Ask three studio owners for their intro conversion rate and you will get three numbers, none with its working attached. One divides by every intro sold, another by the people who came to a class. One waits thirty days, another ninety. They may run equally good studios.
An intro conversion rate is four decisions and one division, and the decisions move it more than the studio does. One invented studio runs through this piece: Alturra Studios, the house example from other notes on this site, with 240 members at $169 a month and an intro offer of $99 for 30 days unlimited. Eighteen of its intro offers ended in March, and the growth piece finds that nine of those people became members. Here is the same group, counted five ways.
Intro conversion in one minute
- Count people, from the day their intro started. Date each intro from its first class and follow the month's group forward; do not divide this month's new members by this month's intros.
- Wait until the window has closed. At 30 days Alturra's February reads 40.0% and its March 12.5%; at 90 days, 60.0% and 50.0%.
- Judge an offer on members won, not the rate. A cheaper intro can bring more people and fewer members.
| Decision | Option A | Option B | Alturra's February, A then B | This piece counts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who is in the cohort | intros sold | intros attended: a first class | 9 ÷ 18 = 50.0% · 9 ÷ 15 = 60.0% | attended; the 3 who never came go on a list |
| How long to wait | 30 days | 90 days | 6 ÷ 15 = 40.0% · 9 ÷ 15 = 60.0% | 90 days from the first class |
| What counts | membership only | any repeat purchase | 60.0% · 11 ÷ 15 = 73.3% | a membership held at day 90, paid in full included |
| Which month | by intro start | by join month | 60.0% · 15 ÷ 15 = 100.0% | by intro start |
How do you calculate intro offer conversion rate?
Take everyone whose intro offer started in a given month, count how many hold a paid membership at the end of a set window, and divide. Write the rules down before anyone counts.
Alturra's February cohort is the 15 people who took the first class of their intro in February; their offers all ended in March. Ninety days after that first class, 9 held a membership: 9 ÷ 15 = 60.0%. Two bought a class pack, four bought nothing more, and three people who bought an intro never came at all.
Date each person from her first class, not the day she paid: an intro bought on February 26 and first used on March 3 belongs to March, with the same 90 days as everyone else in it.
What to do this week:
- Write the four decisions on one page and date it.
- Take the latest month whose window has closed (in June, that is February) and list everyone whose intro started in it, with her first-class date. Anyone who paid and never came goes on a separate list.
- Mark each person a member or not on her own day 90 and divide. Then do the two months before it.
Should you count intros sold or intros attended?
Intros attended, meaning the people who came to a first class. Dividing by intros sold mixes two failures: people who came and did not join, and people who paid and never came.
The first is a question about the offer, the room or the conversation. The second is a phone call, because she has not decided anything yet. Keep Alturra's three in and February reads 9 of 18, 50.0%, which is how the growth piece counts it; take them out and it reads 60.0%. Either is honest if you say which, as long as the three land on a list with a name next to it, not in an average.
How long should you wait before you read it?
Until the count stops moving: for a 30-day intro, 90 days from each person's first class. People keep joining after the offer ends, and a window that closes with it misses them.
Six of Alturra's February 15 were members by day 30, when the offer ran out, and nine by day 60. March kept climbing longer: two by day 30, six by day 60, eight by day 90, so a 30-day window would have read it at 12.5% for a month that finished at 50.0%. Nobody in January or February joined between day 90 and day 120; your own history will show where your count stops.
| Cohort | Day 30 | Day 60 | Day 90 |
|---|---|---|---|
| January40 started | 1230.0% | 1435.0% | 1435.0% |
| February15 started | 640.0% | 960.0% | 960.0% |
| March16 started | 212.5% | 637.5% | 850.0% |
| All three71 started | 2028.2% | 2940.8% | 3143.7% |
At 15 starts one person moves February by almost seven points (1 ÷ 15 is 6.7 points), so read the last three closed months together too: 31 of 71, or 43.7%, is Alturra's baseline to beat.
The price is patience. February's last intro started on February 28, so its window runs to May 29 and February is read in June. A closed cohort never changes after you read it; an open one reads low only because it is unfinished. So the rate is a verdict on the past, and the work in front of you is a list: the intros still in their window, which is longest after the January rush.
What counts as a conversion?
A membership, held at the end of the window. A class pack is a real sale, but a pack holder is a customer, not a member.
Two of February's 15 bought a pack; count them and February reads 73.3%. Keep them on their own line, because a pack holder who comes often is the easiest membership conversation in the building, and keep these rules in step with the member definition your other numbers use.
| If she | Counts? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| holds a membership on day 90, paid in full included | yes | it is what the intro is for |
| buys a class pack | no, its own line | a customer, not yet a member |
| rolls from an auto-renewing intro into a membership | yes, once the first full-price payment clears | watch her second month: forgetting to cancel is not choosing to join |
| joins on day 40 and cancels on day 80 | no | the rate asks who holds a membership on day 90 |
Why not divide this month's new members by this month's intros?
Because they are mostly different people. A month's new members come from earlier intros, class packs and people who join outright, so dividing them by this month's intros describes nobody.
Alturra had 18 new members in March, the same 18 that the retention formula piece follows: nine were February's intros, joining as their offers ended, and nine came from class packs or signed up outright. Not one had started a March intro, yet over March's 16 intro starts, March converted 112.5% of its intros. February, read the same way, looks perfect: 15 new members over 15 intro starts, 100.0%, before its own nine had joined.
Each month's result lands in the next month's total. Counting by intro start puts it back in the month that earned it.
Is intro conversion the same as lead conversion?
No: they share a numerator, not a denominator. Lead conversion divides new members by the month's leads, people who made an account and never booked; intro conversion divides them by the people who started an intro.
In February Alturra had 90 new leads and 15 intro starts, so the same nine members are 10.0% of the leads and 60.0% of the intros, and both are right. Lead conversion asks whether interest becomes a member at all, and its first step, a first visit, is decided in the first days: the case for speed to lead. Intro conversion asks whether a first visit becomes a habit. Never give the two one shared goal: a pricier intro can lift intro conversion just by turning more leads away.
What moves intro conversion?
The intro's first week and its last. The second visit decides whether a habit starts and the last week whether anyone asks; speed and price set the conditions for both.
1. The second visit
The steepest step in an intro is from one class to two. Split Alturra's February by whether each person came back within seven days of her first class:
That is why the first-week playbook applies to an intro too: book the second class at the desk before she leaves the first. It is also why a one-class intro struggles: it ends before the step that matters. The four moments inside an intro follow one student from the second visit to the expiry date.
2. Speed, and the last week
A new intro who hears from a person on the day she buys is a different conversation from one who hears on Thursday. Give three moments a named person: the day she buys, the day after her first class, and her last week. The follow-up templates have words to start from.
3. Asking
An intro that ends without a conversation about membership converts on hope. Ask in person at her next class in the last week: "You've been in eight times this month. The 8-class plan is $139 and Unlimited is $169. Which fits?"
4. The step to the first real price
Say both prices in one sentence: "$99 for your first month, then $169." The pricing piece sets Alturra's intro at the price of its 4-class plan, so day 31 always has a rung she has already paid, and it warns against closing an intro with a discount on the membership.
What to do this week:
- Split your last closed cohort by the second visit and compare how many of each group joined.
- Name a person for each new intro: the day she buys, the day after her first class and her last week.
- Write the day-31 sentence with both prices in it, and have the whole desk use it.
Which intro offer should you run?
The one your own closed cohorts say wins more members, with a first real price that feels like a step. There is no best intro offer in general; run each long enough to read.
Alturra sold its usual $99 for 30 days one September and October, then tried $49 for 14 days in the same two months a year later, and read both the same way: intro starts, members at day 90.
The cheaper offer brought 60 starts against 40, but four fewer members, $1,020 less at the door and twenty more people for the desk to follow up. Part of the reason may be on the price list: after $49, every rung costs at least twice what she paid. Alturra went back to $99.
What decided it was members won, not the rate. Had the $49 offer won 20 members, its rate would still have been lower, 33.3% against 40.0%, and it would have been the better offer: four more members at $169 is $676 a month, which covers the $1,020 in about a month and a half. Then check whether each offer's members stay: a member is worth her dues times her stay, and the churn rate calculator will put a year on the difference.
What to do this week:
- Run one offer at a time for at least two full months, with the ads, schedule and desk script held steady.
- Count both by intro start with the same window, and compare once every window has closed.
- Compare like months, never January against July.
Where this lives
By hand, the rate above is two exports and an evening of matching names, every month. Xyzios, the studio operating system, keeps these numbers without anyone rebuilding them. It works with Mindbody and is an approved Mariana Tek integration, and the booking platform stays your system of record.
The Compare board reads intro → member, lead → intro, lead → member and first visit → returned for each location and combined, each on the last closed cohort rather than a short window, with the combined figure recomputed from summed counts, never averaged. A sales goal can carry targets for intro → member % and lead → intro %.
The rate is the verdict; the lists are the work. The Sales Desk call sheet lists new leads (new accounts that have not booked), intro-offer holders by urgency, intros that ended without converting and intros bought but never used, for someone at your studio to call; nothing is drafted or sent from it. On the Front Desk, anyone whose intro ends within a week carries "Intro ends" with the date and "talk membership", and the desk logs the touch.
If the studio switches on intro follow-ups, a note is also drafted for each intro-offer holder whose offer ends this week; it waits for your approval and sends from your studio's own email only when you tap approve. Xyzios does not draft a lead's first touch. How intro follow-up works has the rest, and on the Recovered Revenue Ledger an intro is marked assisted at 14 days and credited $0.
Whatever you count it in, count February in June. The two-minute studio check shows whether intro conversion is the number to work on first.