How to Measure the ROI of Your Virtual Fitness Classes

Believe it or not, it’s been almost a year since fitness businesses across the globe ventured into virtual fitness for the first time due to COVID-19. Since then, it’s been a wild ride of testing cameras and microphones, figuring out lighting, and learning how to teach your customers when you can’t be with them.

While some businesses were lucky and had a strategy ready for online fitness, most didn’t. And now that it’s become clear that virtual classes will forever be a part of the wellness industry, many fitness instructors and business owners are left with a big question: how do you know if what you’re doing is working?

The answer boils down to three letters: ROI.

ROI means return on investment and is a key performance indicator (or KPI) that tells you how much you’re earning back on the money you spend in your business. Simply put: you want a positive ROI, meaning that each dollar that you invest in your business returns more than a dollar back. To calculate your ROI, you’ll need two numbers: your expenses and net revenue (or profit). You’ll divide your net revenue by your expenses, and the percentage that you get back is your return on investment.

While it’s a simple calculation, it can get complicated when we start applying it to real-life examples like your virtual fitness program. Why? Unlike when we calculate ROI for your whole business, when we look at expenses for a specific class or offering, it can be difficult to know which expenses you should include and which you should not.

So, we decided to make it simple—and built a calculator for you to use to calculate your expenses and revenue for virtual fitness. Tell us how many classes you hold on a monthly basis, how much you spend on those classes from teacher salaries to live streaming costs, and how much revenue you earn per class, and our calculator will tell you your expenses and profit.

How you can use your ROI ratio

Knowing your ROI ratio is a measurable way for you to measure the value of online wellness classes to your business. Once you've calculated the return-on-investment ratio for your virtual offerings, you can begin to make decisions to guide your business long-term. For example, if your ratio is negative, you can determine if there's a specific cause, or if there is benefit in charging more for your classes. If it's positive, but you want it to be higher, you may consider adding an extra online class.

Try it out—and if you want guidance on how to improve your virtual fitness revenue strategy, download our pricing template.