A fitness membership app is an app that sells one membership for gym visits, group classes and live online classes, which the member books in the same app. It is also called a fitness network, or a gym and class membership app. In India, cult.fit is the best-known example.
Here is how it differs from joining one gym. An ordinary gym membership lets you use one building. A fitness membership app gives access to a network of centres. Some centres belong to the company itself. Others are partner gyms that accept the company's members. The member chooses where to go each day, and books a place in the app.
Say a software engineer in Pune buys a yearly membership for ₹18,000. On Monday, she books a 7 am strength class at a centre near her office. The app shows that 18 of the 25 places are taken, and she takes the 19th. On Wednesday, she goes to a partner gym near her home. The gym's staff scan a QR code in her app at the entrance. On Friday evening, she joins a live yoga class online from her living room. The teacher can see the students on video and correct their posture. That live class runs on video software similar to video conferencing.
Several systems support these bookings. Each class has a fixed number of places, so the app keeps a waiting list, and offers a freed place to the next person on it. Partner gyms keep their own calendars in salon and spa software or similar studio software, and share their free slots with the app. Subscription billing software charges the membership every month or year, and renews it. Many apps also connect to fitness bands and the phone's step counter, and show the member's progress.
Who pays whom? The member pays the app. The app pays each partner gym for every visit its members make, at an agreed rate. So the app must know exactly who visited where. That is why every visit is checked in with a scan.
A fitness membership app is close to a fitness class booking app. The difference is ownership. A fitness membership app usually runs many of its own centres and classes. A class booking app owns no studios. It sells places in other studios' classes.