Need More Clients? Here's How Top Gyms Scale to 300+

The average big-group gym has 129 members—but some Two-Brain gyms are thriving with 300-700 clients.

Today on “Run a Profitable Gym,” Chris Cooper breaks down what the Top 10 gyms for client headcount are doing differently.

Coop explains how five critical systems allow these gyms to retain clients for over 24 months, deliver a consistently high-quality experience and attract new members month after month.

He also shares real insights from the leaders on how they reactivated former clients and found the perfect balance of class size and pricing to maximize value.

Key detail: These gyms don’t need 300+ members to be profitable; every single one would be way into the black with just 150. That's your first target: 150 high-value members who stay for two years or more. After you hit that, you'll have a world-class business and can scale up if you want to.

Tune in to hear how these elite gym owners grew their member counts with proven business fundamentals and mentorship—not gimmicks or discounts.

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0:01 - Industry average client count

1:36 - Gyms with the most clients

2:46 - 5 things the Top 10 share

5:42 - Quotes from the leaders

11:25 - What the leaders don’t do

Episode Transcript

Chris (00:02):
The average big group gym has 129 clients.
That includes CrossFit,Bootcamp, Kettlebell Clubs.
129 clients is the industryaverage.
So how do the top two-braingyms get over 300 clients?
Well, I'll tell you today onRun a Profitable Gym.
I'm TwoBrain Founder ChrisCooper, and this is our monthly
leaderboard show.

(00:23):
Make sure that you subscribe sothat you don't miss the next
leaderboard, which will bemonthly revenue coming next
month.
And the numbers are going toblow your mind.
So I just said that the averagegym has 129 clients.
That's a sneak peek into our2025 state of the industry
report, which will be publishedin just over a month.
In 2024, that number was 122clients.

(00:43):
We have more data than anybodyelse.
And it's clear that most gymsdon't have a ton of clients.
That's absolutely okay.
We can show you how to build agreat profitable gym business
with 150 clients or less.
But once you've done that, youwill already have the systems
and probably the staff that willallow you to scale if you want

(01:03):
to.
Here's a leaderboard full ofpeople who have learned how to
retain and acquire lots ofclients.
Here's the key, though all ofthese gyms would be profitable
and earning a great wage fortheir owner and their staff with
just 150.
They're not hanging everythingon their ability to get 300
clients.
All right.
So the order of the advice thatI give you is going to be

(01:25):
critical.
If you can't hold on to people,marketing won't save you.
Let's look at the top gyms inTwo Brain in order of number of
clients.
And then I'm going to give youmy top tips for getting there
yourself.
So first, in 10th place is agym in the US.
US has a huge representationthis month.
Congrats.
Uh 314 members there in 10thplace.
Ninth place, 344.

(01:47):
Eighth place, 387.
Seventh place, 395 members.
Amazing.
Sixth place, this is the firstnon-U.S.
gym.
This is a gym in Chile.
A single location, 439 members.
Fifth place, a gym in the UKwith 443 members.
Fourth place, a gym in Portugalwith 453 members.

(02:07):
Third place, a gym in the USwith 540 members.
Second place, a gym in Chilewith exactly 600 members.
Congratulations.
And first place, a gym inDenmark with 698 members.
Now these are all singlelocation gyms.
It's not some conglomerate of,you know, three different
locations.
But the way that they did it isall the same.

(02:29):
There's like five things thatyou need to really get above 150
clients.
I want to say this again,though.
These gyms would all beprofitable at 150.
They didn't just shoot for themoon and say, I'm going to lose
money until I get to 300.
That's not a how to run a goodcoaching business.
So here are five things thatthese gyms all have in common.
You notice, you know, some arein Europe, some in South

(02:51):
America, some in North America,and they're all very different
gyms.
They speak different languages,they have different cultures,
some are CrossFit, some arestrength and conditioning,
whatever, but they all have thesame five basic principles in
common that they learn fromTwoBrain.
First, they all have greatretention.
They all have retention above24 months.
That means that every singleperson in your gym stays for at

(03:13):
least two years.
Now, there are gyms out therewho tell me, like, I've got five
years retention.
These are usually gyms thataren't measuring correctly.
Because if everybody in yourgym stays five years, then you
would not have any problems withyour gym at all.
24 months is the gold standard.
The actual average worldwide isjust over a year, which is
good.
It's up from eight months twoyears ago.

(03:35):
But right now, you want to beaiming for two years.
And more importantly, becauseyou got to keep the client two
years to change their lives.
Really, they don't build thehabits that are necessary for
long-term lifestyle change in ayear.
You need to keep them for twoyears.
So the first thing they allhave is 24 plus months retention
on every single client, notjust the best clients, not just
the OGs, but the every client.

(03:56):
Second, they have world-classbusiness systems so that all
clients get the exact same greatservice every day.
Of course, people in their gymhave their favorite coach, but
if that coach doesn't show uptoday or, you know, there's a
replacement or they go to adifferent group, they know that
they're going to get the samequality level of service,
whether it's the owner or it'sthe newest hire, they're going

(04:17):
to get amazing service.
Third, each one of these gymshas four marketing funnels
operating constantly.
It's not about the greatmarketing idea that you have
once or that single marketingtrick or the ad agency that you
hired one time.
It's about the things that youcan repeat over and over and
over again.
That's how you grow yourbusiness.
95% of business growth isrepeating what works, 5% is

(04:38):
trying new things.
The fourth thing that thesegyms have in common is that they
have somebody who knows how tosell and they use the
prescriptive model to do that.
So they do free consultations,they do NSIs, and they have
somebody who knows how to make aprescription and then coach the
person into buying it, signingup.
And fifth, they have a fullymapped-out client journey with

(05:00):
detailed onboarding, like anon-ramp program, fully
documented touch points and goalreviews every 90 days.
The people who are out theretelling you that the only way to
be profitable is to get to 300clients and give discounts and
have the lowest price in townand stuff.
These people are not getting to600 members.
They're not getting to 700members, and their gyms would
not be profitable at 129 membersthe way yours should be,

(05:23):
because that's the industryaverage.
Two-Brain Gyms work with amentor to create everything on
this list that I've just givenyou, which are great retention,
world-class business systems,four marketing funnels, somebody
who knows how to sell, and afully mapped-out client journey
for retention.
That plows plan allows them toearn and keep a lot of clients.
Now, we interviewed the leadersas we always do to get really

(05:44):
specific info.
So here's what they had to sayabout their client accounts.
One said, we launched the nosip sweat intro about three
weeks ago.
We know it's going to evolveover time into better retention,
which is what we're counting onto help us build to the next
level.
Another said, or two of themsaid, affinity marketing that
are really, really good atreferrals and not just like,
here's 20 bucks off if you giveme a referral, because that

(06:06):
doesn't incentivize high valuepeople.
But instead of saying, I knowyour wife's name, I know what
you do for a living, here's howI can help those people and
bringing them in that way.
So one person said, We'reabout, we are event and
community driven.
We've been doing events for awhile, mostly events, uh, about
eight between our two differentgyms.
Another one said, we do a bringa friend day once a month.

(06:27):
Reactivation and specialprograms is big.
I know, you know, as an in thefirst decade probably of gym
ownership, it felt like everyclient cancellation was a
breakup to me.
But these gyms have a moreevolved uh view of the long term
of the client.
And so this person said, wewent hard at reactivating people
on holds over the last twoweeks, and at the same time,

(06:49):
brought back a Spartan raceclass that was suspended for the
summer because the coach wasbuying and renovating a house.
So what they did was they wentback to former clients and they
brought them back in the gym.
The people who are most likelyto be your clients next month
are the people who are yourclients this month.
But close to them are thepeople who used to be your
clients last month.
And quite often, in myexperience, when a client leaves

(07:09):
your gym and they go trysomething else, if you can bring
them back in, they will be thebest client ever because they've
seen that the grass isn'tgreener anywhere else and they
appreciate your value more.
Uh, this client on theleaderboard said onboarding and
client journey are key.
We have a big focus on theonboarding phase from zero to
six months of our clientjourney.
Another said we spend threeone-on-one sessions learning the

(07:30):
movements and the equipment,and then we take a class with
them and they're supported intheir first group sessions too.
This was a really common theme.
And sometimes when we'retalking about clients, we don't
hear this theme or it doesn'tstand out as much as I'm
highlighting it now.
But I really wanted to callthis out, and this is product
market fit.
This is really important to gymowners because most of us are

(07:52):
first-time entrepreneurs and wejust assume that we're selling
the thing that we would want tobuy.
The reality is the way that youbuild a long-standing,
profitable, high-value audiencethat sticks around is you sell
them what they want to buy.
Because as gym owners, we'rekind of freaks.
We like things that nobody elselikes.
And so product market fit meansis the thing that you're

(08:13):
selling equal to the thing thatpeople want to buy.
So this person on theleaderboard said, we have a very
specific product.
We blend yoga plus functionaltraining into a class format.
We have a great niche.
Athletes age 27 to 37, 65%female.
That is knowing your productmarket fit.
It's knowing your marketextremely well and building a

(08:35):
product to match that market.
You know, Seth Godin oncewrote, don't find people to buy
your product, find products foryour audience.
Uh, this person said, we areunapologetically beginner
friendly.
The reality is that CrossFitisn't perceived as super
welcoming near us.
It is not known as a brand thatis beginner first.
We don't emphasize theleaderboard and we don't

(08:55):
prescribe the weights.
We write the modifications outon the board for each movement,
easiest to hardest.
For example, we don't have maleor female categories on the
row.
We use ranges instead.
We don't say all women have todo this and all men have to do
that.
We let people comfortablychoose their own adventure.
The feedback from clients isthat they really feel welcome
and they fit in.
Look, the way that you onboardpeople is the biggest

(09:16):
determinant of how long they'regoing to stay.
Having people come in and dolike a free trial class is a
great way to make sure thateither you don't sign that
client up or you sign them upand they're gone in six months.
This person said other gymsdon't do much, oh, do much more
personal training than we do.
I focus on very high qualitydelivery with groups.
The max is 14 people in a groupwith about nine on average.

(09:38):
We can deliver a better groupproduct.
So we have a personalizedexperience in our classes.
Twice a week, group at 209 ismy bread and butter.
We stay focused on group as ahigh quality thing.
There are two things I want topoint out with this comment.
Number one, their ARM is 209.
To beat the industry averageand to really make a successful
gym with 150 clients, you needan ARM of about $205 a month.

(10:03):
It doesn't mean that everyclient pays $205.
It means that that's theaverage across all of your
products and clients.
This person is saying that at$209 a month, the twice a week
class is their bread and butter.
That's bang on.
Next, uh earlier, this personalso said that 14 people is the
cap of their class.
Years ago, when we startedpublishing Save the Industry,

(10:26):
what we found is that retentiondips with fewer than seven
people in your class, and thenit rises until you have 13 and
then it drops off again.
There's a point where theclass, there's just not enough
people to really feel like acommunity and get the value.
And then there's also thispoint where they feel like a
number.
So seven to 13 is perfect.

(10:46):
And this gym is saying thatthey're capping their gym,
they're capping their classes at14 with nine on average.
Keep in mind that this gym ison a leaderboard with between
300 and and 700 clients.
Now, of course, all of thesegyms are going to recommend
mentorship because it's workingfor them.
And so this one said we startedin Minnesota and we had five

(11:08):
studios, and then we opened fourin Colorado, and then the
pandemic happened and we endedup shutting down all but two.
We started with two-brainedbusiness because we shrunk the
business and we needed to rebootwith less of a corporate lens
and more of a client journeyfocus.
We needed somebody idea-drivenand outside the day-to-day.
So, what did you not hear fromthese owners?
You know, I think conspicuousin its absence is the advice to

(11:33):
slash your rates in a crazysale, sell paid in full
long-term memberships at adiscount, do a Black Friday
special deal.
Um, nobody said I use thissketchy bait and switch six-week
challenge to get people in thedoor.
They don't need to.
You've heard it from real gymowners.
I was quoting them throughoutthis episode.
Huge client counts don't comefrom great marketing campaigns.

(11:56):
They come from sound businesssystems and models and
retention.
And that's where we come in.
A mentor can help you build abetter business really fast, way
faster than you trying tofigure it out with trial and
error yourself.
To talk about what that lookslike for your unique gym, book a
call via the link in the shownotes.
I'm Chris Cooper.
Thanks for checking out thisepisode of Run a Profitable Gym.