How to choose a gym marketing agency: start with the number your gym runs on

The Gym Group, a UK low-cost operator, names January and February as its peak recruitment months in its 2025 results. The same results describe a busy December opening programme ahead of the January trading peak. Planet Fitness, a US gym franchisor, says in its 2025 annual report that member joins are typically higher in January than in other months.

Those are two large chains, so treat them as a prompt and not a rule for your gym. Your own join dates, counted by month for the last three years, will show whether you share the pattern. If you do, the agency decision belongs in the autumn. An agency that starts in the first week of January will spend the busiest weeks learning your gym, your offer and your tracking. One that starts in September or October does that learning in the quiet weeks and reaches the peak with a campaign already tested.

Who to hire depends on which kind of gym you run. Find yours below. Each section ends with the kind of agency it points to and the questions to put to them.

Low-cost or big-box site: hire for cost per joiner

A site with hundreds or thousands of members on rolling monthly terms runs on volume and price, and The Gym Group reports its year in those terms: 2025 revenue rose 8%, reflecting 4% higher average membership numbers and a 4% increase in yield. The same results put average membership at 945,000. They say the average headline price of a standard membership rose to £25.64 as a result of higher joining fees, price rises for new members and selective repricing of existing ones.

The CMA's price transparency guidance uses a gym as its example: £70 a month for 12 months plus a £30 joining fee, shown with a total annual price of £870. For a rolling monthly contract it says to show the total price paid each month, including any mandatory charges. That is UK regulator guidance, not the law itself. The law is the unfair commercial practices regime in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024. The CMA says it is now in force, with fines of up to 10% of global turnover since April 2025. The guidance also applies to anyone who sells, advertises, markets or otherwise promotes a product, so an agency's ad copy is covered too.

The priority is joiners at a known cost, without giving away yield. That points to a performance-led agency, generalist or specialist, that is happy to report site by site. Ask for these three things:

• The cost per joiner at each site, counted from your membership system and not from the ad platform's own conversion count.
• A mock-up of how every ad shows the monthly price and the joining fee together, and the name of the person who checks the price line before an ad goes live.
• Both numbers side by side whenever a discount is proposed: joiners won, and what the discount does to revenue per member.

Boutique studio: hire for places filled

A boutique studio (a fitness studio in US usage) sells a fixed number of class places, and an empty place cannot be sold later. Xponential Fitness, a US-listed franchisor of boutique studio brands, lists getting more use out of each studio next to new members among the ways it expects to grow sales, in its annual report for 2022. We read that as: watch the share of places filled in each time slot. A flood of leads for a class that is already full (say, at 6am) is waste; a quiet slot (say, at 2pm) is where marketing earns its fee.

Intro offers raise legal questions that the agency should answer in writing. In California, the automatic renewal law requires an automatic renewal offer that includes a free trial to give a clear and conspicuous explanation of the price charged after the trial ends. A contract for health studio services entered into in reliance on a willful and false, fraudulent or misleading advertisement is void and unenforceable under the state's health studio services law. That law defines the term to include use of a gym's facilities as well as training.

At federal level, the Eighth Circuit vacated the FTC's amended Negative Option Rule on 8 July 2025, which is a separate matter from the California statutes above. In the UK, the government's April 2026 response on the new subscription contracts regime anticipates that the regime will commence in spring 2027, with a cooling-off right after a trial auto-renews. It is not in force yet, and whether your membership types fall under it is a question for a solicitor.

The priority is an offer built around the slots with spare places, plus fast follow-up. That points to an agency strong on offers, landing pages and lead follow-up more than on raw volume. Ask for these three things:

• Fill rate by time slot from the agency's last booking-led account, and how it aimed offers at the quiet slots.
• A named person who checks the intro-offer wording against your membership terms, in writing, before it goes live.
• A rule for when a class is full: pause the ad, move the spend or open a waitlist.

CrossFit box or strength gym: hire for retention, or not yet

A coach-led gym on one site feels every member who leaves. The Health & Fitness Association's 2025 benchmarking report, a confidential survey of 175 companies in 27 countries, puts overall member retention at 66.4% for 2024. If that means the share of members kept over a year, about one in three leaves each year. The same report groups its results by club type and monthly dues, so ask for the figure that matches your model before you accept an agency's target.

If you are a CrossFit affiliate, there is one more rule. CrossFit, LLC's affiliate FAQ says only affiliation gives you the legal right to use the CrossFit name for business and promotional purposes. It adds that its logos and slogans may not be used without prior permission. The same FAQ bars the word CrossFit from the title of an affiliate's event: "CrossFit Watertown Challenge" is out and "Fitness Challenge brought to you by Watertown CrossFit" is in.

The priority is keeping members and starting new ones well. A coach can only onboard so many newcomers in a month, so intake matters as much as leads. That points to help that is strong on your Google profile, your booking path and follow-up, and not on volume. If your coaches already run strong intro sessions and your profile and website are in order, a freelancer or your own team may beat an agency retainer. Ask for these three things:

• A report on whether the joiners the agency brings are still members after 90 days, and not only how many joined.
• A written plan for how the CrossFit name, logo and event titles will be used inside your affiliate licence, if you have one.
• A cap on new enquiries set at the number your coaches can onboard each month.

Contract terms that line up with your reviews

Whichever gym you run, ask for a short first term and then rolling monthly terms. Three months is a sensible first term: long enough to judge a campaign against its tracking, and it ends at the 90-day review below. Twelve months ties you to an agency before you have seen a joiner count. Read three clauses: the minimum term, the notice period and any automatic renewal.

Then set those dates against your busiest joining weeks. For example, a 60-day notice period that you start in early November ends in early January, in what may be your busiest weeks, with an agency you have already decided to leave. Ask for notice and renewal dates that never leave you without cover then.

Write the meaning of "not working" into the same agreement. Pick one number from your section above: cost per joiner, places filled in the targeted slots, or 90-day retention of new joiners. Tie it to the 30, 60 and 90-day reviews, with a remedy period after any miss. Ask for a written recovery plan within a week of a missed review, and the right to leave on short notice after two missed reviews. Treat that as a position to negotiate, not a legal rule. Keep dated reports, so any dispute is about numbers and not memories, and ask for a weekly check on spend and enquiries in your busiest joining weeks. Our guide on how to fire a marketing agency covers the exit itself.

We run local lead generation for gyms, described on our marketing for gyms page. A gym whose doors are not open yet is not a fit for that service.

What to check at 30, 60 and 90 days

Put these reviews in the diary on the day you sign. If your busiest weeks match the chains above, an agency hired in early October reaches day 90 in early January, in the middle of them. One hired in early December has its 30-day review as they begin.

At 30 days, check the plumbing. Can the agency match every reported joiner to a record in your membership system, and do its counts agree with yours? Has someone checked the offer wording and the price line against your membership terms?

At 60 days, check the number from your section above: cost per joiner by site, places filled in the slots the offer targeted, or newcomers started against coaching capacity. If it is moving the wrong way, use the recovery step you agreed.

At 90 days, check quality and not only volume. Do joiners from the agency stay as long as members who joined by other routes? Compare their first 90 days with those of members who joined before the agency started. Then decide whether to renew, change the scope or leave under the notice terms you agreed.

Send us your join dates by month and your membership model when you tell us about your business, so the reply can name the branch above that fits your gym.