Is ClassPass worth it for your studio?

Choose your game: volume or quality

Every studio plays one of two games. In the first, you want as many people as you can get, and an empty spot is your problem. In the second, you want fewer people who return every week and pay your prices.

ClassPass is a good company with a good product. It is very good at the first game: it fills spots.

At our studio, we never used ClassPass. We knew which game we had to play. With our money and our team, we had to focus on quality. We even raised our prices, because cheap classes cannot pay for good instructors.

ClassPass is great for big classes

A cycling studio near us has 50 spots in a class. For them, ClassPass is ideal. $7 for a spot is a good deal, because an empty spot earns nothing. They need numbers, and ClassPass brings numbers.

If your classes have about 15 spots or more, and some of them stay empty, ClassPass can help you too.

Small classes need customers who stay

In a class with 6 to 8 spots, every spot matters. Each one has to pay a fair price, or the class does not pay for itself.

ClassPass customers get used to cheap classes. Imagine a customer pays $7 for your class through ClassPass. Your drop-in costs $30. After weeks at $7, your price looks far too high, and they do not buy it.

So do not expect ClassPass customers to buy your packs and memberships. They chose a cheap class, and they will look for the next cheap class.

Do not try to do both at once

Around us, many studios post things like “10 reasons to buy our membership and not through ClassPass”. They post it because ClassPass costs them money. But they stay on ClassPass, because they are afraid to lose those customers.

They try to do both at once, and it does not work for long. Choose the channels you sell through, and put your effort there. When you try to sell everywhere at once, you do each one badly.

Treat ClassPass customers like everyone else

Some studios treat ClassPass customers worse than their own members. Do not do this. You chose to be on ClassPass, and the customer did nothing wrong. A customer you treat badly can also leave a bad review of your studio.

How ClassPass pays your studio

If ClassPass fits your studio, learn how the money works before you sign. This is how ClassPass describes it in its own partner guide:

• A minimum rate. You agree a confidential minimum rate with ClassPass, set as a share of your own prices. ClassPass pays at least that rate for each booking.
• A price that moves. ClassPass’s SmartRate tool changes the price of your class in the app. The price falls when demand is low and rises when a class is almost full, but your pay never drops below your minimum rate.
• Late cancels follow your rules. ClassPass uses your late cancel window, up to 12 hours. When a ClassPass customer cancels late or does not come, you are usually still paid.
• One payment a month. ClassPass calculates your balance in the first week of each month and pays you.

How ClassPass pays studios, on ClassPass’s own site (opens in a new tab)

Keep ClassPass to your quiet classes

You decide how many spots ClassPass can sell. If you set it up by hand, you list the spots yourself. If ClassPass connects to your booking system, its SmartSpot tool decides how many spots to show in each class, from your past attendance. You can tell it to give more spots to your quiet times.

A spot on ClassPass stays open to your own customers, so your members can still book it.

Use these settings to keep ClassPass in the classes that are often half empty. Keep your busy times for the members who pay your prices.

One more number from ClassPass. It says that in 2024, after their first three months, 91% of the fitness classes its US members attended were at studios they had already tried. So a customer who likes your studio can keep booking you through ClassPass, at the ClassPass rate, instead of buying your membership.

How ClassPass lists spots, on ClassPass’s own site (opens in a new tab)

Know your customer before you sign anything

Nobody will save your studio. Not ClassPass, not the Mindbody app and not any other platform. They can help, but less than many owners hope.

Before you sign a contract with any of them, stop and answer four questions:

• What do you want to achieve?
• Who is your customer?
• Where do they live, and where do they work?
• What are they interested in?

Talk to your customers every day until you know the answers. Then create one offer for that customer, and promote it all the time. It can be an intro offer, or an intro offer with a free first assessment. Keep improving it until enough people buy it.

Bring your own customers with a small ad

You do not need a big budget. At our studio, we spent about €15 a day on one video ad for our intro offer, and a lot of people wanted to try it.

• Shoot a short video of 15 to 20 seconds. Explain your offer and show your classes.
• End with one clear next step. Ask people to buy on your booking page, or to send you a message.
• Test both endings. Keep the one that brings more customers.

After the intro, offer a pack or a membership. Then keep giving great classes, so people have a reason to stay.

How to price the intro offer in your ad

Ask your members to bring friends

Your second channel is the members you already have. They trust you, and their friends trust them. Reward their loyalty, and give them a reason to bring a friend.

When this is not right for you

• Your classes are big. With 30 to 50 spots in a class, some spots stay empty. Getting $7 for a spot is better than leaving it empty.
• You want volume. If your plan is many new faces every week, and you accept that many of them leave, ClassPass gives you exactly that.

Your own booking page in TimiTomi

Your ad needs a page where people can buy. In TimiTomi, it sends them to your own booking page. They buy your intro offer there, and you can sell it only to new customers.

TimiTomi does not connect to ClassPass yet. We plan to add it, so you can use ClassPass as one channel next to your own.

How your booking page works in TimiTomi