ClassPass: The Cost Analysis

So my free trial month of ClassPass is up! Over the course of a  month I went to 8 different classes, which roughly equates to 2 per week - 3 Spinning, 2 Kettlebells, 1 Treadmill session, and 2 Yoga classes.

Check out previous blog posts here:

ClassPass: 1Rebel Ride and Reshape
ClassPass: Cyclebeat and Kettlebells

If I had paid for all of those classes individually, as Pay-As-You-Go or Drop-In sessions then that would have cost me £125. 

Obviously you could pay less if you signed up for a membership to that studio, or bought a bundle of classes, but for the purposes of this analysis I'm looking at being able to have the same variety that ClassPass offers.

Even the cheapest package at my favourite studio 1Rebel works out at £12 per class, and that requires paying £600 upfront for 50 classes!

If you went for the cheapest studio I attended, Flux Motion Kettlebells in Putney, then they have a monthly membership of £65 for unlimited classes. Great if you just want to do Kettlebells, but not if you prefer a bit of variety. Once you start adding in Yoga classes, or Spinning classes here and there it's not such a good deal...

Lots of studios offer introductory packages - 2 classes for £20, a month for £30 etc, but once you've exhausted all those options in your local area you then have to start paying full price.

If you look at the ClassPass membership prices, then even at the full price of £89 per month, my 8 sessions would work out at around £11 per class - not bad for London, and cheaper than nearly all of the drop-in prices!

I had a quick check of some of the friends I linked with on ClassPass to see how many studios they visited over the course of the month- it varies of course depending on how busy your schedule is but one girl had completed 28 classes in a month! At that level, you're paying just £3 per class. Of course I'm not suggesting you have to commit to taking a class a day, but it does illustrate the value of ClassPass if you really wanted to!

I've decided to continue my ClassPass membership, and have opted for a 6 month commitment purely based on cost analysis- at £59 per month, I basically only need to go to 1Rebel at least 3 times to have got my money's worth - I'm pretty sure I will do at least that in 30 days! The downside to this is that you have to pay the full 6 months upfront (£354) which is a lot of money to fork out in one go. And after your 6 months is up, the membership reverts to the full £89 per month. I will have to decide then if I think it's worth continuing based on how much I've done in the 6 months.

There are a few other negatives I want to highlight- I'm not saying ClassPass is perfect, and I think the model could definitely be improved. 

- As I highlighted in red above, if you don't cancel a class more than 12 hours in advance then you get charged a £12 cancellation fee. I totally understand the reason behind this, as studios don't want loads of people cancelling last-minute and having spaces they could have filled with paying customers. However, I feel that 12 hours is too long a window- if you wake up in the morning feeling sick and awful, then in most cases (unless you get up super early) you're already too late to cancel your class for that evening. I raised this point with ClassPass, but apparently as they have already reduced the window from 24hours to 12hours, a further reduction is unlikely. Perhaps in that case, as another blogger suggested, the class could merely be taken from your 3 times per month limit for that studio, rather than actually charging a fee and losing a class credit (as is currently the case).

- If you choose to leave ClassPass, and then want to rejoin you have to pay a £69 reactivation fee, which quite frankly is ridiculous. I really don't see the logic behind this- I think it would be a much better fit for their "drop-in/variety is the spice of life" model if they allowed people to leave, come back, put accounts on hold with as little fuss as possible. Otherwise I think there will be a lot of members trying it out, then cancelling and never coming back because of the fee. It's obviously to try and persuade people to just "freeze" their account rather than cancelling, which costs £19 per month and allows you 1 class during that cycle. An interesting idea, but I'm not sure how this will work in practise. As an aside, if you opt for the 3 or 6 month commitment, you're not able to put your account on hold at all during that time.

- This is a personal one, but as I don't live or work in Central London, I have to factor in the travel costs of attending all these studios. It's not a lot, especially if I go to places that are reasonably local, but definitely something to bear in mind. It also means in most cases I can't make use of morning or lunchtime classes, and as the weather improves I know I'm less likely to want to spend my sunny evenings in a dark studio! There are at least 6 or 7 outdoor bootcamps on ClassPass however, so you can still get your fitness fix outside- although I'm sure some people would question why you would pay for this when you can go to a local park by yourself... Hopefully as their reach expands and more studios get involved there will also be ones that I can go to and still make it my desk for 9am!

- A couple of other things I've already mentioned in my posts include the fact that you don't have access to all the classes a studio offers, only the ones they choose to allow ClassPass members to attend. And that you don't get to choose your bike/treadmill at the different studios, it's randomly allocated and will usually place you at number 1 which is often over in the corner!

Photo courtesy of Charlie

Overall I think that ClassPass is great value if you love to take classes at a few different studios and mix up your workouts. Personally, I think it's going to be great for me to have access to a variety of cross-training options, strength sessions and flexibility work at yoga, and I'm really hoping it will improve my fitness and reduce my injuries. If you're a runner who is used to not paying anything to work out, then obviously ClassPass may seem ridiculously expensive, but on the other hand if you're currently paying memberships at 3 different studios, you may want to consider a different option! I don't think that it's for everyone - some people love to just do one thing - eg. Crossfit, and there are definitely negatives which could put people off.

I'll check back in 6 months and let you know if my thoughts have changed! 

Have you tried ClassPass? Are you surprised by the value or do you think the negatives would put you off?

Beki x

NB: I was given a free trial month ClassPass but all opinions and calculations are my own 🙂