Anytime Fitness Franchise Cost & Review

Anytime Fitness is a 24/7 keycard-access gym franchise and one of the largest fitness systems in the world by unit count. Its financial profile is unlike anything else in our cost comparison — not because of what it earns, but because of how it charges.

What it costs

Every other brand we have reviewed takes a percentage of your sales. Anytime Fitness takes a fixed monthly amount. That single structural difference reshapes the entire investment case, and it is the first thing a prospective buyer should understand.

What centers actually earn

The main sample covers franchised centers open and operating the entire 12 months ended February 28, 2026. At 1,683 units it is the largest Item 19 sample in our data. The range runs from $90,337 to $2,048,737.

Two things in this table need care.

The Coaching Dashboard segment is self-selected. Centers using the coaching tool averaged $561,291 against $446,814 system-wide — a $114,000 gap the franchisor will reasonably highlight. But this is 215 centers that chose to adopt a coaching program and stick with it for at least nine months. Operators who do that are likely better operators generally. The gap is real; the causation is not established. Treat it as evidence that engaged operators do better, not as a promise that buying the dashboard adds $114,000.

Company-owned centers earn more than franchised ones — $521,854 against $446,814. Company locations are usually in markets the franchisor picked first and do not pay themselves a royalty. Underwrite against the franchised number.

Note also that Item 19 discloses no median and no quartile breakdown. With a range from $90,337 to $2,048,737, the average is almost certainly pulled above the typical center, and there is no published figure to tell you by how much. That is a meaningful gap in an otherwise unusually large disclosure.

The flat fee is the whole story

At average revenue of $446,814, the combined $20,904 in annual fixed fees is about 4.7% of sales. Compare that with the percentage-based brands:

That is a substantial structural advantage — and it improves as you grow. A center billing $900,000 pays the same $20,904, an effective 2.3%. Anytime Fitness is the only brand in our comparison where outperforming makes your franchisor proportionally cheaper.

The structure cuts hard the other way at the bottom. A center billing $90,337 — the disclosed low — pays that same $20,904, which is 23% of revenue. Fixed fees are brutal to weak locations in a way percentage royalties never are, because a percentage royalty falls when you fall.

The capital efficiency problem

Against a midpoint investment of about $722,406, average revenue of $446,814 gives a ratio of roughly 0.62x — near the bottom of our comparison, alongside Perspire and SWTHZ.

This is the trade the model asks you to accept: a capital-heavy build and modest top-line revenue, offset by a light fee load and a labor structure that runs on a fraction of the staff a coached-class concept needs. A 24/7 keycard gym is staffed for part of the day, not all of it. Where Orangetheory pays a coach for every class and earns $857,377 doing it, Anytime Fitness earns roughly half that with far less payroll against it.

Whether that trade works is a margin question, and Item 19 does not answer margin questions. Run it in the ROI and payback calculator with realistic staffing and rent for your market.

Who this fits

Anytime Fitness suits a semi-absentee-minded buyer who wants low daily labor intensity, and it suits smaller and secondary markets unusually well — the 24/7 access model does not require the population density that a class-schedule concept needs to fill sessions. The flat fee also makes multi-unit growth attractive, since fee load per unit does not scale with success.

It fits poorly for a buyer expecting high revenue per location, and poorly for a weak site. The fixed-fee structure that rewards strong centers punishes marginal ones without mercy.

Before you sign

Ask for a median and a quartile distribution. Item 19 gives you an average across 1,683 centers and a range spanning twenty-to-one, which is not enough to locate a typical outcome. Read Item 19 in the actual FDD, work the due diligence checklist, and confirm the current royalty and brand fund amounts — flat fees get adjusted, and the adjustment mechanism is in the franchise agreement.

Sources

• Franchise Chatter — Anytime Fitness 2026 review
• Sharpsheets — Anytime Fitness FDD, profits & costs

Frequently asked questions

How much does an Anytime Fitness franchise cost?

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The 2026 FDD discloses a total initial investment of $539,329 to $905,482, including a $42,500 initial franchise fee. The midpoint is roughly $722,400.

How much revenue does an Anytime Fitness center generate?

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The 2026 FDD reports average total revenue of $446,814 across 1,683 franchised centers open and operating the entire 12 months ended February 28, 2026. Revenue breaks down as $341,503 membership (76.4%), $73,710 coaching (16.5%), and $31,976 pay-per-visit (7.2%). The range runs from $90,337 to $2,048,737. These are gross revenues, not profit.

What are Anytime Fitness's ongoing fees?

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A flat royalty of $842 per month per center and a brand fund contribution of $900 per month per center — roughly $20,904 a year in fixed fees, regardless of revenue. This is structurally different from every other brand in our comparison, which charge a percentage of sales.

Is Anytime Fitness profitable?

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Average revenue of $446,814 is only about 0.62x the midpoint investment, one of the weakest capital-efficiency ratios we have measured. What offsets it is the flat fee structure: at average revenue, $20,904 in fixed fees is about 4.7% of sales, less than half the load most competing brands charge. A 24/7 keycard model also runs on far less staff than a coached-class concept. Item 19 reports revenue, not profit.