Should I open or buy an F45 Training franchise in 2027?

What an F45 franchise actually is and why the model matters

F45 Training is a boutique HIIT studio franchise built around a 45-minute, coach-led circuit workout that changes daily. The product is not equipment access — it is a programmed group experience delivered in a 1,800–2,800 square foot retail box, with screens displaying the workout, a coach demonstrating and correcting form, and a class of roughly 27–30 athletes moving through timed stations. The workout library is pushed from corporate, which is the brand's core operating promise: you do not design programming, you execute it.

That design decision drives everything about the economics. Because the revenue engine is recurring membership dues in the $150–$220 per month range, and because a class has a hard physical capacity, the revenue ceiling of a single studio is mechanically capped. There is no high-ticket upsell that rescues a weak month. A restaurant can sell a $200 check; a car wash can sell a $40 membership plus detailing; an F45 studio sells one thing, repeatedly, to a finite local population. Your entire job as an owner is filling and holding membership slots.

The second thing to understand is that the fee structure has floors, not just percentages. The royalty is 7% of gross with a stated monthly minimum, and there is a separate fixed monthly marketing contribution plus a brand fund contribution with its own minimum. In a strong month, those percentages are ordinary. In a weak month — say a January build or a summer slump in a beach market — the minimums bite. A studio doing $23,000 in monthly revenue and one doing $38,000 pay meaningfully different absolute dollars but the low performer pays a much higher effective rate once the floors engage. This is the single most misunderstood feature of the deal for first-time franchisees.

Why does any of this matter for someone reading a RevOps knowledge base? Because a franchise is a revenue operations problem wearing gym clothes. You are underwriting a unit-level P&L, building a lead funnel, measuring trial-to-paid conversion, managing churn cohorts, and forecasting capacity utilization. The discipline you would apply to a SaaS book of business — pipeline coverage, cohort retention curves, CAC payback — is exactly the discipline that separates a $500K studio from a $280K studio. Owners who treat it as a fitness passion project and not as a subscription business are the ones who lose money.

The brand context also matters. F45 went public, then delisted, then went through a hard contraction: through 2022–2024 the U.S. system shrank on a net basis, with closures materially outpacing openings in 2024 — on the order of roughly 72 exits against 34 openings that year. Under CEO Tom Dowd, the system has stabilized, with corporate focus shifting toward supporting existing franchisees rather than aggressive unit growth. That is a genuinely better posture for a new owner than the growth-at-any-cost era, but it also means you are joining a system that is proving stability rather than one riding momentum. Underwrite accordingly: assume no tailwind from brand expansion, and assume any negative corporate headline suppresses your local lead flow for a month or two regardless of how well you operate.

Finally, understand what you are actually buying with the franchise fee. You are buying a recognizable name, a programming library, an equipment specification, a technology stack, a training program, and a protected territory. You are not buying customers. In most U.S. trade areas, the majority of your members will come from your own local marketing, your own community events, and word of mouth from members you personally retained. The national brand gets you a shorter explanation at the front desk — it does not get you a full 6 AM class.

Running the open-versus-buy decision step by step

The decision splits into two distinct paths that should be evaluated in parallel, not sequentially. Path one is opening a new studio in an unclaimed territory. Path two is acquiring an existing studio from a current franchisee. Most first-time buyers only evaluate path one because that is the path corporate development teams and franchise brokers are compensated to sell. That is a mistake in a system that has been contracting, because contraction produces motivated sellers with real operating history.

Here is the disciplined sequence, roughly a 90-day process from first inquiry to signature or walk-away.

Days 1–7: get the FDD and read the unglamorous items first. Request the current Franchise Disclosure Document directly from the franchisor. Do not read Item 1 or the glossy brand story. Go straight to Item 7 (estimated initial investment), Item 19 (financial performance representations), Item 20 (outlet and franchisee information), and the Item 21 audited financial statements. Item 20 is the leading indicator nobody reads: it contains the tables showing openings, terminations, non-renewals, transfers, and ceased operations by year and by state. Build a spreadsheet from those tables. Compute net unit change for the last three years, and compute it again for your specific state. A brand can be flat nationally while your state is bleeding.

Days 8–14: build your own proforma. Not the broker's. Build three scenarios: a downside case around $280,000–$300,000 in annual revenue, a median case anchored to the roughly $407,000 median AUV disclosed in Item 19, and an upside case near $700,000. The critical test is the downside: if the P25 case cannot service your debt and pay you a $60,000 salary, you are betting the entire project on above-median execution in your first business. Most people fail this test and proceed anyway.

Days 15–25: call twelve current owners. Item 20 gives you contact information for current and former franchisees. Call at least twelve — deliberately half high performers and half low performers, and at least three who exited. Ask a fixed script: hours per week in year one, months to cash-flow breakeven, payroll as a percentage of revenue, member count at month 12 versus month 24, trial-to-paid conversion rate, and the single thing they would do differently. Former franchisees are the most valuable calls and the ones brokers most discourage.

Days 26–40: lock the real estate before anything else is signed. Hire a tenant representative who has done fitness deals specifically, not a generic commercial broker. Fitness use has parking demands, floor-load requirements, ventilation requirements, and noise considerations that generic retail brokers routinely miss. Pull foot-traffic data for your candidate site and for the two nearest competing HIIT or boutique studios. Negotiate free rent during build-out plus a graduated ramp for the first year — this is the most valuable concession available to you and it is worth more than any discount on the franchise fee.

Days 41–55: get two competing financing term sheets. SBA 7(a) is the standard instrument for this category. Talk to at least two lenders with franchise lending experience — SBA-preferred lenders who already have the brand in their portfolio will move faster and ask better questions. Understand the personal guarantee and collateral position before you fall in love with a location.

Days 56–70: buy classes at five operating studios. Attend at 6 AM, at midday, and at 6 PM. Count the actual bodies in the room. Watch how the coach handles a beginner. Time how long it takes the front desk to ask for the sale after your class. You are buying the right to reproduce this exact experience thousands of times; if you do not love it as a customer you will not survive it as an owner.

Days 71–80: franchise attorney redline. Hire a lawyer who does franchise agreements specifically, not your real estate attorney. Focus the redline on territory definition, transfer and resale rights, personal guarantee scope, and dispute resolution. Royalty rates are essentially never negotiable; territory radius and transfer terms sometimes are.

Days 81–90: final go or no-go. Four conditions must all be green: the downside proforma works, financing is committed, the landlord letter of intent is countersigned on acceptable ramp terms, and your household is genuinely bought into two years of your absence. If any one is wobbly, walk and revisit in six months. The deal will still exist.

Costs, timelines, and the ranges you should actually model

The FDD Item 7 range for an F45 studio runs roughly $349,200 on the low end to $786,100 on the high end, inclusive of a $60,000 initial franchise fee. That spread is not noise — it reflects genuinely different projects. The low end assumes a second-generation fitness space in a low-cost market where the previous tenant left usable plumbing, HVAC, and restrooms. The high end assumes a raw retail shell in a high-cost metro requiring full build-out. Most new owners land somewhere in the mid-$400,000s to mid-$500,000s.

The major buckets, in rough order of size:

Leasehold improvements and build-out. This is the largest and most variable line, commonly running from roughly $130,000 in a friendly second-generation space to well north of $300,000 for a raw shell. Sprung or rubber flooring alone is a significant standalone cost. Restroom and shower build-outs, if not inherited, are expensive and permit-heavy. The single best cost-control lever in the entire project is finding a former gym or studio space.

Equipment package. F45 specifies a proprietary equipment and technology package sourced through approved channels — rowers, bikes, sleds, plyo boxes, sandbags, ropes, plus the screens and workout-display technology that make the class run. Budget in the high five figures. This is not an area where substitution is permitted, so model it as a fixed cost.

Technology and point of sale. Member management, scheduling, billing, heart-rate integration, and the in-studio display system. Low five figures to install, plus recurring monthly software fees you must carry in your operating model.

Pre-opening marketing. A founding-member campaign in the eight weeks before opening is the highest-ROI marketing you will ever run, because presold memberships convert your opening month from a cash sink into a partial offset. Budget a real number here — this is not the place to economize.

Training and travel. Corporate training is provided; travel, lodging, and your time are yours.

Working capital. This is the line that separates surviving owners from failed ones, and the Item 7 range for it is wide because the honest answer depends on your ramp. Do not fund three months. Fund nine. Revenue ramps on a curve while rent, payroll, royalty minimums, and the fixed marketing fee start at full freight on day one.

On the ongoing side, model these monthly: 7% royalty on gross with a monthly minimum, a brand fund contribution with its own minimum, a fixed monthly marketing fee, rent (typically $6,000–$14,000 NNN depending on market and size), and payroll of roughly $14,000–$22,000 for a head coach, two to three part-time coaches, and a sales lead. Add utilities, equipment service, insurance, and software.

Do the arithmetic honestly at your median case. If a studio grosses roughly $460,000 annually, the combined royalty, brand fund, and fixed marketing burden lands in the low $70,000s for the year — not the high $50,000s that optimistic models sometimes show. The 7% royalty on $460,000 is about $32,000; the 2% brand fund is about $9,000; the fixed $2,500 monthly marketing fee is $30,000 regardless of revenue. Those three sum to roughly $71,000. Underestimating this bundle by $12,000–$15,000 a year is one of the most common proforma errors in the category, and at a 17% target margin it is the difference between a modest profit and nothing.

At the low end, the floors make it worse in percentage terms. A studio grossing $284,000 pays $2,500 monthly marketing plus royalty at whichever is higher between 7% and the monthly minimum plus the brand fund minimum. That is roughly $65,000–$68,000 of fees against $284,000 of revenue — well over 20% of gross before rent or a single coach is paid. A sub-scale F45 studio is not a smaller version of a healthy one; it is structurally different, because the fixed floors convert into a punitive effective rate.

Timelines: figure roughly 3–6 months from signed franchise agreement to lease execution, another 3–5 months for permitting and build-out (permitting is the wildcard and varies enormously by municipality), and then an opening. From opening, expect 6–9 months to cover monthly operating costs and 24–36 months to genuine cash-flow breakeven including debt service and a market-rate owner salary. Anyone selling you a 12-month breakeven story is either describing an exceptional site or is not counting their own labor.

Where owners get this wrong

Modeling it as passive income. This is the number one killer. The unit economics at the median simply do not support both a full general manager salary and an owner draw. Studios run remotely from another state, with a hired manager and no owner presence, close at disproportionate rates. If you are not going to be on the floor coaching, greeting members by name, and personally running the retention calls in year one, the model does not work at median performance. An absentee structure requires above-median revenue to fund the management layer, which means you need to be confident of top-quartile performance in your first franchise — an unreasonable bet.

Signing bad real estate to hit a timeline. An endcap with no parking, a low-daytime-traffic office park, or a catchment area too small to yield 180+ members cannot be fixed by better operations. There is a member-count threshold below which the fixed cost structure never clears, and site selection determines whether that threshold is reachable. Walking away from a site after spending four months on it is emotionally hard and financially correct.

Funding the low end of Item 7 without a cushion. Owners who capitalize to the bottom of the range and then hit a permitting delay or a slow first quarter run out of money during the ramp gap — the period where fixed costs are at 100% and revenue is at 40%. The failure is almost never a bad business; it is a well-run business that ran out of runway two months early.

Taking the median AUV as your forecast. The median is the middle of a wide distribution. Bottom-quartile studios operate well below it and are structurally underwater against the fee floors. Your proforma should be anchored to the downside case, with the median as your target and the upside as a bonus. If you would not do the deal at P25, you should not do the deal.

Skipping the former-franchisee calls. Current owners have an incentive — sometimes explicit, often just psychological — to validate the system they are invested in. Former owners have no such incentive. Item 20 lists them. Call them. The pattern in their answers is the most honest data you will obtain in the entire process.

Competing on price against larger boutique brands. Orangetheory and the Xponential family brands have larger systems and heavier national media spend. You will not out-discount them. F45's genuine differentiators are the daily-changing workout, the team-training format, and the community density a good owner-operator builds. Lead with those. Studios that discount their way to member count end up with a low-price membership base that churns hard and cannot be repriced.

Ignoring category headwinds. GLP-1 medications have measurably reduced the weight-loss-primary segment of boutique fitness signups, and coach wages have risen substantially since 2022 in most metros — a labor line that compresses mature-studio margins by several points versus pre-2022 models. Neither is fatal, but both must be in your model. The messaging pivot toward strength, longevity, and community is not marketing fluff; it is the demand segment that is actually growing.

Treating marketing as corporate's job. The fixed monthly marketing fee funds brand-level activity. Your local lead generation — community events, corporate partnerships, referral programs, local paid social — is yours, and it is a real ongoing budget line on top of the fee. Owners who assume the fee covers local acquisition discover the gap in month three.

Choosing between opening new, buying a resale, and walking away

The framework is simpler than most people make it, and it hinges on three variables: your capital position, your willingness to operate, and whether a qualified resale exists in a market you would live near.

Buy a resale when you can find a studio with verified trailing financials showing revenue at or above the system median, a clean Item 20 history (no termination notices, no defaults), a lease with meaningful remaining term at a rent you can service, and a seller willing to transact at a multiple of trailing EBITDA that leaves you room. In a contracting system, resale multiples are soft, which is bad for sellers and good for you. You get existing membership cash flow from day one, an existing coaching staff, and a build-out somebody else paid for. You also inherit whatever reputational damage the prior owner did, which is why you attend classes and talk to members before closing. On a risk-adjusted basis, a good resale is the strongest entry into this brand.

Open new when no acceptable resale exists in your geography, you have identified genuinely superior real estate that no existing studio occupies, and you have the working capital to absorb 24–36 months of ramp. Opening new gets you a clean slate, a site you chose, and a member base with no inherited baggage — at the cost of the longest and most expensive path to cash flow.

Walk away when any of these are true: your liquid capital is materially below the franchisor's stated minimum, you intend to be absentee, your candidate trade area cannot mathematically support 180+ members, or your downside proforma fails. Walking away is not a failure of nerve; the option to deploy the same $400,000 into a different category remains open for years.

Consider adjacent categories if F45 fails your screen but the boutique fitness thesis still appeals. Orangetheory sits at a materially higher investment range with correspondingly higher average unit volumes and a larger system — better suited to a franchisee with more liquidity. Reformer Pilates concepts have benefited from the shift toward strength and longevity training. Lighter-equipment bootcamp and kickboxing concepts offer lower entry costs with correspondingly lower revenue ceilings. Recovery-focused studios trade lower payroll for higher per-service pricing and a smaller addressable market. Running the same Item 19 and Item 20 analysis across three or four brands side by side is a weekend of work and routinely changes people's minds.

And consider going independent. An unbranded HIIT studio skips the franchise fee and the ongoing royalty and marketing bundle entirely — call it 9%+ of gross plus a five-figure entry fee that stays in your pocket. In exchange you build the brand, write the programming, and source the equipment yourself, which realistically adds several months to breakeven and demands more from you creatively. For an experienced operator who already has a local following, this is frequently the better math. For a first-time owner with no fitness background, the franchise structure is buying real risk reduction.

Related questions

Is buying an existing F45 studio safer than opening a new one?

Generally yes, if the financials verify. A resale gives you existing recurring revenue, a trained staff, and a completed build-out. The risks shift from execution risk to diligence risk — you must confirm actual member counts, churn, lease terms, and whether the seller's decline is operational or structural.

How many members does an F45 studio need to break even?

It varies with rent and payroll, but most owners describe the threshold as roughly 150–200 active members at typical dues. Below that, the royalty minimums and fixed marketing fee consume too large a share of gross. Site selection determines whether that member count is even reachable in your catchment.

Can I run an F45 franchise while keeping my day job?

Not in the first 18 months. The model depends on owner presence for retention, sales conversion, and coach management. Owners who tried to stay employed elsewhere generally either hired a manager the economics could not support or watched retention decline. Plan for it to be your full-time occupation.

What is the biggest hidden cost people miss?

Working capital during the ramp gap. Fixed costs run at full rate from opening day while revenue climbs over 6–9 months. Owners who fund three months instead of nine are the ones who fail — usually with a viable business that simply ran out of cash before it matured.

Does F45's system contraction mean I should avoid the brand entirely?

No, but it changes your posture. Contraction means you underwrite without assuming brand tailwind, you scrutinize Item 20 state-level data closely, and you look harder at resales because sellers are more motivated. Stabilization under current leadership is real, but it is stabilization — not expansion.

FAQ

What is the total initial investment to open an F45 franchise?

The FDD Item 7 range is roughly $349,200 to $786,100, inclusive of the $60,000 initial franchise fee. The spread reflects whether you are taking over a second-generation fitness space or building out a raw retail shell, plus regional differences in construction cost and rent. Most new owners land in the mid-$400,000s to mid-$500,000s.

What ongoing fees will I pay every month?

A 7% royalty on gross revenue subject to a monthly minimum, a brand fund contribution with its own minimum, and a fixed monthly marketing fee. Because the royalty and marketing components have floors, a low-revenue studio pays a much higher effective rate than a healthy one — model the floors explicitly, not just the percentages.

How long until the studio is genuinely profitable?

Plan on 24 to 36 months to cash-flow breakeven including debt service and a market-rate salary for yourself. You may cover monthly operating costs sooner, around month 6 to 9, but that is not the same as profitability. Owners who reached it faster typically presold a large founding-member base before opening.

Do I need a fitness background to succeed?

It helps with member credibility and lets you cover classes, but it is not the deciding factor. The deciding factor is sales and operations capability: converting trials to paid memberships, managing a lean coaching team, and running retention systematically. Owners from sales and management backgrounds frequently outperform owners from pure fitness backgrounds.

Is F45 still closing studios?

The system contracted meaningfully through 2022–2024, with closures outpacing openings, and has since stabilized under CEO Tom Dowd with a focus on supporting existing franchisees. Read Item 20 in the current FDD for the actual openings, closures, transfers, and terminations — nationally and in your specific state, which can diverge sharply.

Should I use an SBA loan for this?

SBA 7(a) is the standard financing instrument for franchise fitness and is worth pursuing with at least two lenders that already have franchise experience. Expect a personal guarantee and a meaningful equity injection. Get competing term sheets before committing — rate and structure differences across lenders on a project this size are material.

Sources

• https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/franchise-rule-compliance-guide
• https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/7a-loans
• https://www.franchise.org/
• https://www.healthandfitness.org/
• https://www.f45training.com/
• https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/
• https://www.entrepreneur.com/franchises
• https://www.franchisebusinessreview.com/
• https://www.athletechnews.com/
• https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/small-business/sba-7a-loan

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