US fitness market, mapped
Largest Fitness Chains in the US: 36,000 Sites, Top 10 Run About 30%
By US site count, the 10 largest fitness chains run 10,901 of roughly 36,000 sites. Planet Fitness leads at 2,587 and Anytime Fitness follows at 2,207. The remaining 70 percent is independent gyms, studios, and regional banners.
The market, in three numbers
A chain top with a long, busy tail underneath.
independent and small-regional sites
About 25,000 of the roughly 36,000 US fitness sites sit outside the 10 largest chains. Independent gyms, single-studio operators, and small regional banners.
share held by the top ten chains
Planet Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Club Pilates, Orangetheory, Hotworx, F45 Training, Jazzercise, Pure Barre, LA Fitness, and Crunch run a combined 10,901 sites.
share of the top two alone
Planet Fitness (2,587) and Anytime Fitness (2,207) combine for 4,794 sites, roughly 13 percent of the US universe. Both are franchise models, not corporate-owned.
Source: Orbital classifier, market Fitness and Training, June 2026 snapshot.
Methodology
Why our fitness-chain count moves and the published estimates do not.
The numbers usually quoted in fitness research, the annual IHRSA Health Club Industry report and one-off trade press lists, are excellent for what they cover. They are also annual at best, and the buyer behind each site moves faster than that. We work site by site and refresh against the universe of US small businesses every month.
How the 36,000 figure is built
- Anchor on the IHRSA universe. Roughly 36,000 US for-profit fitness facilities, the canonical industry reference. We use that as the denominator and we publish it on the page rather than burying it.
- Cross-check by classifier. Every active US site classified into the Fitness and Training market, then back-computed from the state breakdown. The state-level total lands inside the IHRSA band, which is the right test for a count this size.
- Exclude nonprofits from the for-profit ranking. YMCA branches (about 2,700) and National Fitness Campaign installations (276) are real, large, and they belong in any honest map of the country's fitness footprint. They are not for-profit operators, so they sit out of the top-10 chain ranking and into a separate cut.
- Resolve each site to a real operating business. A franchisee LLC under an Anytime Fitness sign is a different buyer than the franchisor. We surface both, and we keep them separate. F45 Training is the clearest example, where most US locations operate under franchisee LLCs that file under their own legal entity, so the 680-site figure is a floor.
- Roll up the chains, carefully. Equinox Group is the cleanest enterprise rollup (Equinox plus Blink plus SoulCycle, roughly 270 sites). Xponential Fitness rolls up Club Pilates, Pure Barre, StretchLab, YogaSix, and seven other studio brands, which we show as separate brands and as a combined parent.
- Find the owner. About 70 percent of US fitness sites sit outside the top 10 chains. Most of those owners do not have a polished LinkedIn presence. We find them by name with a verified email and a direct dial, the same way we find owners across every long-tail vertical.
- Drop the dead pins. Closures, lease abandonments, sites rebranded after a franchise sale. Annual reports keep them on the list for twelve months. We do not.
Want a specific state, metro, or format cut (big-box gym, studio franchise, boutique HIIT, pilates, yoga, recovery)? Ask. We do not hide the working.
By state
Where the fitness sites actually are.
California, Texas, and Florida hold roughly 30 percent of US fitness sites between them. That is where the suburban garage-door demographic actually lives, and Planet Fitness and Anytime Fitness over-index in those three states by roughly 18 percent vs. their national share. New York and Illinois round out the top five.
| # | State | Sites | Share of US |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 19,823 | 13.35% |
| 2 | Texas | 13,165 | 8.86% |
| 3 | Florida | 11,202 | 7.54% |
| 4 | New York | 8,673 | 5.84% |
| 5 | Illinois | 5,617 | 3.78% |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | 5,150 | 3.47% |
| 7 | New Jersey | 4,764 | 3.21% |
| 8 | North Carolina | 4,636 | 3.12% |
| 9 | Georgia | 4,566 | 3.07% |
| 10 | Ohio | 4,343 | 2.92% |
| 11 | Massachusetts | 4,114 | 2.77% |
| 12 | Virginia | 3,675 | 2.47% |
| 13 | Michigan | 3,673 | 2.47% |
| 14 | Colorado | 3,635 | 2.45% |
| 15 | Washington | 3,601 | 2.42% |
Top 15 states account for roughly 64 percent of US fitness and training sites. Note the wider Fitness and Training market the state CSV is drawn from also captures personal trainers, small studio sole-proprietors, and movement coaches, which is why state totals run higher than the IHRSA for-profit facility universe. Filtering down to facility-style sites yields the IHRSA-aligned 36,000.
The top ten brands
Largest US fitness chains by site count.
Marketing budgets are loud. The math is quiet. Ten brands, 10,901 sites, about 30 percent of the US market. The remaining 25,000 sites belong to chains outside the top 10, regional banners, single-studio operators, and the deep long tail of independent gyms.
| # | Brand | US sites | Ownership | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Planet Fitness | 2,587 | Public (NYSE:PLNT). Built up by TSG Consumer Partners and L Catterton. | High-volume low-price franchise model. The volume leader in US fitness for most of the last decade. |
| 2 | Anytime Fitness | 2,207 | Self Esteem Brands (private). | 24-hour key-fob access model, franchised. The original studio-franchise scale story before the boutique wave arrived. |
| 3 | Club Pilates | 1,141 | Xponential Fitness (NYSE:XPOF). | Reformer pilates studio franchise. The fastest scaling brand in the Xponential portfolio. |
| 4 | Orangetheory Fitness | 1,141 | Roark Capital (private equity). | HIIT group class franchise. Acquired by Roark in 2020 from founder Ellen Latham's group. |
| 5 | Hotworx | 819 | Privately held. | Infrared sauna workout franchise. Fastest brand to 800 US sites in the boutique era. |
| 6 | F45 Training | 680+ | Mark Wahlberg plus FOD Capital (private, delisted 2024). | Functional HIIT studio franchise. Floor estimate due to franchisee-LLC rollup limitations on US locations; actual count likely higher. |
| 7 | Jazzercise | 672 | Privately held by Judi Sheppard Missett family. | Dance fitness franchise, founded 1969. Most US instructors operate as independent franchisees from rented community space. |
| 8 | Pure Barre | 597 | Xponential Fitness (NYSE:XPOF). | Ballet barre studio franchise. Acquired by Xponential in 2018; the second-largest brand in the portfolio. |
| 9 | LA Fitness | 561 | Seidler Equity Partners (private equity). | Mid-price big-box gym. Acquired the Bally Total Fitness footprint in 2011 and a chunk of 24 Hour Fitness assets in 2020. |
| 10 | Crunch Fitness | 496 | Mark Mastrov plus TPG Growth (private equity). | Mid-price franchised gym. The clearest acceleration story of the post-2020 big-box rebound. |
| * | Equinox Group (public-source) | ~270 | General Catalyst plus Related Companies. | Equinox (~110) plus Blink Fitness (~100) plus SoulCycle (~60). Far lower site count than Planet Fitness, far higher revenue per site. Excluded from the Orbital top-25 export because the data team threshold ranks by site count. |
| * | YMCA (nonprofit, excluded) | ~2,700 | Independent nonprofit federation. | The largest single fitness footprint in the US by branch count. Excluded from the for-profit ranking because YMCA branches are nonprofits with a different procurement and budget shape. |
| * | F45 brand floor | 680+ | Franchisee-LLC distributed. | Most US F45 locations operate under independent franchisee LLCs. Brand-count is a floor due to chain-resolver under-rollup. Actual storefront count likely higher; ask for the franchisee-level view. |
As of June 2026, US open sites. Counts reflect Orbital's location graph and may under-count franchisee LLCs operating under their own legal entity. Nonprofits (YMCA, National Fitness Campaign) excluded from the for-profit ranking; available as a separate cut on request.
Our take
The big-box era is done. The studio era has a decade of consolidation left.
We believe
Big-box fitness consolidation is mostly priced in. The studio franchise wave is where vendor dollars now flow.
Private equity has already consolidated big-box fitness. Planet Fitness sits at roughly 2,500 franchised gyms, LA Fitness at roughly 700, 24 Hour Fitness at roughly 280 after the 2020 bankruptcy. That book is closed. The studio class, where Anytime Fitness runs roughly 3,300 sites globally, Orangetheory roughly 1,500, F45 roughly 1,500, Pure Barre, Club Pilates, and the rest of Xponential plus a long tail of independents, is where vendor dollars are flowing now, and it is where independents still hold most of the long tail.
The big-box era is done. The studio franchise era has 5 to 10 years of consolidation left. If you are selling field-service software, payments, recovery hardware, member-management tools, or franchisee-level financing, the studio long tail is the larger of the two motions for the next five years and will stay that way until Xponential, Self Esteem Brands, and the next two roll-ups finish the job.
Who buys this data
B2B vendors selling into roughly 36,000 sites.
This page is for the teams selling into fitness operators, not the operators themselves. If you ship one of the categories below, the chain-and-long-tail map is the export your AE team has been asking for.
Gym and studio management platforms
Mindbody, Mariana Tek, ABC Fitness Solutions, Zen Planner, ClubReady, GymMaster, and the next wave of studio-scheduling software selling the upgrade off a clipboard or a spreadsheet.
Strength, cardio, and recovery hardware
Life Fitness, Matrix, Precor, Technogym, Hyperice, Therabody, and the recovery-hardware vendors selling the next floor refresh and the next round of branded sauna or cold plunge installs.
Membership billing and dunning
EFT-style billing platforms, payments specialists, and the dunning and retention tools that turn a 70 percent annual churn rate into 55 percent. The owner-operator signs, the GM uses it daily.
Franchisee financing and M&A advisors
SBA-7(a) lenders, working-capital providers, equipment lenders, and the search funds spending two years on Rolodex against the 25,000 independents and single-studio operators in the long tail.
Marketing, SEO, and lead-gen
Agencies, paid-search and paid-social specialists, reputation-management tools, and the websites-and-funnels layer selling growth to studio owners who built their books on referrals and Instagram.
Content libraries and on-demand video
Les Mills, Wexer, Fitness On Demand, and the on-screen workout libraries selling the upgrade from a single in-house instructor schedule to a 24-hour programmed studio.
Cleaning, supplies, and back-office
Locker-room supply, towel service, HVAC and indoor-air quality, sanitization programs, fleet vans for studio openings. The owner signs the contract and the GM reorders for the next 18 months.
Adjacent universes built the same way: the market insights index, the broader by-industry email lists, the sister largest pest control companies map, and the largest HVAC companies map for the home-services family.
Plain-spoken
When the fitness dataset is the wrong fit.
Do not buy this if any of the following are true.
You only sell at the Equinox or Life Time revenue tier. If your motion is one annual contract with a public-major operator, you do not need a long-tail map of 36,000 sites. You need a strong relationship manager and two phone numbers. Save the budget.
You sell to consumers directly. Workout apps, supplements, apparel, wearables. Consumer fitness data is a different universe, the membership and household side. This dataset is B2B operator contacts, not end users.
Your sales motion only fires above $100k ACV. A single-studio owner with one franchise license rarely writes a six-figure annual check on day one. Call us when an enterprise-only motion stalls and you need a mid-market overlay across the studio franchise base.
You need real-time franchise license status. State franchise registration boards publish their own data on a different cadence. We refresh monthly, which is the right cadence for prospecting and the wrong cadence for compliance gatekeeping.
The honest version
Why most fitness chains vendor data is wrong.
If you Google "largest fitness chains in the US," the top results are a mix of trade-press listicles, Statista chart snippets, IBISWorld industry-report excerpts, and one or two Club Industry rankings. Statista charts the membership economy. IBISWorld writes 40-page PDFs for analysts. Neither one tells your AE which 25,000 independent owners actually sign contracts.
The trade-press lists rank by membership count or by revenue, which flatters the public majors. Planet Fitness reports billions in member revenue. Equinox commands the highest per-site revenue in the industry. The field looks heavily consolidated. The site-count lens does not flatter anyone. By US sites, the 10 largest brands run 10,901 of about 36,000 sites, roughly 30 percent. Planet Fitness and Anytime Fitness together hold around 13 percent. The other 70 percent of sites is somebody else's lease.
The second problem is that enterprise B2B databases roll up by parent and lose the buyer. Xponential Fitness shows up as one row at the Irvine HQ and the 1,141 Club Pilates studios plus 597 Pure Barre studios plus 496 StretchLab studios collapse into a single line item. The actual buyer for most fitness vendor categories is a studio owner, a regional franchisee, or a multi-unit operator who never reports up to corporate procurement. Xponential corporate sets brand standards. Each studio owner picks the payments processor, the cleaning vendor, and the local marketing agency.
This is the gap Orbital sits in. We map the universe of US small and mid-market businesses, classify each site into its market, find the owner or decision-maker for that site, and ship a verified contact before the conversation starts. The same site-by-site rollup we run for 880,000 HVAC contractors and 200,000 dental practices applies here, fitness just adds brand affiliation and the franchisee-LLC layer. What is specific to fitness is the layer on top: brand affiliation, parent rollup, format (big-box gym, studio franchise, boutique HIIT, pilates, yoga, recovery and stretching), and the per-state franchise registration data when the operator publishes it. We are the site-count complement to IHRSA, not a replacement for it. IHRSA tells your CFO the market is real. This tells your AE which 36,000 owners to call on Monday.
Questions
Before you ask sales about fitness data.
How many fitness chains are there in the US?
IHRSA puts the US fitness facility universe at roughly 36,000 sites. Orbital maps that universe site by site, classifies each one into the Fitness and Training market, and identifies the brand or independent operator behind it. The 10 largest chains combined run 10,901 US sites, about 30 percent of the market. The remaining 70 percent is independent gyms, studios, and small regional banners.
What is the largest fitness chain in the US?
Planet Fitness is the largest US fitness chain by site count, with 2,587 US locations. Anytime Fitness is second at 2,207. Both run a franchise model and both have been the volume leaders for most of the last decade. Equinox Group is far smaller by site count (roughly 270 across Equinox, Blink, and SoulCycle) but materially larger by revenue per site.
How is Orbital's count different from IHRSA?
IHRSA publishes the total US fitness facility count annually and is the canonical industry reference for market size. Orbital does not replace that. We map the same universe site by site, identify the brand or independent operator behind each location, and ship a verified owner contact. IHRSA tells you the market is roughly 36,000 facilities. This dataset tells you which 36,000, which 30 percent belong to chains, and who actually signs the contract at the other 70 percent.
Who owns the largest fitness chains?
Big-box fitness is mostly private equity. Planet Fitness was built up by TSG Consumer Partners and is now public (NYSE:PLNT). LA Fitness is owned by Seidler Equity Partners after the Bally Total Fitness era. 24 Hour Fitness was acquired out of bankruptcy by a lender group in 2020. Crunch Fitness sits in the Mark Mastrov plus TPG orbit. Equinox Group is backed by General Catalyst and Related Companies. Studio franchises sit under Xponential Fitness (Club Pilates, Pure Barre, StretchLab) and Self Esteem Brands (Anytime Fitness).
Can I filter by state, metro, or format?
Yes. The dataset is filterable by state, metro, ZIP, chain affiliation, parent company, and format (big-box gym, studio franchise, boutique HIIT, pilates, yoga, barre, recovery and stretching). California, Texas, and Florida together hold roughly 30 percent of US fitness sites, so most vendors start there plus their named target metros. Tell us the cut you want when you ask for the sample.
How is this list refreshed?
Orbital refreshes the location graph against the universe of US small and mid-market businesses on a rolling monthly schedule. The June 2026 snapshot is the one quoted on this page. IHRSA publishes the industry report annually. Trade press lists update sporadically and lag by 6 to 18 months. Counts on this page move when sites open, close, or change hands.
Are YMCA branches counted?
No. The YMCA operates roughly 2,700 US branches and is the largest single fitness footprint in the country, but YMCA branches are nonprofits and they do not sit in the for-profit Fitness and Training market the same way a Planet Fitness or Anytime Fitness location does. National Fitness Campaign, a nonprofit outdoor-equipment installer, is excluded from the for-profit ranking on the same basis. If your motion sells into nonprofit recreation, ask for the nonprofit cut separately and we ship it.
When is this dataset the wrong fit?
Three cases. First, if you only sell at the Equinox or Life Time revenue tier, you need a relationship manager, not 36,000 records. Second, if you sell directly to consumers (membership apps, supplements, apparel), you want consumer data, not B2B operator contacts. Third, if your sales motion only fires above 100,000 dollars in annual contract value, the long tail of independent studios will not fit your unit economics. Save the budget for an enterprise-only motion.
See the fitness chains dataset before you pay for it.
Tell us the states, formats, or chain affiliations you want. We send a free sample of around 100 verified owner records you can check against your own pipeline. No commitment, no email-list back-and-forth.
Get the sample