192 clubs, 500,000 members, 19.90 euros a month. FitActive founder Eduardo Montefusco on why the next margin comes from software, not square metres.

A FitActive club costs around a million euros to build today, roughly double what it cost ten years ago, and the membership price has not moved. Montefusco runs 192 clubs across seven countries and owns all or most of every one of them, having stopped signing franchise partners altogether on 1 January 2025.

In this conversation:

• Why the word franchise was never the right one for what he built
• What 51 per cent lets him do in eight days that a franchise agreement does not
• Why his banks wanted him to stop taking partners
• Why 19.90 stays fixed while everything around it gets more expensive
• What he expects AI to do to a retention rate that has already moved from 32 to 38

Season 2 of Tomorrow Health is sponsored by Zing Coach - every gym member, personally coached.

Chapters:

00:00 Why he does not need franchisees

01:09 192 clubs, seven countries, 500,000 members

01:53 Why this is not a franchise, and the eight-day clause

03:59 Why partners open a second club

05:27 What a single club costs to build

06:31 Stopping franchising, and what the banks wanted

07:24 Breakeven at 2.1 members per square metre

08:44 Retention at 38 per cent and the AI bet

10:53 Costs doubled, revenue did not

11:53 Selling more to the same member

12:33 What travels to Spain and Brazil

13:50 Where the company goes in five years

14:26 Two tax regimes and a distorted market

15:56 The one decision he would make this quarter

Links:

• Eduardo Montefusco on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardo-montefusco-53155521/
• FitActive: https://www.fitactive.it/
• Zing Coach, season sponsor: https://zing.coach/
• Natalia Karbasova on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karbasova/
• Tomorrow Health: https://tomorrow-health.com
• Get episode alerts: https://tomorrow-health.com/#subscribe
• Apply to join FitTech Club: https://fittechclub.com/