Worldwide, traditional gyms are notorious for their pricing strategies. Membership pricing is built around predictable human behaviour. In India, most gyms will charge X per month, and less than 2.5X for a year!
Gym owners know that when you walk in the door for a gym membership, you are at the peak of your motivation. You reached the gym after convincing yourself that it's going to be different this time. Gym to gym, the pitch might vary, but every gym manager knows that by the time he reaches the part about pricing, the odds are on the gym's side. Few services discount more aggressively as commitment increases.
Most people just pay, and as a new client, they can't wait to tell more people about it. The manager is happy for the free promotion and not worried about the gym filling up. After all, the business model of any traditional gym is based on the idea that most people will underuse their memberships.
As people become more aware of pricing psychology, they’re less comfortable paying for memberships they don’t use. Most people don’t like being outsmarted.
Nowadays, it's not uncommon to hear that people feel proud about choosing a monthly membership. If observed behaviour suggests the average person shows up for only a fraction of the time they paid for, it makes sense to take up a monthly membership before making a longer commitment. By this logic, paying X is definitely smarter than paying significantly more for an annual membership.
I nudge my friends and acquaintances who have reached the threshold of starting a fitness journey to think differently and fall for the marketing tactic employed by gyms. Buy that annual gym membership, because one month is just not sufficient to build a new habit.
Starting a fitness routine is hard; staying consistent is harder — life always gets in the way. Even the most ardent gym-goer will tell you how they had to cut back on going to the gym or contend with exercising at home when life threw a curve ball their way. My push to buy an annual gym membership assumes inconsistency as the default, not the exception.
There is nothing wrong with the goal of wanting to work out 5-6 times a week at a gym. I just don't think it's the right goal for people starting out, even if it is for the sixth time. Going to the gym as often as possible should be one of the first goals. Another goal I recommend is to get back to the gym as soon as you are back from a break, whatever the reason for the break — work travel, illness, or any emergency. With this context, I encourage people to compare gym membership pricing against reality, not fantasy.
Let's assume that in the first year of your fitness journey, you average three days a month at the gym, which is once a week with one week off. I know it seems low, but that's meaningful progress for someone struggling to stick with a plan. If you paid for the membership monthly, you would end up paying 12X. If you paid for those visits using daily passes, which most gyms sell at 0.1X, it would cost you 0.3X per month or 3.6X for the year. Both 12X and 3.6X are definitely more expensive than the annual gym membership (at less than 2.5X).
Moreover, if you have an active membership, you just need to show up to the gym. As any gym-goer will tell you, even on your worst day, getting to the gym does the trick. You have one more workout under your belt, and go home feeling a champion!
Seen this way, the annual membership isn’t a trap — it’s a hedge against reality.
PS – if your work/life has you maintain multiple home bases, I am a big proponent for taking gym memberships in every location you spend a significant amount of time in. If you like or don't mind an old school gym (sometimes called Hardcore Gyms in India), you can get annual memberships very cheap!