Anytime Fitness vs Orangetheory franchise: verified 2026 FDD investment, franchise fees, Item 19 revenue medians, unit counts, and which fitness brand fits which buyer.
Quick answer Anytime Fitness costs $539,329 to $905,482 to open and Orangetheory costs $764,577 to $1,104,920, per their 2026 FDDs. Orangetheory posts a $750,643 median revenue against Anytime Fitness's $398,982. Anytime Fitness runs semi-absentee across 2,271 clubs; Orangetheory needs live coaches in 1,209 studios.
Most guides on this comparison still describe Anytime Fitness as a $200,000 gym and Orangetheory as a $1.5 million studio. Both 2026 FDDs say otherwise. The capital gap has narrowed to roughly $225,000 at the floor, which changes the decision from a capital-tier question into an operating-model question.
| Metric (2026 FDD) | Anytime Fitness | Orangetheory |
|---|---|---|
| Total investment (Item 7) | $539,329–$905,482 | $764,577–$1,104,920 |
| Initial franchise fee | $42,500 | $59,950 |
| Royalty | Up to 8% of Gross Revenue | 8% of Gross Sales |
| Ad / brand fund | $900 per month | 3.0%–5.0% of Gross Sales |
| Item 19 median revenue | $398,982 | $750,643 |
| Item 19 reporting units | 1,656 franchised clubs using AF Coaching | 1,189 franchised studios |
| Item 19 period | 12 months ended Feb 28, 2026 | 12 months ended Feb 28, 2026 |
| Item 19 P25 / P75 | $233,169 / $746,996 | Not disclosed in our parse |
| Franchised units | 2,271 | 1,209 |
| Company-owned units | 11 | None disclosed |
| Opened / closed (latest year) | 53 / 72 | 13 / 47 |
| Concept | 24/7 access keycard club | Coach-led HIIT group class studio |
| Operator role | Semi-absentee viable | Hands-on owner-operator |
(Figures parsed from each brand’s 2026 FDD in VetMyFranchise’s database of 2,368 Franchise Disclosure Documents.)
One line deserves a second read. Anytime Fitness’s 75th-percentile club grosses $746,996. Orangetheory’s median studio grosses $750,643. A top-quartile Anytime Fitness club produces roughly what a typical Orangetheory studio does, which tells you the revenue distributions overlap far more than the concepts suggest.
If your plan is to build a small portfolio you can manage from a distance, Anytime Fitness is built for that. If your plan is to run one or two high-engagement studios with you in them, Orangetheory is the better-aligned model. For broader context, see our best fitness franchises under $200K breakdown.
The mistake most buyers make is treating both brands as gym franchises. They are not solving the same problem for the consumer, and that single fact drives almost every difference downstream.
Anytime Fitness sells convenience and access. The product is a 24/7 keycard-entry club where the member shows up, swipes in, uses standard equipment, and leaves. There is no scheduled class. There may not be a staff member on site. Members value the small footprint, the close-to-home location, and the freedom to train at 5am or 11pm. Market pricing runs $40 to $60 per month in most territories.
Orangetheory sells a coached experience. The product is a 60-minute heart-rate-zone HIIT class led by a certified coach, with rowers, treadmills, and a weight floor on a programmed rotation. Members pay for the coaching, the programming, the energy, and the wearable heart-rate feedback on the screens. Market pricing typically runs $159 to $229 per month for unlimited classes, with credit-based tiers below that.
The pricing gap is roughly 3.5x per member, and the Item 19 revenue gap is 1.9x. That difference is the membership-count story: Anytime Fitness clubs carry far more members at a much lower price, Orangetheory studios carry far fewer at a premium. Neither model is more efficient in the abstract. They break in different ways.
The capital comparison is worth doing at the line level, because the two ranges now overlap.
Anytime Fitness discloses $539,329 to $905,482 in Item 7, including a $42,500 franchise fee. Real estate is typically 4,000 to 5,000 sq ft in a strip center or anchor pad, straightforward to source in most secondary and tertiary markets. Build-out is essentially open floor with rubber surfacing, basic locker rooms, equipment install, and signage. Our Anytime Fitness franchise cost deep dive walks the Item 7 line items.
Orangetheory discloses $764,577 to $1,104,920 in Item 7, including a $59,950 franchise fee. The studio is similar in square footage but the build-out is heavier: commercial treadmills, rowing machines, weight stations, sound system, dimmable lighting, the branded heart-rate display screens, and the studio aesthetic. Equipment ordering also extends the timeline. See our Orangetheory franchise cost breakdown for the line-item view.
Worth knowing: Orangetheory files a second 2026 disclosure for its Studio form, which discloses $821,622 to $1,377,160 and an Item 19 median of $807,976 across 1,256 franchised units for the 12 months ended December 31, 2024, with a 75th percentile of $1,286,123. If a development team hands you numbers that don’t match the figures above, check which of the two filings you’re being shown and which reporting period it covers.
Where that leaves a buyer: the practical filter is no longer “can I afford Anytime Fitness but not Orangetheory.” At a $539,329 floor, Anytime Fitness now requires roughly the same underwriting profile as a lower-tier Orangetheory deal. A buyer with $250,000 liquid can no longer reach either brand alone on conventional terms. Both are SBA-financeable, and both now sit in the tier where lenders will scrutinize your net worth and post-close liquidity rather than just your credit.
The Item 19 numbers tell the operating story, and Anytime Fitness’s quartiles make it the more transparent of the two.
| Item 19 metric (2026 FDD) | Anytime Fitness | Orangetheory |
|---|---|---|
| Median revenue | $398,982 | $750,643 |
| 25th percentile | $233,169 | Not disclosed in our parse |
| 75th percentile | $746,996 | Not disclosed in our parse |
| Reporting units | 1,656 | 1,189 |
| Segment | Franchised centers using AF Coaching | All franchised units |
| Revenue per invested dollar (median / Item 7 midpoint) | 0.55 | 0.80 |
Three things to take from this.
First, the bottom quartile is the risk. A 25th-percentile Anytime Fitness club grosses $233,169, which is less than half the $539,329 Item 7 floor. At that revenue level, an 8% royalty plus $10,800 in annual brand fund plus rent on 4,500 sq ft leaves very little. That is the scenario to underwrite, not the median.
Second, Orangetheory is the stronger revenue-per-dollar story. On a $934,749 investment midpoint it produces a $750,643 median, a ratio of 0.80 against Anytime Fitness’s 0.55. That inverts the conventional read of this matchup, where Anytime Fitness is presented as the value play. On disclosed revenue against disclosed capital, it isn’t.
Third, watch the segment definition. Anytime Fitness’s disclosure covers 1,656 franchised centers using AF Coaching, out of 2,271 franchised clubs. That is a subset chosen by the franchisor, and roughly 600 clubs sit outside it. Ask why. Orangetheory’s covers all franchised units, which is the cleaner basis even without quartiles.
Neither disclosure is profit. Both are gross revenue, and the cost structures underneath them differ sharply, which is the next section.
Run the fee math on each brand’s own median and the picture sharpens.
Anytime Fitness at a $398,982 median pays 8% royalty ($31,919) plus $900 per month in brand fund ($10,800), a total of roughly $42,719, or about 10.7% of revenue. The flat brand fund is regressive in the operator’s favor at high revenue and punitive at low: a 25th-percentile club at $233,169 pays that same $10,800, pushing total franchisor cost to about 12.6% of sales.
Orangetheory at a $750,643 median pays 8% royalty ($60,051) plus a 3.0% to 5.0% ad fund ($22,519 to $37,532), a total of roughly $82,570 to $97,583, or 11.0% to 13.0% of revenue. The ad fund is a percentage, so it scales with you in both directions. The range itself is a diligence item: confirm in writing which rate applies to your agreement, because 200 basis points on $750,000 is $15,000 a year.
Below the franchisor line, the models diverge harder. Anytime Fitness is staff-light by design. Most clubs are unstaffed overnight, on weekends after a certain hour, and often for substantial portions of weekdays. A typical club runs a club manager (often part-time) and a few personal trainers on a revenue-share or hourly model. Owner time on-site can be five to 10 hours per week once the club is running.
Orangetheory is staff-heavy by design. Every class on the schedule requires a certified coach, studios run 30 to 60 classes per week, and a typical studio carries eight to 14 coaches plus a studio manager and front-desk sales associates. Coach hiring, certification, retention, and scheduling is the single biggest operational variable for an Orangetheory operator. Markets with strong fitness-industry labor pools have a structural advantage; markets with thin ones struggle even when membership demand is there. Our Orangetheory Item 19 deep dive unpacks how that cost structure interacts with class fill rates.
The semi-absentee question follows directly. Anytime Fitness can run semi-absentee because there is no live service delivery. Orangetheory cannot, because every class hour is a live delivery and an absent coach means a cancelled class. That has nothing to do with brand quality. It is what each operating model requires.
Neither brand grew franchised units in its latest FDD year, and the shape of the contraction differs.
Anytime Fitness opened 53 franchised clubs against 72 closures, ending at 2,271 franchised plus 11 company-owned. The closures break down as 39 terminations, 30 non-renewals, and three ceased operations. Non-renewals at that volume usually signal end-of-term operators choosing not to re-sign rather than distress, which is a different diagnosis than termination and worth separating when you call franchisees.
Orangetheory opened 13 franchised studios against 47 closures, ending at 1,209. Thirteen openings across a 1,209-unit system is roughly 1% annual development. For a brand that expanded aggressively through the late 2010s, near-zero new development is the single most important line in its 2026 FDD. Ask the development team directly whether new studio awards are still being granted in your market type, and ask existing franchisees whether transfers are clearing at reasonable multiples.
Anytime Fitness’s Item 3 also discloses litigation, including a franchisee action (Canadas Fitness v. AFI) alleging breach of the franchise agreement and false disclosures, dismissed in November 2023 with an appeal filed January 2024. Read Item 3 in full for both brands and have a franchise attorney tell you what the pattern means, not just the count.
The operational model drives the multi-unit ceiling.
Anytime Fitness scales naturally. Because each club is staff-light, an operator can layer a second, third, and fourth club onto roughly the same management overhead: typically a regional manager, a part-time bookkeeper, and shared marketing. Unit economics improve with scale because fixed overhead spreads across more units. Our breakdown of Anytime Fitness single-unit vs multi-unit area development covers how multi-unit operators actually structure portfolios, and the Anytime Fitness vs Planet Fitness comparison covers the high-volume big-box alternative at a similar capital tier.
Orangetheory concentrates owner attention per studio. Coach management is the bottleneck. Each studio needs its own coaching bench, its own studio manager, and real operator attention to hold class quality and fill rates. Most Orangetheory multi-unit owners max out at two to four studios; beyond that you are building an operations layer, not just adding a regional manager. Compare also our look at F45 vs Orangetheory for how two coach-led HIIT formats stack up on this dimension, and is Orangetheory a good franchise for the brand-level verdict.
If multi-unit is your end state, Anytime Fitness gets you there with substantially less operational complexity per added unit. If a single high-revenue location is the goal, the extra $225,000 of entry capital at Orangetheory buys roughly $350,000 of additional median revenue.
The semi-absentee multi-unit investor. You have a primary career, capital to deploy, and a five-to-10-year horizon to build a small portfolio of cash-flowing units. You do not want to hire coaches or manage class schedules. Anytime Fitness. The 24/7 access model is built for this. Underwrite unit one against the $233,169 bottom quartile, not the median, and plan unit two only after unit one clears cash-flow positive.
The hands-on operator with fitness conviction. You want to be in the studio, involved in the coaching culture, the music, the energy, the member experience. You want one or two studios you run at high involvement. Orangetheory. The premium coached model rewards exactly this, and the studios that outperform on Item 19 are almost universally run by owners who are physically present multiple times per week.
The first-time owner with under $400,000 liquid. Both brands are now out of reach without SBA leverage, partners, or additional equity. If neither pencils, the honest answer is to look one tier down rather than over-leverage into a fitness deal whose bottom quartile grosses less than its build cost. Our best fitness franchises under $200K roundup covers what is actually reachable at that capital level.
💼 Researching both, or three fitness franchises? Our 3-pack of $99 FDD AI Reports gives you Anytime Fitness, Orangetheory, and a third fitness brand of your choice: side-by-side AI-parsed Item 19, Item 6 fees, and Item 7 build-out. Three full reports for $99 total.
For a category-level overview and side-by-side comparisons, see Best Fitness Franchises Under $200K. If your comparison set also includes the big-box, high-volume end of the market, the Planet Fitness franchise cost guide breaks down that investment tier and its owner economics.
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About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,300+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
Orangetheory earns more per unit; Anytime Fitness costs less and scales further. Per the 2026 FDDs, Orangetheory runs $764,577 to $1,104,920 with a $750,643 median revenue across 1,189 franchised studios. Anytime Fitness runs $539,329 to $905,482 with a $398,982 median across 1,656 reporting clubs. Choose on operating model, not headline capital.
About $225,000 at the floor. Orangetheory's 2026 Item 7 starts at $764,577 against Anytime Fitness's $539,329, and tops out at $1,104,920 against $905,482. Franchise fees are $59,950 versus $42,500. The gap is far narrower than the three-to-five-times figure still quoted across the web.
Neither FDD discloses profit. On revenue against capital, Orangetheory looks stronger: a $750,643 median on a $934,749 investment midpoint, versus Anytime Fitness's $398,982 median on a $722,406 midpoint. But Orangetheory's franchisor take runs 11% to 13% of sales against roughly 10.7% at Anytime Fitness, and coach labor is heavier.
Yes, more readily than Orangetheory. The 24/7 keycard model means clubs run unstaffed for most hours, and many multi-unit operators staff only a few hours daily for member service and personal training. Orangetheory cannot: every class on the schedule is a live coached delivery, so the studio needs coverage whenever it is open.
Neither, per the 2026 FDDs. Anytime Fitness opened 53 franchised clubs against 72 closures, ending at 2,271 franchised plus 11 company-owned. Orangetheory opened 13 against 47 closures, ending at 1,209. Orangetheory's 13 openings equal about 1% of its system, so ask both development teams what changed.
A typical studio runs eight to 14 certified coaches across operating hours, because every class requires a live coach. Coach hiring and retention is the largest operational variable for an Orangetheory operator, and markets with thin fitness-labor pools struggle even when membership demand is strong. Anytime Fitness has no equivalent line.
Anytime Fitness, by a wide margin. Limited on-site staffing, standardized equipment, and member self-service let one operator layer clubs onto shared overhead, and many run three to 10 or more. Orangetheory multi-unit ownership exists but typically maxes out at two to four studios because coach management does not centralize.
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