Essential Pricing Metrics and Reports for Boutique Fitness Movement Studios
I swear I’m not obsessed with money, just RETENTION, JOY, and PROFIT!!!
Lets talk metrics and reports that can help inform your pricing strategy for yoga, pilates, barre, fitness, class-based boutique studios. I swear I’m not obsessed with money! I talk about pricing A LOT because I truly believe it’s the first step in your value proposition with customers and that it is a key step in optimizing retention, community, and profitability. The following metrics and reports can help guide you in ensuring you are setting the right price points for your classes and memberships and that you are leading your business decisions with data and not just gut feelings or squeaky wheel customer feedback, because we all know that sometimes those feelings and customers are straight up wrong.
Our goal is to encourage the behavior that your business and community need - steady commitment. When you optimize the amount of steady customers who are attending your business regularly, you will feel your community thrive. In this blog post, we’ll explore the key pricing metrics and reports that every studio owner should monitor & review to optimize their pricing strategy and enhance profitability while maintaining a loyal and satisfied customer base.
Head over to your business management software and run the following reports for insights as you think about your current state of your studio and ways you might be willing to change things to better encourage commitment.
Capacity Utilization
Do you have room for newbies?
Look around in your business management software for capacity utilization report. Most software systems have this somewhere, you might have to dig. Do you have room for more people or are you near capacity on a regular basis? You have room for more people if your overall capacity utilization as a percentage of your available spots / time is less than 75-80%. I consider a business “full” or “at capacity” if you are dealing with waitlists on a regular basis and your overall capacity utilization is greater than 75-80%. If you are “full” then it might be time to raise your prices across the board AND find a way to get more bodies in your business, either with more class times surrounding the popular times, or more equipment or spots in existing, full classes. If you are a newer business and/or have room for plenty more clients and visitors, perhaps you can be more aggressive with your new client introductory offer and/or membership pricing options.
Sales Change Year-Over-Year Y/Y
How are your sales when you look at them last 30, 90, and 365 days compared to previous year?
Are you growing, maintaining, or are sales feeling flat or contracting? Consider your sales over the last month, quarter, and year, compared to previous year. Similar to capacity, if you are “up”, it’s a good sign to raise the prices a bit, perhaps 10-20%, based on how much your expenses have gone up or changed in the last year. If you are down or flat, again, I would suggest you can be more aggressive with your new client introductory offer and/or membership pricing options.
Sales by Service, Package, or Product
This is the sales by service report in mindbody which allows you to sort by quantity
The best report for reviewing what sells the most or least is usually called the Sales by Service (Mindbody) or Sales by Product (Mariana Tek) in your business management software. Look around in your software, you can often find something. If the most sold option is your single session, I propose you can be more aggressive with your membership (upsell) pricing. If your membership is the most frequently sold option, great job, high five from me!
Also, review what isn’t selling much. Looking at the same report, look for anything that isn’t selling much, but is still on your website and in your pricing collateral. Can you deactivate any of these and / or hide them from your website and / or business management software?
Bonus Metrics & Reports
This is the Intro report in Walla which shows you what subsequent purchases customers made after introductory offer
I love that the Walla Intro report allows you to visually see how many converted and how many didn’t
Check out any other reports in your business management software that give you insights into studio performance, capacity utilization, retention, and/or revenue change over time. In Mindbody, I love to review the Average Revenue Analysis, Revenue by Class, and Appointment Metrics reports. In Walla, they have a great slide on the dashboard referring to capacity (see screen shot above) and I also love their Intro Offer report for a quick review of retention (see screen shots at sides). In Mariana Tek, they have several utilization reports and I love the Utilization by Location report. When looking at these reports ask yourself what they are implying. Are their any insights that can be gleaned? Any obvious red flags?
Keep in mind, that the most successful studios I’ve interacted with are those that optimize the amount of members they have - or steady customers. When looking at these reports, ask yourself if you are getting as many members as you think you can or can you adjust pricing to better encourage commitment? Most studios I talk to about pricing can do the following to help optimize retention and profitability:
Raise your single session price
Lower your membership upsell option for new clients, that’s only available while intro offer is valid
Offer a more compelling intro offer, either lengthen the duration, or lower the price
I am currently in an era of Pricing & Retention so be sure to review my Resources and Blog pages for more articles if you want more.