The Gym Group reported first-half results for 2026 this week. Revenue up 10% to £133.1 million. Average revenue per member per month up 5% to £22.14. Membership up 4% year on year, closing June at 991,000 with average membership crossing one million for the first time. All of that across a 245-site UK estate.
Read those two middle numbers together, because they are the point. ARPM (Average Revenue Per Member per Month) went up 5% at the same time as the member count went up 4%. A budget operator took a price increase and grew volume in the same six months.
Where the 10% actually came from
| Driver | H1 2026 movement | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | +10% to £133.1m | The headline |
| Members | +4% to 991,000 | Volume did roughly 4 points |
| Revenue per member | +5% to £22.14 | Price did roughly 5 points |
| Sites | 245 in the UK | Not a land-grab quarter |
Roughly half the growth came from price. That is the half most operators leave on the table, and the reason they leave it there is a belief that their members will walk. The Gym Group's own commentary credits both volume and pricing power, and the numbers back it: a company serving the most price-sensitive segment in UK fitness raised its rate and kept adding members.
If the budget model can take 5%, the coached studio charging four times as much has a weaker excuse than it thinks.
The Run RateHow did a budget operator raise prices without losing members?
Three things, none of them glamorous. It raised on a base that was underpriced relative to the market, so the increase closed a gap rather than opening one. It kept the increase small enough to sit below the threshold where a member re-evaluates the whole membership, which for a £21 product is roughly a pound. And it was still adding capacity and value at the same time, so the price move did not arrive alone. A rate increase that lands with no other change reads as a charge. One that lands alongside a visible improvement reads as a price.
The benchmark you can actually use
£22.14 a month is a genuinely useful number because it is public, audited and specific. Very little of the boutique market publishes anything comparable. If you run a studio, the exercise is simple: divide total membership and package revenue for the month by the number of active members. Not by the number of people in your CRM. By the ones who paid you something.
Most operators find that number is lower than they expect, because the average is dragged down by dormant low-tier memberships and legacy rates nobody has touched in three years. We made the same argument in August when we looked at why revenue per member is the only lever left for operators facing slowing member growth. Member counts are a vanity number in a market at capacity. Revenue per member is the one that moves.
What to do with this before your next increase
Start with legacy rates rather than list price. Almost every studio has a cohort paying a rate that was set years ago and has never moved, and those members are usually the most loyal rather than the most fragile. A staged increase on that group, announced properly with notice, is the lowest-risk revenue in the building.
Second, price the increase against something visible. New equipment, an added class block, extended hours, a better booking window. Our pricing guide for boutique studios goes into the mechanics, but the principle is simple enough to run without it: never let a price change be the only thing a member notices that month.
Third, watch frequency, not just cancellations, in the eight weeks after. Members who object to a price rise often do not cancel immediately. They come less, then leave at renewal. Visit frequency is the early warning, and it is the same signal we flagged when gym membership returned to 2019 levels without the usage to match.
The Gym Group has not discovered anything clever. It has simply done the thing that most operators talk themselves out of, at the end of the market where it should have been hardest.