Price Transparency: Why does my membership cost what it does?

Have you ever wondered why studio prices are what they are? Why are they different than big box gym prices? Where does my monthly membership go within the business?

Everyone has their own relationship when it comes to money. Maybe you think studio pricing is outrageous or you think it's a steal. We're not here to change your mind or relationship to your money.

We're going to pull back the curtains and show you how we calculate the price of our services and where membership and class fees are spent. We believe in transparency and honesty, and pricing is no exception.

Let's start with the monthly expenses of running Triangle Foundry. To pay our expenses to keep the lights on, pay staff, ensure water running, make loan payments we took to start the business, and pay for software needed to run the business... we need about $10K each month. This does not include retail inventory, profit, owner's pay, event and workshop overhead, marketing, new hire training, or improvements to the studio.

A large chunk of that is our lease cost and payroll. Why so much for payroll? We do two things with our staff that are not the norm in a all small studios:

• We believe in paying our instructors well for their services regardless of the revenue from each class. We pay instructors a flat rate regardless of how many students attend class or what membership or package they use to attend class. This may mean that not all classes will be profitable consistently, but we feel it's important to value the biggest asset we have, our staff.
• We employee front desk staff because it provides a supportive and welcoming environment for customers, as well as a clean and fresh studio.

Our aim as a business is to cover those minimum expenses with reoccurring revenue, such as memberships. We use the number of classes available each month (~90), our max capacity for classes (14), the average number of classes attended by our members (10-15/month), and our monthly expense cost to calculate an optimal membership rate. Using our Immersed Membership as that optimal rate, we need ~70 members each month to cover our minimum expenses.

We use the membership rate to calculate all other pricing, such as class packs, drop ins, and our New Student Special. These pricing options as well as our additional income streams such as retail, events and workshops, series, and event rentals allow Triangle Foundry to (in no particular order):

• Continue to cultivate a supportive and inclusive environment through customer engagement
• Continue marketing to grow the business and profit margins
• Use profit margins to improve the studio equipment
• Pay bonuses to staff that go above and beyond
• Bring in new talent for events, workshops, and new staff hires
• Provide new and exciting events and workshops
• Provide compensation to myself (Karyna, the owner)
• Maintain a diverse range of retail items
• .. and more

If you are a member or are thinking about starting a membership, your contribution goes directly to our monthly expenses, before we give any consideration to the items listed above.

We like to believe that other small business studios have used similar metrics when deciding their rates as well.

Okay, so now that you have an understanding of what happens month to month behind the scenes of the business, you may still be asking why we can't charge the same as a big box gym. Most big box gym memberships are significantly less than studio memberships. A few reasons for this are:

• Most big box gyms are franchises or owned by a large corporation that has access to a lot more capital than a small family owned business, which mean’s lower fixed costs like rent, costs for equipment etc….
• Big box gyms can accommodate a higher number of customers at any given time. They have several machines and areas that customers can work on their own without the direct assistance of an instructor or staff.
• Big box gyms assume that most customers will not come to the gym consistently, and because their assumption is right with a high percentage of their customers, so they can offer a low price.
• The chain big box name and tried and proven branding and marketing has been tested several times and is given to franchise owners to use.
• Because big box gyms are not as concerned about how often their customers attend the gym or building a community culture, they do not put emphasis or work into customer engagement the way that intimate studios do.

So when you choose to be a member at a studio, like Triangle Foundry, your membership costs go to supporting the community at that studio, paying a fair wage to staff, supporting the family that runs the business, and helping to to improve services and the studio itself.

We are happy to chat more about our pricing anytime and hope that this transparency helps to show you the value of your membership at Triangle Foundry.