Fitness clubs and studios are starting to abandon the sale of long‑term memberships. Business costs are rising, and the share of spending on fitness in Russians’ budgets is falling — the margin is no longer what it used to be. The money received in advance quickly runs out, while rent, salaries, and marketing still need to be paid for another whole year. Cash flow gaps in the fitness industry are becoming a widespread phenomenon.
The fitness services market is close to stagnation. FitnessData recorded growth of 11.6% in the first half of 2026, reaching 167.6 billion rubles (in the first half of the previous year, the market grew by almost 24%). However, if we break down this growth by segment, the situation is not so optimistic: fitness studios grew by 5%, although last year they added 27%, and classic clubs grew by 6% compared to the first half of 2025. Adjusted for 6% inflation, this is stagnation. The main driver of market growth was subscription‑based services — the recurring‑club segment grew by 65%.
This situation in the market is natural — it is becoming increasingly difficult for customers to pay for annual cards. FitnessData notes that consumers’ priority expenses are growing — the share of fitness in Russians’ “wallets” is decreasing. Loans and installment plans have become more expensive, and the approval rate remains low: according to the National Bureau of Credit History, banks reject 75% of applications.
However, the most dramatic development is not the stagnation of the market for classic clubs and studios, but the decline in profitability. The problem is that revenue is growing slower than expenses. Utility bills, the payroll fund, the cost of equipment, and the tax burden are increasing. In some cases, rent has risen by 15–20% over the past year. At the same time, the average price increase for fitness services was only 5–7% — this is not enough to offset the costs.
About 15-20% of studios and clubs in Russia operate under a franchise. The instability of the usual model is also noticeable in this segment. Many franchisors still rely on marketing: product packaging, lead generation, and advertising funnels. New franchisees receive a stream of applications, but they do not always know how to retain a client, build a service and turn a one-time sale into a long life cycle. While the market was growing, this was not critical.
In addition, annual passes create a hidden obligation to the customer. Money has already been received, and services have yet to be provided. If the influx of new buyers slows down – and this is inevitable, as studios focus on local audiences – the risk of a cash flow gap increases.
Why subscription stuck offline
The transition to a recurrent model is explained not only by smoothing cash gaps – there are additional factors that make it more stable and marginal. For example, marketing and customer acquisition costs are reduced – the subscription cost does not imply a long sales cycle, and the retention process is automated (reminders, special offers, etc.).
The subscription model expands the pool of potential customers, especially among those who previously did not dare to make a large prepayment. It is easier to pay 1.5-3 thousand rubles a month than 20-30 thousand rubles one-time. In addition, younger generations are used to subscribing – this is a natural behavior pattern for millennials and zoomers. They are more willing to choose a model with regular write-offs and flexible conditions. For example, 70% of the clients of the Urban Fit network, operating on a recurrent model in St. Petersburg, are people under 35 years old.
The recurrent model reduces the need of customers for loans and installments. For example, installments are an additional burden on the business, since it is paid by the club from the income received.
Real example. The network of stretching studios Softly.fit transferred three unprofitable studios to recurring payments in February 2026 – as the founder Ruslan Baranovsky said, he had a choice: to close the studios or try to save them by using a new trend. According to him, the subscription model has made the revenue flow more stable and predictable, less dependent on the season. In addition, recurring payments simplify sales and partially solve marketing problems, because due to the high conversion to studio activities, you don’t need so many leads every month. As a result, two studios were saved, one was closed – and in the third they also managed to stabilize the number of customers due to a good extension. However, the location was problematic, marketing was expensive and difficult, so they did not risk it. There are currently five studios on the network: two operate on a subscription model, three are on the classic one. In September, they plan to transfer another one studio to recurrences, if that works, then the other two within a year.
According to the subscription model, about 10-15% of studios and clubs are already operating in Russia, for example, Urban Fit, Spirit Fitnes, DDX Fitness and others. The MyFitlab chain offers two formats: a classic club card and automatic monthly fitness. The Urban Fit network, which includes 18 facilities in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, in May 2026 opened a fitness center with a water-thermal complex and courts for carrion and squash – it also works according to the subscription model. One of the market leaders of classic fitness clubs with a swimming pool, the Fitness House network (more than 70 facilities in different regions of Russia), is preparing for the transition to recurrent payments from September 2026. This is how the recurrent model moves from small studios to large fitness clubs.
Habit as a success factor
Annual passes with big discounts seem convenient for sales – next time you need to «push» the client only after a year. Recurring payments can be stopped at any time – which means it is easier to lose a client. However, everything is not so obvious.
We analyzed our own data (more than 1900 studios and clubs in Russia and the CIS countries use Fitbeis services) and found out that the likelihood of extending an annual subscription is directly related to how often a person went to the gym in the first month. If a new customer has only come in twice, he is substantially less likely to re-purchase than someone who has attended ten or more training sessions in the same period.
Moreover, clubs tend to sell an annual season ticket and forget about the client before renewal. In vain. In our experience, on average, 20% of the total revenue of studios and clubs in the economy segment is formed by additional services – and if a person does not attend, he simply does not have a need for them.
Thus, the formed habit of regular visits affects repeated sales and the lifetime value of the client (LTV is the amount of income that the business receives from one client for the entire time of interaction with him). Subscription in this sense aligns better with people’s behavior and economic opportunities than an annual contract.
Of course, recurring payment alone does not provide eternal loyalty. As soon as the client begins to miss training, his motivation drops, and after it – so does the likelihood of renewing the subscription. To prevent this, it is important to build a system of trigger events into the recurrent model: reminders, personal offers and motivational mailings. For example, if a client is absent for more than 10 days, you can automatically start a chain of messages with bonuses, an invitation to a free workout, or a personal recommendation. Such automatic interaction scenarios help in time to pick up those who begin to fall out of the regular schedule, and return them to the hall before they cancel the subscription.
From prepayment to recurring payments
Studios and clubs developed for a long time in a growing market, when management errors could be compensated by advertising, discounts and additional customer traffic. However, the environment has changed: taxes and other costs have risen, credit and installment availability have declined, and marketing is becoming less effective due to limited channels and internet outages. It is more important than ever for businesses to focus on revenue management and customer retention.
The subscription model is becoming a working way to smooth out seasonality, increase revenue predictability and support the club’s economy amid rising costs and cautious consumption. The market is doomed to move from a model where a business lives on prepayment to earning money on regular use of the product.
The next stage in the market development is deep automation, that allows to reduce growing costs. More than 100 clubs without staff are already operating in Russia: the client himself pays for a subscription in the application, signs up for training, enters the club using the application. There are no administrators and sales department – one remote manager and coaches in the training hall. The marginality of autonomous objects with a good location and competent management reaches 50%, that looks fantastic for the modern fitness services market. However, such cases already exist – and they form the vector for the further development of the fitness industry.
By Vasily Suvorov, founder of Fitbeis (an ecosystem of digital services for the fitness industry)