What an empty spot in a group class costs
An empty spot is worth the class's revenue divided by the spots it has. In a class of twelve, with memberships at 55 euros and twelve classes a month, that is 4.58 euros a spot. It does not show up on any expense line, because the class cost the same. This is the sum, with your own gym's numbers.
On this page · 4 sections
The sum, in three lines
The membership divided by the number of classes is a different number. It measures what the member pays. What a spot is worth is the class's revenue divided by the spots it has.
- 1.The revenue of the hour. If twelve people on a 55-euro membership do twelve classes a month, each class brings in 55 ÷ 12 = 4.58 euros per person. Twelve full spots are 55 euros of revenue in that hour.
- 2.The spot. 55 euros across twelve spots is 4.58 euros a spot. That is the price of a spot that stays empty.
- 3.The repetition. One empty spot per class, across five classes a day and six days a week, is thirty spots a week. About 137 euros a week, in the same room and with the same coach.
4.58 euros
The number changes with your price and your capacity. The shape does not: the cost of an empty spot is small and daily, and it counts because it is daily.
Where spots get lost
Spots get lost in three places, and all three are about process:
- Someone cancels and nobody is called. The class had a waitlist at 17:00 and starts at 18:30 with eleven of twelve, because the 17:02 cancellation reached no one.
- Someone does not show up and does not cancel. The spot was taken until the end, with nobody in it. It is the most expensive of the three, because there was never a chance to fill it.
- The class nobody touches. The 10:00 has had three people for months, and the 19:30 has a queue every week. Moving the time is a three-minute decision when the number is in front of you. When it is not, it is a conversation that keeps getting put off.
What to do about each one
The first is solved with a waitlist that moves on its own. When a spot opens, it goes to the first person who is still entitled to it, and that person is told.
The second is solved with a written rule applied the same way to everyone: a cancellation window, and a no-show mark that counts. Once it is written, it stops being a case-by-case conversation. That is where a rule wears out.
The third is solved with the number in plain sight. Occupancy per hour of the timetable, next to attendance. Twenty bookings with fourteen people in the room is a different problem from twenty unsold spots, and each one needs a different answer.
All three are fixed in the process, without selling anything more.
Frequently asked
- Does an empty spot cost anything on an unlimited membership?
- It costs the same. The member pays anyway, but the hour had spots to sell to people who are not members: a drop-in, a single class, someone on a trial. The empty spot is the sale that did not happen, not the membership that was lost.
- Is it worth lowering capacity so classes look full?
- Only if the room really is small for what is in it. Lowering capacity lowers the most the hour can earn, and creates an artificial waitlist. The number should be what the room and the coach can handle well, and nothing more.
- How do you work out what a spot in a class is worth?
- Divide the class's revenue by the spots it has. With memberships at 55 euros and twelve classes a month, each person brings in 4.58 euros per class. In a class of twelve, each empty spot is 4.58 euros that did not come in.
- How do you reduce empty spots?
- With three things. A waitlist that promotes people on its own when someone cancels. A cancellation window that is the same for everyone. And occupancy per hour in plain sight, so you can move the classes that stay empty.
Rummo team
Written by the people who build Rummo, management software for gyms, boxes and studios: classes, bookings, members and payments.
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