This Week on The Run Rate
Weekly Roundup · Aug 15–21, 2026 · Growth Intelligence for Fitness, Wellness & Health Tech
Double Your Weekend Night Bookings
ClassPass reservations for Friday and Saturday classes between 7pm and 11pm more than doubled from 2023 to 2025, and 53% of its 18 to 34 year olds booked a workout instead of a night out in the past year. Most timetables still treat those hours as dead, which is a choice, because a class slot is perishable inventory and an empty 8pm Friday costs exactly what a full one costs. The spread is already visible inside a single week: fitDEGREE reports reformer slots running at 98% utilization at 6pm against 45% at 10am. Filling that Friday hour is the cleanest version of the argument in The Take on growing revenue in double digits on single-digit member growth, which is about what you can charge the members you already have.
Solidcore Is Dropping the Word “Pilates.” What It Means
Every boutique operator is racing to get Pilates onto their signage. Solidcore, 250-plus US locations, $35 to $45 a class, 30 to 35 new studios planned this year, is taking it off. The category name sets the comparison set, and a label that now runs from a $29 reformer class to a $45 one is a price ceiling you install for free the moment you pick it.
Equinox Became a Points Redemption in Bilt. Would That Sell More Memberships?
Bilt and Equinox launched Bilt for the Committed on August 19: join, upgrade and book from inside the Bilt app, and spend rent points on personal training, studio Pilates and spa. Volume should rise, because a $10.75 billion platform with $20 billion in annualized spend knows where someone lives and what they pay to live there. The quieter cost is the reference point, because a $205 to $395 membership on a rewards menu stops being judged on what it delivers and starts being judged on an exchange rate somebody else controls.
Paying for a Fitness App Boosts Engagement for Four Weeks. Then It Fades.
Yale School of Management tracked nearly 12,000 users of a fitness app, about 7% of whom upgraded to a $39.99 a year premium tier. Those users were 11.4 percentage points more likely to log a workout in week one, 7.9 points by week seven, and indistinguishable from free users after that. The sunk cost every annual contract and founding-member tier is quietly sold on does roughly one month of work.
VASA Is Sponsoring 150 Trainer Certifications a Year. Will It Solve Staff Retention?
VASA will fund up to 150 ISSA personal trainer certifications a year for existing staff, who then coach in its clubs. A benefit that vests through service is a real retention hook and any operator would take the trade. Follow the money though: ISSA named the 1,300-coach deficit at Anytime Fitness, ISSA sells the certification, and VASA now pays ISSA, while the employee receives a credential rather than a higher hourly rate.
Anytime Fitness Asia Is on the Block for Around $400M.
Bloomberg reported on August 18 that Inspire Brands Asia is weighing a sale of the Anytime Fitness Asia master franchise at around $400 million, after DealStreetAsia put the target as high as $450 million in July. The business is roughly 600 clubs across eight markets, more than 100 of them corporate-managed. TRR estimate: that is somewhere near $670,000 to $750,000 per club, which is our arithmetic rather than a valuation, and it flatters the royalty half of the business while understating the owned half. A franchisee owns a club. A master franchisee owns a market, and only one of those sells at a multiple.
Arnold’s Fitness App Took No Private Equity. Does Bootstrapping Get You a Better Exit?
Schwarzenegger spent last week explaining his own cap table, telling Inc. that The Pump Club is backed entirely by him and no fund. Founders do not usually market their funding structure to consumers, and the fact that this now reads as a pitch is the signal. He is making the claim in a month where Xponential’s board reviewed a sale, Permira approached Third Space at a reported £700 million, and Anytime Fitness Asia went on the block, and members have learned to read an ownership change as a warning about price and staffing.
WHOOP Will Now Sell Bloodwork Without the Band. Why This Matters for Your Gym.
WHOOP has opened Advanced Labs to people who do not own a WHOOP, with reported pricing from around $199 for a single annual panel, and GRAIL’s $799 Galleri multi-cancer screen sits alongside it with no prior test required. The same week, Mvmnt cut its form tracking free of the Sky Live camera that used to gate it and put it on any phone for £12.99 a month. Your longevity upsell now has a national competitor that does not need your facility in the transaction, and proximity and trust are the only parts of the offer it cannot copy.
Read This Week
Three posts worth your time, from people publishing the parts of this business most operators keep quiet.
Read this next to our Arnold piece, because Courtney Clapper is making the same argument from the investor’s side. Club Pilates does $1.14 billion in systemwide sales across 1,414 studios and carries 65% of its parent’s revenue, and the market still treats the flagship as something being dragged down by the structure above it. Her lens is the 4 questions she says every operator should ask before signing with any fund, starting with where that fund sits in its 7 to 10 year hold period and who absorbs the slow quarters. A good read!
Buried in this week’s consumer roundup by Mike Gelb is the cautionary tale of the month. Unwell Beverages launched nationwide into Target in January 2025, added protein drinks, rebranded, launched an energy line, and shut the beverage business on August 13, one day after Unwell Media raised at a $500 million valuation. The media brand worked and the product it pointed at did not, which is worth reading closely if you have ever been told your audience is the hard part and the rest will follow.
We loved this piece from Well Made by Sophie Axelson . Sophie separates two things most studios treat as one job. Branding is the font, the palette and the photography, decided once and then maintained. Worldbuilding is what makes someone want to be in your room for thirty seconds while they scroll, which is closer to what a boutique studio is actually selling at $40 a class. Read it next to our Solidcore piece, because the studios escaping a category label are the ones that built somewhere to belong instead of a nicer sign.
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