward a triple-digit unit count at Ohana Growth Partners.
“You think about a lot of the fears that people can have as individuals coming into a gym … whether it’s the fear of isolation—I’m not going to know anybody in the gym when I get there. I’m not going to understand how to work the equipment, or just body composition, what do I look like going in there? Other people are going to already be fit, and I’m just coming here to work on my journey. All those different thoughts that go into making the decision to walk through those front doors,” Drummond said. “Planet Fitness does a great job to ease those barriers, make it more welcoming for someone, no matter where you are in your fitness journey.”
Drummond is the president of Timonium, Maryland-based Ohana Growth Partners, which operates 84 Planet Fitness gyms and expects to add five or six more this year. Founders Lynne and Victor Brick opened their first location of the high-value, low-price fitness franchise in 2008 in Frederick, Maryland, after creating and growing their own aerobics concept, Brick Bodies. Ohana has since expanded with clubs in Tennessee, Florida, Washington and California. The Bricks, through a related entity called Bravo Fit Holdings, are part of the group developing Planet Fitness in Australia, where more than 20 units are open.
Drummond, a former Division 1 basketball player who earned a degree in business marketing before going on to get his master’s in business management, joined Ohana in 2010 as a general manager when the group had just three locations. He held various leadership roles, including as chief operating officer, before becoming president in 2023.
Alaris Equity Partners, a Canadian private equity firm based in Calgary, Alberta, invested $35 million for a non-control preferred equity stake in what’s now Ohana in 2014, when the franchisee had 28 locations. The capital infusion helped turbocharge unit development to the tune of 10 to 12 new club openings each year in 2015 and 2016, Drummond said.
As other Planet Fitness franchisees boost their portfolios with acquisitions—National Fitness Partners bought 21 clubs from fellow franchisee Pizzaz Fitness in June, its 15th acquisition, and is now the largest operator in the system at 200 units—Ohana remains firmly focused on new openings.
“With Alaris as a partner, the conversation has been, let’s grow organically, and when there’s the right opportunity that makes sense for us for acquisition, we’ll definitely vet it out,” Drummond said.
Ohana is well positioned to develop new Planet Fitness clubs, which can cost upwards of $5 million on the high end, not including the cost of real estate. Alaris in December completed a strategic recapitalization transaction with the company, securing $120 million of capital from a third-party investor and rolling $130 million of its investment in Ohana. Ohana’s founders, while still involved in the business, pulled out equity and the deal made Alaris the controlling investor.
Alaris, Drummond said, “understood the success, and they were willing to double down on their investment to be able to help us continue to see this growth.”
Sites, sales and happy members
Securing space to keep increasing the club count is one of the challenges Ohana and other Planet Fitness franchisees face. They’re also battling high construction costs, figuring out how to finance often-expensive equipment replacement requirements and working with corporate to emphasize the “high value” half of the high-value, low-price descriptor as others in the segment such as Crunch Fitness and Anytime Fitness look to pull market share.
On the real estate front, Drummond said 20,000 square feet is the “sweet spot” for sites, but “being adaptable and flexible” is essential.
“If we can get something at the right lease terms and/or a bigger size, and it makes sense for us, then sure, we’ll do it,” he said. Some of Ohana’s locations, such as its club in San Bruno, California, are as small as 13,000 square feet, while others are upwards of 30,000 square feet. It looks for second-generation gym space or locations vacated by large retailers, and the hunt is always on as Ohana vies for sites alongside other fitness brands and discount department store chains.
“At times, landlords tell us it’s a lot easier for them to put a TJ Maxx or Ross in there, or some type of dry goods retailer, and they can turn around the space a lot quicker, because all they do is come in and put shelves up and paint,” Drummond said. A Planet Fitness, by contrast, requires more extensive work to install restrooms and showers, which adds to the permitting timelines.
Josh Beyer, Ohana’s chief development officer, said the shift in consumer buying habits to more online shopping and fewer visits to anchor tenants such as grocery stores has necessitated more creativity and adaptability to secure sites. Prior to the pandemic, Ohana could put a Planet Fitness in a “sub-main market,” he said, but now it’s more reliant on traffic generated by strong cotenants.
The design of some clubs changed as a result.
“We don’t need a specific box, a specific rectangle,” Beyer said. “Our design team has the ability to make a club fit just about anywhere, multi-floor, it doesn’t matter.”
As it works to keep development costs in line, Drummond said Ohana looks for opportunities to save on the aesthetics while ensuring its locations look and feel fresh.
“Do we have opportunities to just save on some things that are maybe more cosmetic … or is it really going to drive membership sales? Is it going to help with retention? Is it going to help with the member experience? And then realistically, is it also going to help with the cost to maintain your facility?” he said. “If we can build clubs that are sustainable and as maintenance-free as possible, that helps us in the long run.”
The top third of Planet Fitness franchised clubs averaged $2.6 million in sales last year, which the brand represents in Item 19 of its franchise disclosure document as electronic funds transfer revenue, or EFT revenue (aka monthly membership charges). Drummond said the performance of Ohana’s units is in line with that average.
Franchise locations in the middle third averaged $1.8 million in 2024, while the bottom third did $1.2 million.
An element of the Planet Fitness business model is signing more members than a facility can handle at any one time. Consider this: Ohana’s Catonsville club, just outside downtown Baltimore, has about 16,000 members. Planet Fitness excels at attracting newbies excited to start hitting the gym, but who after a few workouts give up or greatly reduce their visits—but still keep paying monthly membership fees.
Like most gyms, the membership presale process is crucial to a location’s success.
“One of the things that we say all the time is, ‘get full as fast as possible.’ That’s what we want to do. If we can open with a healthy membership base, that helps us kickstart the business a lot earlier,” Drummond said.
Presale targets for Ohana’s gyms vary by region and also factor in the capital outlay and specific operational costs as it plots the timeline to profitability. One benchmark he noted is, “can we get a club to $100,000 in EFT or billing within six months or a year.”
Last summer, Planet Fitness raised the price of its “Classic” membership for the first time in 30 years, going from $10 to $15 for new customers to access a single club. Existing classic members were grandfathered in at the lower price. The premium “Black Card” membership, meanwhile, which allows access to any Planet Fitness location and use of amenities such as massage chairs and tanning beds, costs $24.99.
Instead of resulting in a slowdown in member signups, Drummond said the now-smaller gap between a Classic and Black Card membership pushed more people into the higher price point. Numbers from the franchisor show the same trend, as the company reported in the second quarter that Black Card penetration increased to 65.8 percent of the total membership.
While constantly attracting new members is critical—the average gym churn rate is 30 to 40 percent per year, according to the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association—member retention is likewise is essential to strong unit-level performance. For Ohana, that means a constant focus on “friendliness and cleanliness,” Drummond said.
“A lot of times that is what can be the easiest thing to go out the door as you see rapid growth, because you’re just focused on opening up a gym or growing the membership because you want to have more sales,” he said. Personal interactions with members truly matter, he continued, and Ohana consistently refreshes its clubs and will change out equipment ahead of schedule when needed.
Planet Fitness, which as a company is in its 33rd year, has a long runway for growth, Drummond stressed, and so too does Ohana. He referenced kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement, and said that’s the standard to which he holds the business.
“How can we continue to get incrementally better, to provide the best product for the masses and share in that dose of happiness, that glow, that people feel, the overall experience that you get,” he said. “The returns will be there if you do the right things by your members and by the business and by the employees.”
Position of strength
Planet Fitness sits in a high-value, low-price, or HVLP, fitness category that also includes the likes of franchises Crunch Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Snap Fitness, Workout Anytime and Retro Fitness, plus non-franchised concepts such as EoS Fitness and Vasa Fitness.
Anytime Fitness has more than 2,300 domestic units to go along with 3,000 international locations, while Snap Fitness comes in at 1,036 locations, about half of them outside the United States. Both are pushing U.S. expansion, as are the others, with Crunch in particular positioning itself for huge gains after being sold in April to private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners. Crunch has more than 500 units.
Analysts are high on HVLPs, with investment bank William Blair writing in a recent equity research report that it expects “outsized” growth in the category “given its proven customer appeal, the opportunity to further penetrate the 75 percent of the population that does not belong to fitness clubs, and recent investments from private equity sponsors in the space.”
Planet Fitness, in particular, is positioned to lead the segment, William Blair analysts wrote, in large part because of its sheer size. The franchisor is looking to roughly double its domestic footprint to 5,000 locations over the next few years, which, if average membership figures hold, would give Planet Fitness around 37.5 million members. That’s roughly 11 percent of the U.S. population, the analysts noted.
“We believe the combination of Planet’s affordable monthly dues and non-intimidating atmosphere … renders such a target achievable,” they wrote.
“Planet’s value proposition is consistently reinforced by its large, unmatched annual advertising budget of more than $300 million, which continually grows courtesy of its national ad fund contribution by franchisees,” the report continued.
Hampton, New Hampshire-based Planet Fitness hit 2,762 locations as of June 30, an increase of 23, the company said in its second quarter earnings report August 6. It went public in 2015 and in mid-August its stock was trading at $105.40.
Colleen Keating took the helm of Planet Fitness in June 2024 after its board ousted longtime CEO Chris Rondeau in September 2023. The company has since made a slew of leadership changes.
Bill Bode, who was division president of the U.S. franchise, transitioned into a newly created chief operating officer role overseeing franchise and corporate club operations. Jennifer Simmons, who was division president of corporate clubs, moved into a newly created chief strategy role. Those changes came after Chip Ohlsson was hired as chief development officer and Brian Povinelli joined as chief marketing officer.
Planet Fitness gained about 200,000 members in the second quarter to hit 20.8 million, and Keating told investors during the company’s earnings call that younger demographics are a key factor. Gen Zers, those 13 to 28, are the fastest-growing membership segment, she noted, and the brand’s High School Summer Pass, a free program for teens, is outpacing prior-year signups and utilization.
“Gen Z is highly fitness aware, and there are still three years of this population that aren’t yet of age to join our clubs. In fact, we have twice the unaided awareness versus our next closest gym peer, and that gap is even greater among Gen Zs,” Keating said. “And the next generation, Gen Alpha, is expected to be even more focused on health and well-being.”
The company acknowledged a “slightly elevated” cancellation rate as it completed a national rollout of online cancel functionality in May. It stuck with the initiative even as a federal appeals court struck down the Federal Trade Commission’s “click-to-cancel” rule in July.
The company next plans to increase the price of its Black Card and is testing more amenities such as as red light therapy and spray tanning.
Multi-unit owners push growth
Planet Fitness is 90 percent franchised, with corporate owning 280 units, and its franchisees are getting larger by the day.
The biggest is National Fitness Partners. Formed by the Kindler family and led by CEO Stephen Kindler Jr., the group started with one Planet Fitness in 2005 and this summer opened its 200th. Like many of the brand’s growing multi-unit operators, NFP is backed by private equity, in this case Argonne Capital Group, which acquired it in 2016.
Taymax Group, the second largest franchisee, hit 175 locations in late May and has more than tripled its club count since Trilantic North America bought a majority stake in 2018.
PE firms are investing in HVLP fitness franchisees at a healthy clip, drawn to a model with a compelling value proposition, marketing power, scale and one that’s proven to hold up well in more difficult economic conditions. In the Planet Fitness system, at least a dozen operating groups are part of PE portfolios.
Grand Fitness Partners, bought by middle market private equity firm HGGC in 2021 when it had 42 locations, is now up to 82 across California, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. CEO Wayne Orvis, who joined Grand Fitness last year after more than two decades at Walgreens, said to maintain a competitive edge the company is investing in new gym equipment ahead of what’s required by the franchisor and it centralized several back-office functions to streamline club operations.
“There’s been a fairly large investment that we’ve done to really balance that out,” he said of adjusting the equipment mix to focus more on strength, which follows a systemwide shift the franchisor initiated last year. “Especially where we have competition moving in, so that we have more of what the consumers are looking for in today’s fitness world.”
In an effort to ease some of the pressures franchisees face on the development front, Planet Fitness in early 2024 announced changes to its franchise model. Key elements include the extension of the length of the franchise agreement from 10 to 12 years and an extension of the timing to reequip clubs, moving to six years for cardio equipment and eight years for strength. More comprehensive club remodels will now be done every 12 years instead of 10.
Grand Fitness, whose locations Orvis said are in that upper third average sales cohort of $2.6 million, is slated to open eight more clubs this year to give it nine new units for 2025. Relationships with big retailers such as Burlington Coat Factory give it a development advantage as those companies shrink their footprints.
“We’re working with them on multiple properties across our areas, so they know that they have a guaranteed tenant if they’re going to downsize,” Orvis said. Planet Fitness, he noted, is also being more flexible with its requirements for restroom and locker room sizes, which allows Grand Fitness to look at 16,000-square-foot sites versus 20,000 and save on construction costs.
Over at Easy Mile Fitness, brothers Peter and Philip Amato have so far eschewed private equity in favor of remaining family owned. They’ve grown Easy Mile to 53 locations in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Oregon, plus Puerto Rico and Ontario, Canada, through new openings and six acquisitions ranging from one to 13 clubs.
Looking at the next generation of consumers, Philip Amato said the future is bright for his company and Planet Fitness.
“What’s been really fun for us is to look at some of the shifts and demographics of the age of people who are using our gyms, and you just see this next generation of teens and members coming through, and it’s hard not to be excited about what the next 10, 15, 20 years of fitness looks like,” he said.
While Gen Zers are driving membership growth, millennials still make up the largest portion of the brand’s membership base. In the first quarter, the brand also attracted more Gen Xers and baby boomers, “which demonstrates the strength of our brand across all age populations,” Keating told Franchise Times earlier this year.
Many of the same things attractive to private equity investors are what spurred Greg Flynn to make his first non-restaurant acquisition in 2023. His Flynn Group, the largest restaurant franchisee in the U.S. with more than 2,300 locations across brands such as Pizza Hut, Applebee’s and Taco Bell and $4.8 billion in sales, bought Alder Partners and its 37 Planet Fitness units. That unit count is now 43 in Massachusetts and Georgia.
Stan DeMartinis, who founded Alder Partners and is now president of Flynn Planet Fitness, said after years of organic growth he’s looking at acquisition opportunities within the brand and is leaning on the expertise of a team he described as “masters of M&A.”
“I’m opening up my Rolodex of people inside the Planet community, and the word’s out. They all know that we’re looking to grow, and we’re looking at every deal,” he said. Flynn Group “knows how to acquire existing units, and they know how to finance it, and they know how to value that opportunity correctly, to make sure that there’s a return on capital.”
DeMartinis was the seventh franchisee in the system and said he’s just as enthusiastic about the future of the brand today as when he started. Flynn Group’s goal, he noted, is to become the largest operator in the country.
As for Planet Fitness, like many of its members, it’s still working to get in the best shape of its life.
Planet Fitness stays strong
Q2 Systemwide Sales: $1.4 billion, up from $1.2 billion in the prior year period.
Q2 Systemwide Same-club Sales: Increased 8.2 percent.
Unit Growth: 23 new clubs opened to end the quarter with 2,762 locations.
Membership Gains: Ended the quarter with about 20.8 million members, an increase of roughly 200,000 members from the first quarter.
Source: Planet Fitness Q2 2025 earnings report
Source: Franchise Times
