How many members does your studio need?
Break-even is the point where a month’s income covers a month’s costs. Enter seven numbers from your own month to see how many members you need to break even, your profit and margin, what each class costs, and how many people a class needs to pay its way. The sums are the same for a gym or a yoga, Pilates, cycling or barre studio.
One month, in seven numbers.
Each box starts with a number from Alturra Studios, an invented studio, so the sums have something to show. None of them is a benchmark: replace each one with your own.
You have 240 members: 76 above the line.
9.0 of the 12 people in an average class cover its cost; the other 3.0 are profit.
The math is only the sums shown under How the math works, run on your numbers: no benchmarks and no estimates of ours. Alturra Studios is invented, and its numbers are an example to replace, not a target. This is arithmetic, not financial advice.
Every member who leaves takes their dues off that profit. Work out your churn rate in dollars →
How the math works.
Members needed to break even = (monthly costs − other monthly income) ÷ monthly dues, rounded up. Break-even headcount = cost per class ÷ revenue per visit, rounded up. Every other number on this page feeds one of those two. Here is each sum in plain words, with Alturra’s month worked through, and where a sum counts more than the product’s own estimate does, it says so.
Monthly costs
Everything the month costs. Fixed costs stay put whatever the schedule does; instructor pay is the part that moves, rising with each class you add and stopping with each class you cut. If teachers are paid per head, or a base plus a bonus, use what an average class costs you in pay; the piece on instructor pay and what each class can carry compares the three ways. What it costs to run a fitness studio goes through the fixed lines one at a time.
Alturra: $23,400 + $60 × 260 = $39,000
Monthly revenue
Everything that comes in: memberships at their dues, plus class packs, intro offers, private sessions, partner payouts and retail. If members pay different rates, use the average, which is a month’s membership dues divided by your members.
Alturra: 240 × $169 + $11,440 = $52,000
Profit and margin
What is left, in dollars and as a share of what came in. If your own pay is not in fixed costs, read profit as what is left before you pay yourself, and count it the same way every month so each month compares with the last.
Alturra: $52,000 − $39,000 = $13,000, and $13,000 ÷ $52,000 = 25.0%
Members needed to break even
Other income pays part of the month and memberships carry the rest. Divide what is left by one member’s dues and round up, because nobody joins as a fraction. The sum holds everything else still: the same schedule, the same prices, the same other income. For a site that has not opened yet, the day-one number in the studio presale playbook is the same idea: the new site’s monthly fixed cost divided by its founding dues.
Alturra: ($39,000 − $11,440) ÷ $169 = 163.08, so 164 members. It has 240, 76 above the line.
Cost per class, counting every cost
What each class has to carry for the whole studio to break even: its teacher, and its share of the rent, the desk, the software and everything else. Count the classes that ran, not the ones scheduled. This is stricter than the product’s estimated cost per class, which counts payroll plus rent only; the next section sets the two side by side. Cutting a class saves its instructor pay, not its cost per class, because the rest of the month’s costs stay where they are.
Alturra: $39,000 ÷ 260 = $150. Payroll plus rent alone would be ($22,900 + $7,000) ÷ 260 = $115.
Revenue per visit
What an attended visit earns on average: revenue divided by attended visits. Classes run times the attended average is the month’s attended visits, so count the people who came, not bookings and not the room’s capacity. Keep partner payouts in other income: partner visits are in the attended average, and without their money the average reads low. How to price fitness classes works from the other end, building each price up from what a class costs.
Alturra: 260 × 12 = 3,120 visits, and $52,000 ÷ 3,120 = $16.67
Break-even headcount, counting every cost
How many people a class needs, at what an average visit earns, to cover what it has to carry. People come whole, so round up: a line of 9.3 means ten in the room. Before rounding, the line also reads the whole month: set it beside your attended average and the people above it are your margin, while classes that average under it mean the month loses money. Built on every cost, this is stricter than the product’s estimated break-even headcount, which covers payroll plus rent. It is one line for the whole studio; a single slot has its own teacher and its own crowd, and reading fill slot by slot shows how to judge each one.
Alturra: $150 ÷ $16.67 = 9.0, so 9 people, against an attended average of 12. Three of every twelve people are profit, and 3 ÷ 12 = 25.0%, the same margin as above.
Why this cost per class runs higher.
This calculator counts every cost you enter, so its cost per class comes out higher than one built from payroll and rent alone, which is how the product estimates cost per class. Both counts are honest. They answer different questions.
What it takes to put a class on: the people who run it and the room it runs in.
What a class has to earn for the whole studio to break even.
Payroll plus rent says what it takes to put a class on. Every cost says what a class has to earn for the whole studio to break even, marketing, software and card fees included. Divide each by the same revenue per visit and the bigger cost asks for more people in the room, so the full count draws the stricter line. A class that clears the first line and not the second pays for its teacher and its room, and leaves the rest of the studio’s costs to other classes.
Xyzios, the studio operating system, shows the first count. It works with Mindbody and is an approved Mariana Tek integration, and it reads your P&L from QuickBooks Online. With the books connected, its Programming board shows an estimated cost per class, payroll plus rent divided by the classes run over the last three closed months, and one estimated break-even headcount per location, which each slot’s attended average is compared against. It does not work out a break-even for each slot. That sum, and the full count on this page, stay yours.
What owners ask about break-even.
How many members does a gym or studio need to be profitable?
Enough that membership dues cover whatever your other income does not. Add up a month’s costs, fixed costs plus instructor pay for the classes you run, take away other income such as class packs, intro offers and retail, then divide by one member’s monthly dues and round up. That is your break-even line, and every member above it adds their dues to profit. In an invented example, $39,000 of costs and $11,440 of other income at $169 dues comes to 164 members, so a studio with 240 sits 76 above the line.
How do I calculate break-even for a yoga or Pilates studio?
The same way as for any studio or gym, because the sums do not change with what is taught. Monthly costs are fixed costs plus instructor pay times classes run; take away other income and divide by monthly dues for the members you need. For each class, divide monthly costs by classes run for what a class has to carry, then divide that by revenue per visit and round up for the people a class needs. What changes between a yoga room, a Pilates floor and a cycling studio is the numbers that go in: the rent, the size of the room, the prices and the schedule.
How many people does a class need to break even?
Divide cost per class by revenue per visit, and round up. Revenue per visit is monthly revenue divided by the month’s attended visits, which is classes run times the attended average. Cost per class can be counted as payroll plus rent over the classes run, or as every monthly cost over the classes run, which is what this calculator uses and which draws the stricter line. In an invented example, every cost comes to $150 a class against $115 for payroll plus rent, and at $16.67 a visit the stricter line is 9.0, so 9 people. It is one line for the whole studio: a slot with a higher-paid teacher or a different crowd has a line of its own, worth working out by hand before you move or cut it.
How do I calculate my studio’s profit margin?
Subtract monthly costs from monthly revenue for profit, then divide profit by revenue. In an invented example, $52,000 of revenue and $39,000 of costs leave $13,000, a 25.0% margin. Count every cost, card fees, software and marketing included, decide whether your own pay sits in costs or comes out of profit, and count it the same way every month so each month compares with the last.
Which studio costs are fixed and which change with the schedule?
In this calculator, instructor pay is the cost that moves with the schedule: add a class and you pay for it, cut one and that pay stops. Everything else counts as fixed for the month: rent, desk and management pay, payroll taxes, utilities, marketing, software, insurance, professional fees, cleaning, card fees and retail stock. That is why cutting a class saves its instructor pay rather than its whole cost per class; the rest of the month’s costs are still there.
What if my studio is below break-even?
Work out which number closes the gap, and test any change on paper before a member hears about it. The line in members moves with your dues, your fixed costs, your other income and the classes you run. In an invented example, dues of $179 instead of $169 lower the line from 164 members to 154, as long as nobody leaves over the change. Change one box at a time in the calculator to see which one moves your line the most.
Can Xyzios show my cost per class and break-even headcount?
As an estimate for each location. Xyzios works with Mindbody and is an approved Mariana Tek integration, and it reads your P&L from QuickBooks Online. With the books connected, its Programming board shows an estimated cost per class, payroll plus rent divided by the classes run over the last three closed months, and one estimated break-even headcount per location, which each slot’s attended average is compared against. Because it counts payroll and rent only, its cost per class comes out lower than this calculator’s, which counts every cost you enter: $115 against $150 in the invented example, so this calculator draws the stricter line. It does not work out a break-even for each slot.
Know your line. Then build above it.