Anytime Fitness Franchise Cost: 2026 Item 7 & Item 19 Deep Dive

Anytime Fitness 2026 at a Glance

Anytime Fitness is the largest fitness franchise in the world by unit count — more than 5,000 clubs across over 40 countries. The brand’s economic model is unusual enough that generic “franchise cost” pages routinely get the math wrong on it. Royalty isn’t a percentage of revenue. The investment is materially lower than other branded gyms at similar revenue scale. And the Item 19 disclosure — published in the 2026 FDD — gives buyers exactly the quartile data they need to model a realistic outcome, not just an average.

Item 7 reports total initial investment in the range of $458,826 to $907,607. The franchise fee sits at $22,500, which is unusually low for a fitness brand at this scale (Massage Envy and OrangeTheory both run materially higher). Royalty is the headline number to understand: it is a flat $649 per month per club, not a percentage of revenue. Marketing fund contributions are a separate flat fee that varies by year of operation.

The brand has been owned by Self Esteem Brands (which is owned by Roark Capital) since 2017. That ownership structure matters for any buyer doing FDD diligence — it puts Anytime Fitness in the private-equity franchisor category, with the system-wide standards push and tech-fee bundling that goes with it.

Item 7: Where the Money Actually Goes

The $458K low end of the Item 7 range is a small-format inline club in a low-cost market with a landlord allowance covering most of the buildout. The $908K high end is a freestanding metro build with no landlord work. Almost no first-time operator builds at either extreme.

Line Item	Low	High
Initial franchise fee	$22,500	$22,500
Build-out / leasehold improvements	$80,000	$250,000
Equipment package	$130,000	$260,000
Computer + tech / security	$25,000	$45,000
Signage	$7,500	$25,000
Furniture, fixtures, supplies	$10,000	$30,000
Insurance	$1,500	$5,000
Grand opening marketing	$20,000	$40,000
3 months working capital	$80,000	$130,000
Real estate deposits + misc	$80,000	$100,000
Total Item 7 range	$458,826	$907,607

The line items most buyers underestimate are working capital and the equipment package. Anytime Fitness allows operators to choose between several equipment vendors and package sizes — going with the high-end package adds $80K-$100K to the build cost without proportionally increasing member acquisition. Working capital at $80K is the realistic floor; if you’re building in a metro where landlord work is heavy, plan on $130K minimum to carry the club through the first 6-9 months of negative cash flow.

Item 19: The Quartile Data Most Cost Guides Skip

The 2026 FDD reports financial performance on 1,656 US franchised clubs that were open and operating for the full 12-month period ending February 28, 2025. That is one of the largest reporting samples in any fitness franchise FDD on file.

Quartile (US franchised)	Median Total Revenue
Top quartile (Q4)	~$670,000
Third quartile (Q3)	~$465,000
Median across all reporting clubs	~$395,000
Second quartile (Q2)	~$310,000
Bottom quartile (Q1)	~$239,000

The number to internalize is the 2.8x spread between top-quartile and bottom-quartile medians. A $670K top-quartile club running at the brand’s typical 15-16% net margin generates roughly $100,000-$107,000 of pre-debt-service cash flow. A $239K bottom-quartile club at the same margin produces $36,000-$38,000 — below the cost of operator time for most full-time franchisees, and well below SBA debt-service coverage for a typical $500K loan.

Item 19 separately reports averages, but the median is the more useful number. The average is pulled up by a small handful of very high-revenue clubs in dense urban markets. Most buyers will operate in suburban strip-mall locations where median is the realistic anchor — and even then, the brand’s franchisee network skews to operators who have been building toward top-quartile performance for several years.

For the broader discussion of why median should anchor your underwriting and not average, see our Item 19 median vs average survivorship-bias guide.

The Flat-Royalty Math Is the Brand’s Defining Feature

A flat $649/month royalty is unusual in franchising. The economic implication is that royalty becomes a smaller percentage of revenue as the club grows:

Annual Revenue	Royalty as % of Revenue
$250,000	3.12%
$395,000 (median)	1.97%
$670,000 (top quartile)	1.16%
$1,000,000	0.78%

For comparison, OrangeTheory’s royalty is 8% of gross sales and Planet Fitness is 7% — meaning every additional revenue dollar pays a meaningful royalty levy. At Anytime Fitness, every dollar above the flat fee falls straight to the franchisee’s operating margin. This is why top-quartile clubs produce disproportionately better cash flow than the revenue gap alone would suggest.

The flip side: at low revenue the flat fee is punishing. A club at $239K (bottom quartile) is paying 3.3% of revenue in royalty just to keep the system access. Combined with the brand’s marketing fund and tech fees, total franchisor-level cost at the bottom quartile runs closer to 5% of revenue, which is meaningful pressure on a thin-margin business.

5,000-Location Saturation: What It Actually Means

Anytime Fitness has 1% year-over-year unit growth in the US. In the franchise industry that is a strong signal of market saturation. New territories in attractive suburban markets are scarce. New clubs increasingly open in secondary or tertiary markets, in markets where the brand cannibalizes itself with another nearby Anytime Fitness, or as resales from operators who couldn’t make it work.

This affects diligence in two specific ways:

Territory diligence is harder. When you ask the franchisor for territory availability in your target metro, ask explicitly: are there any closed locations within 5 miles of the territory I’m considering? Closed clubs often signal a market dynamic that will affect you. The 2026 FDD will list closures in Item 20; cross-reference that list against the territories you’re considering.

Resales are the more interesting opportunity. Top-quartile clubs that come up for resale often go for 1.5-2.5x SDE (seller’s discretionary earnings) — meaning a $670K-revenue club with $100K SDE might transact at $150K-$250K plus assumption of equipment. Compared to a $550K-$700K new build, that’s a fundamentally different risk profile. The diligence question shifts from “will this club ramp to median?” to “why is this seller exiting at this price?”

For the full framework on evaluating a franchise resale, see our franchise resale due diligence guide.

Who Anytime Fitness Fits — And Who It Doesn’t

The brand works for a specific buyer profile. It does not work for the others.

Fits well: Operator-buyers with $200K-$400K liquid who want a single-unit franchise with manageable buildout and intend to be hands-on for the first 18-24 months. Multi-unit operators in second-ring suburban markets who can run 3-5 clubs in a cluster with shared management and marketing. Fitness-industry operators stepping into ownership for the first time, where domain expertise compensates for the smaller revenue ceiling.

Doesn’t fit: Absentee buyers building a $500K SBA-financed new club with a manager running the floor — the median-club margins won’t support the debt service. Buyers in already-saturated metros where every attractive territory is taken. First-time franchisees expecting a passive cash-flow business — Anytime Fitness requires active marketing, retention work, and personal trainer relationships to clear the bottom-quartile threshold.

If you’re trying to decide whether Anytime Fitness fits your specific profile, take our 60-second franchise quiz — it filters against capital, location, and operating preference simultaneously.

The Diligence Checklist for an Anytime Fitness FDD

Before signing, work through this list against the actual FDD you receive from the franchisor:

1. Item 5 + Item 7 cross-check. Confirm the $22,500 franchise fee matches Item 5 and the total investment line items in Item 7 add up to the published range. Discrepancies are rare but worth verifying.
2. Item 19 reporting sample. Verify the sample size (currently 1,656 US clubs) and the time period. If the sample drops materially in the next FDD update, that’s a signal.
3. Item 20 closures by year. Pull the multi-year trend — not just the most recent year. The pattern matters more than any single year.
4. Item 17 termination triggers. Anytime Fitness’s franchise agreement allows the franchisor to terminate for specific operational standards failures. Have your attorney walk through the cure-period language line by line.
5. Item 11 system services. The brand sells equipment-replacement programs, tech bundles, and member-acquisition tools through Item 11 vendors. Some are mandatory, some optional. Know which are which before signing.
6. Territory radius and protected market. Get the actual protected-territory definition in writing. Anytime Fitness territories are typically defined by a radius from the club, not by population or zip code.

The $49 VetMyFranchise Research Report walks through all 23 FDD items on the current Anytime Fitness disclosure, including Item 19 quartile math, Item 20 closure trend, and the specific clauses worth flagging for your franchise attorney. Get the Anytime Fitness diligence report →

Anytime Fitness vs the Field

For buyers comparing Anytime Fitness against other gym franchises, the head-to-head decisions usually come down to capital available and operating preference:

Brand	Investment	Median Revenue	Royalty Model
Anytime Fitness	$459K-$908K	$395K	Flat $649/mo
Planet Fitness	$1.5M-$5.1M	~$2.5M (avg)	7% of sales
Crunch Fitness	$304K-$2.6M	Varies by format	5% of sales
F45 Training	$277K-$378K	Varies materially	7% of sales

For the side-by-side on the two most-compared brands, see Anytime Fitness vs Planet Fitness. Anytime Fitness wins on capital efficiency and royalty structure; Planet Fitness wins on top-line economics if you can finance the box.

If you’re seriously comparing 3 fitness brands head-to-head, the $99 3-Pack Comparison gives you full 12-section reports on all three for $33 per brand — the cheapest credible way to evaluate finalist brands in the category.