As of August 4, every Anytime Fitness member in the UK and Ireland gets Apple Fitness+ free for the life of their membership — a £9.99-a-month value, thrown in at no extra cost, on top of 24/7 access to more than 6,000 clubs worldwide. It follows earlier rollouts across the US, Australia, Canada and Japan.
Anytime frames it exactly how you'd expect. CEO Chuck Runyon said the deal will "bring more members in and keep them longer and, most importantly, help them achieve fitness goals." President Stacy Anderson described integrating Apple's content into Anytime's own app so members can "individualize the ways they achieve and sustain their goals." A retention story, in other words.
It's a good story. It's also only half the deal.
Why is Apple giving Fitness+ away through gyms?
Because Fitness+ has struggled to grow on its own. Apple has faced stagnant growth and high churn with the service since its 2020 launch, and it is now actively pursuing gym partnerships as a distribution strategy. Bundling Fitness+ into a membership someone already pays for solves both problems at once: it reaches users Apple couldn't acquire directly, and it lowers churn because the subscription is baked into a bill the member isn't going to cancel just to drop a workout app.
The rumored Health+ repositioning — folding Fitness+ into a broader AI-powered health ecosystem — only reinforces the read. This is a product looking for a way to matter. Big Tech keeps circling the workout as the layer it wants to own, the same instinct behind Spotify building a running mode and ChatGPT, Gemini and Samsung all launching health coaches in a single week.
| Anytime Fitness gets | Apple gets | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary win | Value-add perk, retention lift | Distribution to 6,000+ clubs |
| Underlying need | Retention in a slowing market | Growth for a stagnant Fitness+ |
| Data & billing | Keeps the member relationship | Bundled into existing dues |
| Exposure | Depends on a product it doesn't control | Reduced churn risk |
Should a gym bundle a third-party fitness app as a membership perk?
Yes — if it lives inside your owned member experience and you keep the data and the relationship. A free perk raises perceived value and can lift retention. The risk is dependence: if the partner changes terms or sunsets the product, a perk you built your pitch around disappears. Anytime hedged correctly by integrating Apple Fitness+ into its own app and personalized plans, so the member relationship stays with the gym, not the tech company.
That distinction is everything. Churn (the share of members who cancel in a given period) is the metric both sides are fighting, and whoever owns the relationship owns the fix. If your retention pitch becomes "we have Apple," you've handed the value to Apple. If your pitch is "we build your plan, and Apple's content is one tool inside it," the value stays yours. It's the same lesson the wearable brands are learning as hardware commoditizes and brand plus distribution become the moat.
What's the operator move here?
Be the platform others distribute through, not the product that depends on someone else's platform. Take the free content, wrap it in your own coaching and your own app, and keep the member data. Apple needs your storefront more than your members need Apple's app — so negotiate, integrate, and never let a partner's struggling product become the reason your members stay. Because the day it stops being free, you want them staying for you.