How to price a gym membership in the UK

Price your gym from your costs and your capacity, not from the chain down the road. If a low-cost gym charges £20 and you charge £87, you aren't selling the same thing. What you do need to know is how many members you need at that price, and whether they'll fit in the room.

There's one number many small gyms miss. Members pay a price with VAT in it, so once you pass the VAT threshold, a sixth of every fee stops being yours.

What UK gyms charge

Here's what I could find. These are read from the source or from someone quoting it, and none of it is a full picture.

Resamania sells gym software, and these are Leisure DB's 2025 numbers, so expect them to have moved. Four boxes is a sample, not a survey, and I've read their plan prices as monthly. Three list a drop-in, at £15 or £16, and three list open gym memberships, at £50 to £62.

For personal training, there's no solid data. Trainfitness says no credible open survey of UK PT rates exists. REPS, a vendor source, puts regional one-to-one sessions at £45 to £75 and London at £75 to £140, with a block of ten regionally at £400 to £650. Treat those as a rough guide.

Work out the fee you need

That sits inside the range the boxes charge, which is a fair sign. Change the member count and you'll see why capacity comes first.

The VAT trap

You must register for VAT once taxable turnover passes £90,000 in any 12 months. The example gym needs £104,390, so it can't stay under.

Suppose it had set £75 a month without thinking about VAT. 120 members bring in £108,000 a year, so it's over the threshold. Once registered, £75 is really £62.50 to the gym, and the year comes to £90,000. That's £14,390 short of what it needs.

My understanding, which I haven't confirmed, is that a normal commercial gym charges the standard 20%, and that some non-profit bodies are treated differently. I couldn't open HMRC's guidance on sport for this article, so check with your accountant. Build VAT in before you get there. Adding 20% to every member in one go is a miserable conversation.

Check they'll fit

20 classes with 12 spaces gives 240 spaces a week. If the average member comes 1.5 times a week, 120 members make 180 visits, which is 75% full on average. That sounds fine until you remember nobody wants 11:00 on a Tuesday. If your 18:00 class is full and your members want 18:00, your real limit is lower than the sum suggests.

The 1.5 is my made-up figure. Take yours from your booking system.

What about music?

I've given music its own line because it surprises people. There are two licences, and the fees are per class.

• PRS for Music: £2.38 a class, from 1 February 2026 to 31 January 2027.
• PPL: £2.22 a class on the latest tariff I could open, which ran to 30 April 2026. Check the current rate.
• Background music is separate. The PRS rate for 250 to 649 square metres of audible area is £881.72 a year. PPL's background tariff is separate again, and I didn't confirm it.

So 1,000 classes a year comes to about £4,600 before VAT, and about £5,482 with the PRS background fee. The example allows £5,500. Both tariffs add 50% if you've been playing music unlicensed, and as the operator you're liable for classes run by freelance instructors too. ukactive says music without PPL repertoire needs no PPL licence, and its members get 10% off PPL. Ask TheMusicLicence for a quote.

Set your other prices

Work out a class. £104,390 across 1,000 classes is about £104 a class before VAT. With nine people in the room, that's £11.60 each, or £13.92 with VAT. So a £15 drop-in about covers its seat on these made-up figures. That's worth knowing before you sell drop-ins at £10.

• Tiers: I'd copy what the boxes do and price by visits. A twice-a-week plan should be your main product, with unlimited priced for people who really use it. That's my view, not a tested rule.
• Open gym: price it well below coached classes, but above the budget chains. The boxes I checked charge £50 to £62.
• Class packs: a block that doesn't renew itself looks to be outside the subscription rules, on my reading of the draft guidance. That makes them simple, but check with an adviser.
• PT: charge for your time plus the gym's costs. If you rent space to a trainer, one operator Trainfitness found set the fee at fifteen sessions a month at the trainer's own rate. Published rent bands trace back to a 2016 article, so ask around locally.

Joining fees and the headline price

This is the rule most likely to catch a gym today. Since April 2025, leaving a mandatory fee out of the price you show has been a banned practice, known as drip pricing.

The CMA's guidance names gym joining fees as a mandatory charge that must be included in the total price. For minimum-term contracts, extra mandatory charges go in the total cumulative or periodic price. Gyms received 11 of the CMA's 100 advisory letters in November 2025. A Department for Business and Trade report, quoted by the law firm Shoosmiths, found drip pricing in 60% of the gym memberships it reviewed. I didn't open the report itself.

It went further. Pinsent Masons reported on 30 October 2026 that the CMA had fined Wayfair, Appliances Direct and Gold's Gym about £6 million between them. RPC described the Gold's Gym case as being about late disclosure of joining fees. All three admitted the breaches and settled. The AA's driving schools were fined £4.2 million over a £3 booking fee.

In practice:

• If everyone pays a joining fee, say so wherever you show the monthly price.
• On a 12-month contract, show what the whole term costs.
• Better still, drop the joining fee and raise the monthly price slightly. That's my opinion. It's simpler, and it removes the risk.

Contracts: today's rules

If someone signs up online today, they generally have 14 days to cancel. If they sign in the gym, that right usually doesn't apply. So a member who signs in person is held to the contract, unless something else applies.

Citizens Advice lists when a gym should let someone out, or when terms may be unfair:

• Serious injury or illness, with evidence. It says the CMA's view is that a contract is unfair if it doesn't allow this.
• A big change in circumstances, such as losing a job.
• A minimum term of more than a year.
• Automatic renewal without permission.
• A large price change or facility change mid-contract.

I'd write those exits into your terms. They cost little, and arguing with an injured member costs more.

Contracts: what's coming on 1 January 2027

The law firm TLT reports there's no statutory grace period. It says the CMA will focus first on helping businesses comply, though egregious breaches could be enforced from day one.

Here's what I couldn't settle. The draft guidance has a sports facility example, but it doesn't directly cover minimum terms, notice periods or early exit fees. If you sell 12-month memberships, get this checked. Your trade body or a solicitor is the right call here. This is general information, not legal advice.

Raising your prices

• Do it once a year, on a set date, with plenty of notice.
• Tell members first, in a personal note.
• Check your terms allow it. A large mid-contract rise may be unfair, and members may be able to leave.

There's a short notice for this in our text library.

David Bell, founder of Real Business Systems

David helps small UK businesses get found, answer every enquiry and keep customers coming back. We sell some of the services mentioned here, and we say so where they come up.