An independent gym or fitness studio in Australia sells for anywhere between $80,000 and $2 million — which is either reassuring or alarming depending on where you sit in that range. The spread is that wide because “gym business” covers everything from a sole-operator PT studio renting space from a physio to a 24/7 access facility with 1,200 active direct-debits and a manager who runs the whole thing without you. What you’ve actually built determines what it’s worth.
The Owner-Operator Problem
This is the single biggest factor in gym valuations, and it plays out exactly the same way whether you run a CrossFit box, a Pilates studio, or a 400-square-metre fitness centre in a suburb.
A gym where you — the owner — are the product has a fundamental structural problem: when you leave, the value leaves with you. If you’re the popular instructor with a loyal following, the trainer clients book specifically for, or the face of the studio on Instagram, a buyer is paying for something they can’t keep. Your members come for you, not the logo. That’s fine while you’re running the business. It’s a nightmare when you’re trying to sell it.
I worked with a gym owner in Perth who had built something genuinely impressive on paper — 800 members, $1.4M revenue, solid location in a growing suburb. But he was teaching six classes a day personally and hadn’t trained any other instructor to a comparable standard. When we went to market, buyers pulled the attendance data and quickly worked out that well over half the retention was tied directly to him. The offers reflected that reality, and they were nowhere near what he’d expected. The gap between his number and the market’s number came entirely from that one factor.
The fix isn’t complicated, but it takes time — typically 12-18 months of deliberate transition. Build a team. Train other instructors or coaches. Move yourself out of service delivery and into the operator role. A business that functions without you in it is worth materially more than one that doesn’t.
Types of Gym and Their Multiples
Not all fitness businesses are priced the same way, and the differences between categories are significant.
Boutique studios — Pilates, yoga, cycling, barre, CrossFit boxes, reformer studios — trade at 2x to 4x EBITDA when operations are systematised and not instructor-dependent. The upper end of that range goes to studios with strong brand recognition, a waiting list for class bookings, high conversion from casuals to ongoing plans, and instructor depth. The lower end is what you get when the founder is still delivering 70% of the sessions. (This is more common than most studio owners like to acknowledge.)
Large format access gyms — 24/7 swipe-access, equipment-based, lower staffing requirements — can achieve 3x to 5x EBITDA when the membership base is stable and the lease is favourable. The recurring direct-debit model is the attraction here; buyers like that members show up and swipe regardless of whether a staff member is watching. These gyms are more scalable and attract more interest from strategic acquirers and PE-backed groups.
PT studios and small owner-operated gyms — typically valued on SDE (Seller’s Discretionary Earnings) rather than EBITDA, at 1.5x to 2.5x. SDE adds back the owner’s drawings and wages to reach a real profitability figure. If you’re drawing $160K a year from a gym doing $380K revenue, the normalised SDE might be $200K — which at 2x gives you $400K in business value. That’s a much more accurate framing than reported net profit after an owner’s wage.
Franchise resales — Anytime Fitness, Snap, F45, and the rest — have their own resale processes, often involving head-office approval, transfer fees, and sometimes a right of first refusal for the franchisor. The franchisor’s methodology for valuing goodwill may differ from what the open market would pay. If you own a gym franchise, start with your franchisor’s resale team before engaging anyone else — the process is different from an independent sale.
The Membership Book Is Everything
The single most valuable asset in your gym isn’t the squat racks or the reformer beds. It’s the membership book — specifically, the number of active direct-debit memberships, the average monthly value, and the churn rate.
Buyers will stress-test your membership data. They want to know: how many members cancel each month? What’s the average membership value? What percentage are on ongoing plans versus casual drop-ins? A gym with 500 members paying $65/month on 12-month direct-debit agreements is fundamentally different from a gym with 500 casual members who showed up twice last quarter.
A rough rule of thumb: every $10,000 of reliable monthly direct-debit income adds roughly $200,000–$350,000 to your sale price. That’s a very direct incentive to convert casuals to ongoing plans.
Monthly churn above 5-8% starts to concern buyers. Under 3% is strong and gets reflected in the multiple. High-touch boutique studios with waitlists and strong retention data — document it carefully. If you can show 18 months of member cohort data, average tenure above 14 months, and a waitlist for peak sessions, you’re telling a very different story than a gym with 300 casuals and a leaky bucket.
Your Lease Matters More Than You Think
Gym businesses are location-dependent businesses, and location dependency means lease dependency. A 10-year lease in a high-traffic area with rent at 10-12% of revenue is worth serious money. A lease with 18 months remaining on a commercial strip that could be redeveloped is worth almost nothing to a buyer — regardless of how good the financials look.
Buyers focus on two things in a gym lease: remaining term and assignment rights. A lease with 5+ years remaining and renewal options is strongly preferred. Assignment rights — your ability to transfer the lease to a buyer — need to be explicitly clear. Some commercial leases require landlord consent, and some landlords use a business sale as an opportunity to renegotiate terms upward. Check your lease before you start any sale process, not during it.
The ATO benchmark for health and fitness clubs sits at total occupancy costs of around 10-15% of revenue. If your rent is above that — maybe because you signed an ambitious lease during a growth phase that didn’t materialise — buyers will discount their offer to account for the ongoing cost drag. A conversation with a corporate advisor before you go to market is often the fastest way to understand how your lease looks to a buyer.
Equipment: Asset or Liability?
Gym equipment is one of the few areas where a business sale involves a meaningful physical asset, and it can cut either way.
Owned, well-maintained, quality equipment is a genuine positive. Buyers are paying for a turnkey business — not having to immediately spend $120,000 on new cardio, cable machines, and free weights is a real benefit. Prepare a documented equipment list with ages and estimated replacement values. If you’ve been replacing equipment methodically rather than running everything to failure, show that.
Leased equipment is more complicated. If you’re running $5,000/month in equipment lease repayments, that comes directly off your EBITDA calculation. It also represents a contingent liability the buyer inherits or needs to refinance. Some buyers price it in; others treat it as a red flag. Be transparent about it upfront — surprises during due diligence are expensive.
Old equipment is a negotiating point. If your treadmills are eight years old, a buyer will estimate a replacement cost and deduct it from their offer. Some sellers choose to refresh the cardio floor 12 months before going to market; whether that investment pays back depends on how much it moves membership conversion and retention.
What Buyers Are Actually Paying
The Australian fitness industry has seen real consolidation over the last five years. Private equity-backed fitness groups — including operators running multi-site portfolios across metro and regional areas — are actively acquiring well-run independents. Their criteria are consistent: EBITDA above $250K-$300K, strong membership retention, a favourable lease, and an operation that doesn’t need the current owner present to function.
A broker told me recently about a boutique Pilates studio that sold for 4.2x EBITDA — well above what the owner had expected. The reason wasn’t extraordinary financials; it was that she’d spent 18 months before listing deliberately reducing her personal teaching hours and training up two other instructors to take her classes. By the time buyers arrived, she was running the business rather than delivering it. Three strategic buyers competed for the deal, and the price reflected that competition.
For a well-run, owner-independent gym doing $400K-$600K revenue with $150K-$200K EBITDA, expect sale prices in the $400K-$700K range depending on the membership book and lease quality. Gyms generating $800K+ in EBITDA attract PE-backed groups paying 4x to 5x. Small studios under $100K EBITDA are essentially priced for the local market — lifestyle businesses sold to individuals rather than strategics.
What buyers look for follows a consistent logic regardless of industry: they want predictable cashflow, manageable risk, and a business that doesn’t walk out the door when the seller does.
Before You Sell: Three Things That Move the Number
If you’re two or three years from wanting to sell, there are specific moves that will materially improve your outcome.
First, convert casuals to direct-debit plans. The membership data matters more than almost anything else, and a member on a $70/month plan contributes 3-4x the sale price value of a casual visitor generating the same annual spend.
Second, reduce your personal involvement in service delivery. If you’re still teaching 20 hours of classes a week, start delegating now. A business that demonstrably runs without you is worth more at every point in the range.
Third, talk to your landlord. If you have 18 months left on your lease, renew it now — ideally to 5+ years with options. The cost of that conversation is zero; the upside can be considerable.
There’s also real money on the table from how you structure the sale — the CGT concessions available to Australian small business owners can reduce your tax bill substantially, but they need to be structured correctly before the sale is agreed, not after.
If you’re thinking about selling in the next 12-18 months, a valuation conversation now — not when the decision is urgent — gives you time to act on these things. The difference between going to market in the right shape versus whatever shape you happen to be in when you decide to sell can easily be six figures.
Talk to the team at Miro Capital or run your numbers through the business valuation calculator to get a starting point.