How boutique fitness founders build for balance

For founders and operators of boutique fitness brands, growth isn’t the only thing that matters.

As demand for high-quality fitness experiences grows, founders are faced with the challenge of expanding access to new and existing customers without weakening profitability. They manage constant trade-offs, driven largely by external factors, in order to expand offerings, protect financial viability, all while preserving that premium brand experience. But where complexity lies, so does the opportunity for creative thinking for founders.

Boutique fitness studios operate with high fixed costs and limited class capacity, making occupancy and pricing critical to profitability. To fill empty spots and attract new customers, studios often turn to platforms like ClassPass, which offer discounted access across studios—but also raise questions about pricing power and brand control.

Class is now in session

At The 12 Fit Club, which operates two locations in Newport Beach, California, the focus has been on building flexibility into its model—using larger class sizes to expand access while maintaining margins.

“This is built directly into our model. Our group classes can accommodate up to 60 people, which allows us to scale the experience without sacrificing quality,” said Josh Boyd, founder and CEO, in an email to Founder Brew.

Boyd said that structure allows The 12 to maintain standards, create more entry points for customers, and still run a sustainable business, decisions which ultimately come down to one guiding principle.

“If you start pricing based on what others are doing instead of what your business requires, you compromise the integrity of what you’re building,” Boyd said.

Not all boutique studios are responding to similar pressures in the same way. Some established fitness brands like Solidcore rely on smaller, high-priced classes instead.

Gillian Almeida is vice president of strategy and insights at Solidcore, where the classes are intentionally small, high intensity, and priced at a premium—a model built on exclusivity as much as its high-touch instruction.

“Solidcore is a premium product, and our pricing reflects that value,” said Almeida in an email to Founder Brew. “The key factors are our coaching talent and our investment in that talent, as well as real estate costs in each market. Pricing fluctuates based on cost of living and overhead.”

A drop-in class at Solidcore can run up to $43 in the DC metro area. For Almeida, the price is justified.

“When people push me on this, the first suggestion is usually to lower the price point, and I respectfully disagree. Accessibility isn’t primarily a pricing problem—it’s a cultural belonging problem.”

Building customer flexibility

Empty spots represent lost revenue, pushing studios to find ways to bring in new customers without fully discounting their core offering. Sometimes, no-shows quietly cost boutique studios between $2,000 and $4,000 a month, according to fitness software provider SHC.

Meanwhile, platforms like ClassPass have emerged as one way for studios to fill unused capacity, though often at the cost of pricing control and direct customer relationships.

“Once a class begins with empty spots, that revenue opportunity is gone, while most of the operating costs remain the same,” said Jeff Bladt, SVP pricing and marketplace at ClassPass parent company Mindbody.

The average studio operates at just 37% of total capacity, according to ClassPass data.

That leaves founders and operators navigating not just demand, but how that demand shows up—and at what price.

For studio operators, the challenge sits in every pricing and access decision: how to grow without diluting what makes the product desirable in the first place. Lean too far into exclusivity, and you risk leaving demand—and revenue—on the table. Push too hard on access, and you risk weakening the premium positioning the model depends on.

It’s a balance few studios have achieved—only managed, one decision at a time.