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Andrew Wallis

Free tool

Member loss calculator for gyms and studios

Every member who leaves takes their fee with them, month after month. See what members leaving really costs you, and what keeping a few more is worth.

Before you start: what you'll need
  • How many paying members you have. Your booking or billing software shows your active members. Count everyone on a regular payment, whatever they pay for.
  • Your average monthly fee. Take last month's membership income and divide it by your number of members.
  • How many left last month. Cancellations, plus anyone whose payments stopped. If last month was unusual, use an average of the last three.

1. Your numbers

Your members

2. What members leaving costs you

3. What keeping more is worth

You won't keep everyone, and you don't need to. Small improvements add up quickly.

Keep more members

4. Where to start

Three things to do this month

  1. Spot the members who are drifting. Most members stop coming before they stop paying, so check attendance after every session.
    • Group coaching: if someone was booked in twice this week and missed both, send a WhatsApp or text. Keep it short and friendly: "Hey, missed you this week. Everything OK?" Not a sales pitch.
    • One-to-one: clients usually tell you in advance, so a no-show is a warning sign. Message the same day: "Hey, missed you today."
  2. Wow new members in their first 90 days. That's when habits form, or don't, and when they decide whether joining was the right call.
    • Phone in their first few days to check they can book and use everything, and welcome them in person at their first session.
    • Follow up with helpful emails and handouts that teach them something, so you give more than they expected.
    • Celebrate milestones: a card in the post when they hit a number of sessions or a goal, and a shout-out on your socials if they're happy to be featured. I used to call this the LCV Wow campaign: wowing members to raise their lifetime client value.
  3. Invite former members back. It's your quickest win. They already know you, and many left for reasons that have since changed.

More on each step: how to keep members for longer.

How the sums work

Your monthly loss rate is the members who left last month as a share of your members. How long a member stays, on average, is one divided by that rate.

What a member is worth is your average fee for every month they stay.

The benchmarks: 2% or less a month is healthy, 2% to 4% has room to improve, and over 4% needs work. They come from the Two-Brain Business State of the Industry report (opens in a new tab), with data from thousands of coaching gyms on Wodify.

The report's line is simple: if you keep less than 98% of your members each month, fix it fast. The typical gym keeps about 94%, so it loses about 6% a month.

  • This year's cost adds up the fees you'd miss if the same number leave every month and you don't replace them. A member who leaves in January costs you eleven months of fees this year; one who leaves in November costs one.
  • New members needed is how many you'd need to join each year just to stay the same size.
  • What keeping more is worth uses the same sum for the members you keep.

The figures leave out price rises and any extras members buy, so the real cost of losing a member is usually higher.

Figures are estimates to help you plan, not financial or tax advice. Nothing you enter is saved or sent anywhere.

Keeping members matters most when each one is profitable. Check your margins with the free margin calculator.

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