Why ClassPass Can Eat Your Studio Margins (and How to Manage It)

ClassPass does not publish a fixed commission percentage. When you join, you agree a confidential minimum rate, a floor the platform can never pay below for a qualifying reservation. Its SmartRate tool then adjusts the credit amount (and your payout) above that floor in real time, based on class popularity, time on the schedule, booking patterns, and how close the booking is to the class start (ClassPass, How it works; ClassPass, payouts and pricing).

That single fact reframes everything. There is no public "ClassPass takes X%" number to quote, because the commercial terms are negotiated and confidential per studio, and the per-booking amount floats. Anyone quoting you a precise standard rate is guessing. The number that matters is the one in your own agreement and your own dashboard.

What this means in practice: a popular peak class and a quiet off-peak class can pay you very differently for the same nominal spot, because SmartRate is pricing each booking against demand. ClassPass's own framing is that the tool lifts payouts on average for studios that use it; its 2024 figure was around 20% higher payouts for US fitness partners on SmartRate versus those who weren't, alongside more new visitors (ClassPass, payouts and pricing). Treat that as the platform's own marketing claim, not an independent audit, and check it against your dashboard.

Wellhub (formerly Gympass) runs a different model: it pays partners per member check-in, monthly, rather than per dynamically priced credit (Wellhub Help Center, partner payments). The per-visit economics and the user volume are not the same as ClassPass, so evaluate it as its own thing, not as a ClassPass equivalent. The specific Australian per-visit amounts are commercial and not published, so ask Wellhub directly rather than working off a quoted figure.

One name worth clearing up: Bruce (Bruce Studios) is a Nordic aggregator operating in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (Bruce Studios). It has no Australian presence, so if you see it referenced in operator forums, it's not a platform you can join here.

Your own booking system may also offer a client-facing discovery surface (Mindbody, Vagaro, Glofox and others have moved this way) that doesn't take an aggregator-style cut. Worth comparing against the pure aggregators on a like-for-like basis.

Three legitimate reasons studios accept aggregator economics despite the per-class hit.

Filling otherwise-empty seats. A 7am Wednesday class with 6 of 14 spots sold at full price earns the same whether the other 8 stay empty or get filled by aggregator users. Filling them adds revenue you didn't have, fills the room (better for the paying members and the instructor's energy), and puts new people in front of your brand. This is the strongest economic case, and it only holds for seats you genuinely wouldn't have sold.

Member acquisition. Some aggregator users convert to a direct membership after trying you. If they do, the thin margin on their early classes is offset by what they're worth as a member. This works for studios with a real conversion funnel and falls apart for studios where almost nobody converts. The honest catch: most studios don't measure their conversion rate, so they're guessing about whether this argument applies to them at all.

Visibility for newer studios. Even users who never convert become brand-aware. For a new studio with low recognition, that exposure has some value. For an established studio with strong direct channels, it's often a rationalisation that ignores the cannibalisation of full-price casuals. The honest answer varies by studio, and you should be suspicious of it if you're already busy.

The studios that benefit most tend to be newer, with significant off-peak capacity and a working conversion funnel, in dense markets where the realistic alternative to an aggregator booking is an empty spot.

Cannibalisation of peak full-price casuals. Your loyal casual discovers ClassPass, switches to it, and books your peak Tuesday 6pm class through the app instead of paying your casual price directly. Their behaviour didn't change. Your revenue from them dropped. If a meaningful chunk of your full-price casuals migrate to the platform for classes they'd have booked anyway, the maths gets worse than the per-class picture suggests.

Member resentment. Members paying for unlimited reformer access (commonly $200 to $350 a month for reformer in Australia, varying by studio and city, see the reformer pilates guide) notice when several spots in their packed evening class went to app users at a visibly lower rate. Some operators report more cancellation conversations once aggregator presence becomes obvious. Whether it shows up as real churn varies, and it's hard to measure cleanly.

The conversion that never comes. The "they'll convert eventually" argument depends on a number most studios haven't tracked. If your aggregator-to-member conversion is low, you're likely losing money on the platform even after accounting for the members it does produce. The problem is you can't know which side of the line you're on until you measure it.

Here's a worked example. The inputs below are made up to show the method. Plug in your own numbers from your own dashboard.

Say a converted ex-aggregator member is worth $1,500 to you over a year, and you assume a $28 margin gap on each aggregator-booked class (the difference between what the app paid and what a direct casual would have). At an 8% conversion rate, every 12 aggregator users produces roughly one $1,500 member, against 12 x $28 = $336 of foregone margin. Net positive in this illustration. Drop the conversion rate to 3% and every 33 users produces one member, at 33 x $28 = $924 of foregone margin. Net negative.

The break-even conversion rate falls out of your own figures once you've got them. The point of the example isn't the specific numbers, it's that two inputs decide everything: your real conversion rate, and whether the seats you're filling are incremental or cannibalised.

What to actually measure:

• Average aggregator payout per class, straight from your dashboard
• Average direct revenue per class (member pro-rata plus full-price casual)
• Aggregator-to-member conversion rate over 6 to 12 months
• Average member lifetime value
• Occupancy by class slot, peak versus off-peak

The honest reality: most studios don't measure conversion accurately, so they can't run this. Step one is to start tracking. Everything else is downstream of that.

1. Restrict aggregator access to off-peak slots. The platform lets you choose which classes are bookable through it. Limit it to slots that would otherwise run light (mid-morning weekday, late evening, weekend afternoon). You capture the empty-seat upside and cut out peak cannibalisation. This is the single highest-impact move and it pairs directly with the off-peak guide.

2. Cap aggregator attendees per class. Even in available slots, set a ceiling (say 4 of 14 spots). Your members feel less crowded out, and your worst-margin scenarios are bounded.

3. Build a direct conversion funnel. Email aggregator users straight after their visit with a direct-to-studio intro offer. Capture the relationship before it lives permanently inside the app.

4. Treat aggregator spots as a marketing cost, not revenue. If the mental model is "I spent some margin to introduce someone to my studio", judge it like any other acquisition channel. Was the cost per new face efficient? You can only answer that if you're tracking conversion.

5. Audit the numbers every quarter. The algorithm shifts, your conversion shifts, your competitor mix shifts. What justified joining 18 months ago may not hold now.

Three honest signals.

Your peak classes are routinely waitlisting direct members and casuals. At that point aggregator bookings in peak slots are close to pure cannibalisation. Restrict them to off-peak, or leave.

Your conversion rate has sat near zero for a year. The "they'll convert eventually" story has run out, and the platform is just a standing margin cost.

Your members are openly unhappy about the pricing optics in the room. That's hard to quantify and real, and it's usually the canary.

Studios that leave successfully tend to have a strong direct-marketing channel and a confident acquisition story without the platform. Leaving without that infrastructure usually just costs you the volume without replacing it. Be honest about which you've got before you quit.