Q&A: Does Anytime Fitness Franchise in the UK?

If you’ve always dreamed of running your own business and you’ve also got a love of all things fitness, gym and sports, you could find your ideal next professional venture with the Anytime Fitness franchise family. Read on, and find out all about the Anytime Fitness franchise opportunities available to you right now.

In the UK, the fitness and gym sector is worth £5 billion and over 7,000 gyms are operational [LeisureDB]. This is a vast industry, and one that you could massively profit from investing in, if you do it in the right way. That right way might well be with an Anytime Fitness franchise investment.

Does Anytime Fitness franchise in the UK?

Yes, Anytime Fitness DOES franchise in the UK. In fact, the business is actually the UK’s number one fitness franchise. Anytime Fitness is proud to be a vast network that contains 4,500 clubs across 35 countries, and it’s also proud to provide its franchisees with anything and everything they need in order to successfully navigate making a career change with a gym franchise.

Due to our convenient locations, 24/7 access and desire to support everyone to lead a healthier lifestyle, your club will become the centre of the community and the tool to change people's lives.
- Anytime Fitness

The history of Anytime Fitness 

This special sports franchise was founded in Minneapolis in 2002 by Chuck Runyon, Dave Mortensen and Jeff Klinger. The first Anytime Fitness franchise location opened later that year in Minnesota, and just three years later in 2005, the team was opening its 77th! Three years later than THIS in 2009, that figure had risen to 1,200 worldwide. Essentially, in the 20 years since founding, the Anytime Fitness business model has thrived, and the franchise has become one of the fastest-growing in the history of the gym industry. 

In 2015, the 3000th Anytime Fitness club opened in Gloucestershire. To give you a full sense of just how impressive Anytime Fitness’s global presence is, they are currently operating gyms in: All 50 US states, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Grand Cayman, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, Qatar, South Korea, India, Italy, Chile, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Start a franchise in the fitness sector with an Anytime Fitness gym

If you’d like to start a franchise in the fitness sector, there are many different options to consider, from mum-and-kiddos focused Busylizzy all the way to kickboxing circuit training specialist 9Round. Before you commit to any investment, make sure you do plenty of research in order to find your tribe. And if Anytime Fitness floats your boat? You’ll need to know the answers to the three questions that follow...

1. How do you go about becoming an Anytime Fitness franchisee?

What the ideal Anytime Fitness franchisee looks like is very flexible, as franchisees can choose how much time they dedicate to the day-to-day running of their gym franchise post-launch. Many franchisees choose to make Anytime Fitness a more passive source of income by employing a club manager to manage sales and staff, ensure the club is safe and clean and maintain high standards of customer service. When you inquire about becoming a franchisee with Anytime Fitness, you’ll go through the following steps:

• You’ll speak with a team member and share your goals and motivations
• You’ll attend a discovery meeting/discovery day, where you’ll be further introduced to the brand and the franchise package
• You’ll do your due diligence to ensure you know all you need to about the investment
• You’ll meet the whole team at the Anytime Fitness Support Office
• You’ll pin down your location with demographic analysis support 
• You’ll sign the franchise agreement, join the Anytime Fitness family and start your initial training programme

2. How much do you need to invest?

To become a franchisee within the massively popular and hugely successful Anytime Fitness network, you’ll need to make a minimum initial investment of around £170,000, with franchise fees of £39,000 and a total investment cost of £330,000. If these aren’t costs you can front, be aware that high street banks might facilitate a loan covering up to 70% of them in the right set of circumstances [British Business Bank].

3. What do you get for your investment?

Anytime Fitness provides a business model that blends perfectly, providing a great work/life balance. The convenience and affordability of our product, for both franchise owners and members, is just one of the many features allowing our business to thrive.
- Anytime Fitness

Anytime Fitness offers every franchisee a comprehensive initial training programme and all the set-up and launch support that they need with everything from site selection to marketing. The training doesn’t end with the launch, either - it continues on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis in a number of formats (on site, remotely and via a regular three-day training course that runs six times a year and covers every aspect of running the club, from sales to database management, giving franchisees a change to refresh their knowledge whenever they need to).

To members and franchisees alike, Anytime Fitness represents four core values: Convenience, community, quality and accessibility. They’ve always believed that a successful franchisee is a success for the franchise, as is evidenced by the huge number of successful franchise locations operating across the globe. As a franchisee, you’d massively benefit from this attitude, and you’d never be without the support you need to thrive.

If you’d love to start a fitness business, a gym franchise might be right up your street

If this article has left you more ready than ever to invest in a gym franchise but Anytime Fitness isn’t necessarily the perfect fit, be sure to browse Point Franchise’s wide range of gym franchise investment opportunities. They come in many shapes, sizes and price points. You can become a franchisee with Fitness Rush, for instance, for a minimum initial investment of £25,000, with franchise fees of £9,999 and a total investment cost of £100,000 (plus operating, advertising and royalty fees).