From Franchise Exhibition Visitor to Business Owner

Don’t just own a gym.
Own the gym that sets the standard.

Top owners reach c.£240K profit per club

Single or multi-club | Subscription income | Minimal staffing

Don’t chase attention. Earn it. This is a platform for people who care about doing things properly. Who take pride in standing out. Who get that quality, reputation and obsessive detail are the ways to win.

You bring the mindset. We’ll give you the playbook to explore your limits.

You’re not selling memberships, you’re selling energy, confidence, longevity and a healthier future. Younger generations are drinking less, prioritising wellbeing and investing in themselves: the fitness lifestyle is only strengthening.

We don’t punish your success

Most fitness franchises charge monthly royalties as a percentage of your turnover – the more successful you are, the more you pay them.

And who wants to do that?

Anytime Fitness franchisees pay a fixed fee, not a slice of revenue. So as your membership and turnover grow, your royalties don’t. Which impacts:

How much profit you retain
How quickly you can reinvest
How attractive your business looks to future buyers

I found that from day one the success of our gym, our business and a return on our investment were their top priorities which gave me a lot of trust to partner with them.”

Guy Warner, Anytime Fitness Bishops Cleeve

Who cares that we’re the biggest fitness franchise in the UK and in the world?

Plenty of people, and they’ll have a big influence on your business.

Consumers already trust the brand
Landlords give you extra credibility
Banks understand the model

With 6,000 clubs on all 7 continents (yes, even Antarctica), this is a brand with genuine global reach. The Anytime logo does more than just sit on the wall in your club(s). It opens doors.

What separates the best franchisees from the rest is how hard they push the opportunities inside them.

With existing knowledge and experience of franchising, I knew that being part of an existing, established brand would help me enjoy a quicker return on investment.

Sharon Thandi, Anytime Fitness Swadlincote

An asset-backed business

Clubs are full-scale gyms with broad member appeal, dominating the premium mid- market with 24/7 access and state of the art high-spec equipment. This creates:

Higher membership potential
A more substantial underlying business
Stronger long-term resale value

Every club undergoes a structured five-year refresh programme, ensuring the brand stays modern, competitive and ahead of the market – protecting both your revenue and asset value.

Two pathways to ownership of your future

Nail your first club, learn the model inside out, choose your route.

1. Local Domination

Years 1–2

Open your first club in a town or local community you know. Be hands-on and visible. Build a stable member base and strong cashflow.

Years 3–5

Decide whether to consolidate at one club or add a second location. Potentially step back slightly from the day-to-day. Secure your future.

2. Scale an Empire

We’ve rolled it into three sites already and are still on track to do five in five years which I think you’d struggle to do in many other franchises.

Connor Thorne, Multi-unit Franchisee

Years 1–2

Launch your first club, learn the model deeply, optimise performance. Actively plan for scale once your first club is financially self-sufficient.

Years 2–5

Open one club every year or so and grow to three, four, five clubs. Introduce an area manager while you focus on performance, people and spotting the next opportunity.

Beyond

Options to keep expanding, consolidate or plan your exit strategy.

Top portfolio owners run 10 or more clubs and work 15–20 hours per week – focusing on leadership, performance and growth rather than day-to-day operations.

Led by people who’ve done this before

The team leading Anytime Fitness UK aren’t working this out as they go.

They’ve already taken the brand through its growth cycle elsewhere, from early opportunity, through network expansion, into a more mature, valuable market. They:

Grew the footprint to 600+ clubs
Nurtured franchisees from first site to multi-site portfolios
Prioritised club quality and brand consistency, not just unit count
Increased club resale value from 2.5x EBITDA to 5x+

What that means for you…

The playbook has already been proven, at scale
The focus is obsessively on opening strong, profitable clubs
They know what “great” looks like: how top franchisees operate, support needed, what to avoid
Your business sits in a network that understands the road ahead – and how to stay in the lead

The Owner’s Role

Set the tone

Understand your club intimately: the mood, the service, the standards. You’ll know how it feels to walk in as a member, and ensure the club reflects your expectations.

Create a club people want to be in

Owners who thrive care about their members’ journeys and build teams that do the same. That’s what drives retention. That’s what builds reputation.

Lead a small team

When the average club has two full-time equivalents, HR or staff costs won’t keep you up at night. Hire well, set expectations, protect standards.

Drive member experience & retention

Our team will help you get plenty of sign-ups. You and your team keep them coming back with the atmosphere and experience you create.

Step back as you scale

As your portfolio grows, your role becomes increasingly strategic. Many multi-site owners ultimately work part-time hours while overseeing substantial businesses.

Supporting your success

Never opened or run a gym before? Don’t worry – we’ve launched thousands.

Your dedicated Presales Manager helps you maximise pre-launch buzz. Their focus is simple:

Build awareness early
Drive strong founding membership numbers
Ensure you open your doors with real momentum, not a standing start Presale is treated as mission-critical because it sets the tone for what’s ahead.

Ongoing

You’ll then dovetail with an experienced Franchise Performance Coach, each of which

has run health clubs at a senior level and understands the realities. They’ll:

Coach on operational performance and profitability
Guide on member retention and secondary revenue streams
Support with staffing, standards and local execution
Challenge and keep you accountable as your business grows

The aim is to apply lessons learned from thousands of clubs worldwide to help you build a stronger, more profitable business… and, if you’re scaling, to support the transition from single-site owner to multi-site operator over time.

Having a franchisor that’s been there and done it and is only ever a phone call away makes the process easy to follow. Most importantly, they want the best for both you and the brand and there’s something really inspiring about that.

Raj Hasib, Multi-site Franchisee

Investment & returns

Think you’ve got what it takes to hit an eight-figure EBITDA?

You’ll need £185K capital plus funding to open your first club – we can introduce you to our lender partners. The upside can be substantial:

Operational breakeven can (and often does) happen in 2-3 months
Top performers in the UK reach c.£240K profit pa per club
Everyone’s chasing the main man in Australia: $20m EBITDA (yes, that’s $20m)

We don’t offer these figures as guarantees. But we do offer them as proven within the network and an insight into what the best franchisees are achieving.

Are you good enough to top them?

A good fit?

Whether you want to own an outstanding club or build a portfolio of them, the journey starts the same way: run the first one properly.

Get in touch to begin exploring how our vision could help you exceed your goals:

Anytime Fitness News

From Franchise Exhibition Visitor to Business Owner

September 22, 2026

For Paul Carter and his wife Marcia, a visit to the British & International Franchise Exhibition was the first step in a journey that would ultimately take them out of long-established corporate careers and into business ownership.

Today, they’re the owners of Anytime Fitness Didcot. But when they first visited the exhibition in January 2024, they had no firm idea what their future business would look like.

“We didn’t really know what we wanted to do, so we just went to get a feel for what was on offer,” says Paul.

He’d spent nearly 40 years working in financial services as an accountant, while Marcia’s career included corporate law and project management in the pharmaceutical industry. Both had successful careers… and both wanted to do something different.

Their first exhibition gave them the chance to explore what franchising could offer. They returned the following year with much greater intent.

“We were much more serious about our next steps, that we really wanted to start a business. So we had a much more in-depth look at the exhibitors at that event.”

Finding the right business – and the right people

The variety of opportunities at the exhibition helped Paul and Marcia start narrowing down what mattered to them.

They knew they wanted a business with a relatively lean staffing model and were attracted to the fitness sector because of their own love of the gym. Franchising also offered something particularly important when entering an unfamiliar industry: an established structure, infrastructure and support network.

But Paul’s experience of the exhibition also taught him that choosing a franchise isn’t simply about choosing a business model.

“We spoke to a lot of people there. We saw a lot of presentations. We met a lot of the teams. And all of that was really important because that’s where we actually started to get a feel for each of the businesses and what they had to offer and the people that were behind them.

“So that’s really where we started to formulate who we wanted to work with, not just what we wanted to do.”

It was at the 2025 exhibition that Paul and Marcia first encountered Anytime Fitness, which almost didn’t happen: they were on their way out as the exhibition was coming to an end when the Anytime Fitness team caught them for a brief conversation.

The business development team contacted Paul the following day and the couple quickly saw a fit between what they wanted from a business and the Anytime Fitness model.

From first conversation to franchise agreement

The 24/7 proposition appealed to them as gym users, while the focused staffing model addressed one of their biggest considerations as prospective employers. Paul also saw an opportunity to bring something different to their home town of Didcot.

Just a few months after first meeting the Anytime Fitness team, they committed.

“The exhibition was in January 2025,” Paul explains, “and we signed our franchise agreement in the April.”

What followed was the process of finding the right property, negotiating with the landlord, designing the club and completing the build. Around 15 months after that first exhibition encounter, Anytime Fitness Didcot was open.

The club secured 500 members during its 10-week presale and Paul says membership continued to grow after people were able to see the finished facility for themselves.

Now, only months into ownership, Paul and Marcia are already looking ahead. Paul is exploring ways to develop the existing club further and is considering territories for sites two and three.

“I’ve learned I love this industry. I’ve learned I want to keep investing in this industry,” he says.

Paul’s advice to future exhibition visitors

Having gone from browsing opportunities to owning the business, Paul recommends approaching an exhibition with a plan – but also with an open mind.

“Have an idea of what areas you want to look at and pick out the businesses that you think are going to interest you.

“When you’re there, really get a feel for the team, because those are going to be the people that support you on your journey, and they represent the organisation you’re going to become part of.”

For Paul and Marcia, one conversation towards the end of an exhibition became the beginning of an entirely new chapter.