How yoga studio owners make money in 2024

James Solomon
June 20, 2024

Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service and that bring friends with them- W.Edwards Deming, American management consultant

Whenever a person thinks of running a business, the only thing that comes to mind is the profits received by offering products or services to clients. However, obtaining profits from the business is not as easy as it seems. A business owner has to spend endless hours developing an understanding of what their clients want, enabling them to offer products or services as per the target audience’s requirements. Thus, understanding the target audience enables business owners to enhance profitability.

Similarly, the same concept is implemented in yoga studios. Yoga studio owners must spend endless hours digging into the target audience’s preferences to successfully run their yoga studio. However, it is generally believed that yoga studios have higher profit margins than other fitness niches due to the low cost of purchasing and maintaining equipment.

As per research, profit margins for yoga studios vary between 15–25%, compared to the gym business, which only has 10–20% profit margins. This statistical analysis might influence yoga enthusiasts like you to start your yoga centers.

However, you might still have questions about how yoga studio owners make money and secure up to 25% profit margins. A yoga studio’s primary income comes from drop-in fees and memberships. Furthermore, there are many different ways through which yoga studio owners add money to their yoga business. Here, we will discuss the additional ways yoga studio owners make money in 2024.

Annual income for yoga studio owners

Before discussing the ways through which yoga enthusiasts like you can enhance the profits of your studio in 2024 and increase the student retention rate, you need to understand the factors on which the annual income of yoga studio owners depends. Understanding these factors enables you to make optimal decisions about your yoga startup. Moreover, if you run a yoga center, these factors can allow you to increase your business profit margins by up to 25%.

According to Finmodelslab’s research, the average annual income of yoga studio owners ranges from $30,000 to $70,000. However, this income can vary depending on location, size, and the region where you want to start your business. Here are the factors that can influence the annual revenue of a yoga studio owner:

Regional difference

Regional differences are important in defining your annual income as a yoga studio owner. As the region changes, factors such as competition level, consumer behavior, cost of living, and market demand change. If you run a yoga studio in a metropolitan area such as Los Angeles or New York City, you can charge higher prices for classes and attract more students than a yoga enthusiast who starts their yoga center in a rural or suburban area.

Additionally, consumer behavior is also influenced by changes in regions. For example, you started your yoga center in a fitness hub like New York, where students have a strong culture of health and wellness. This leads to a higher demand for workshops and yoga classes. On the contrary, a yoga enthusiast starts its yoga studio in a place where its target audience is unaware of the benefits of yoga. Such a yoga studio owner struggles to attract consistent students, affecting its annual income. So, it is essential for you to understand the regional difference and its effect on the yearly income of yoga studio owners.

Size of the yoga studio

Another important factor influencing the annual income of a yoga studio owner like you is the size of the fitness center. Suppose you run a yoga studio with a space that can accommodate 200 students at a time. You can drive higher profit margins than your competition with a space that can accommodate 20 students at a time.

Usually, larger studios have higher operating costs, such as utilities, rent, and staff salaries, which impact the overall profit margins. However, a larger studio also has the potential to attract a broader audience and generate higher revenue, leading to an increase in the yoga studio owner’s income.

On the contrary, smaller yoga studios have low operating costs but also low potential to attract larger audiences, which can affect the annual income of a yoga studio owner. So, it is essential for you to understand the influence of yoga studio size on your business profitability.

Specialized yoga classes

Offering specialized yoga classes also helps increase your studio’s profitability by attracting a niche market willing to pay a premium fee for tailored instruction. Yoga studios that offer specialized yoga classes in addition to traditional yoga have a higher chance of increasing their studio profitability than a center that only offers traditional yoga. Specialized classes such as prenatal yoga, aerial yoga, and vinyasa yoga enable you to add a unique value proposition to justify your studio’s high profitability.

Let’s suppose you run your yoga studio at a place where you are in direct competition with 5 other fitness centers. All of your competition offers traditional yoga to their students. The only thing that separates your yoga studio from theirs is that you offer specialized yoga classes, such as hot yoga and aerial yoga, in addition to traditional yoga classes. Thus, these specialized classes not only enable you to attract a broad spectrum of audience but also enable you to enhance your studio profitability. Thus, it is essential for you to offer specialized classes if you want to increase your annual income.

7 ways yoga studio owners make money

After discussing the annual income and the factors that can influence the yoga center’s profitability, it is essential for you to understand how you can enhance your studio’s profitability and annual income. These ways act as another source of income for your yoga studio. Whether you started your yoga center or run multiple franchises, here are some ways that would enable you to increase your studio profitability and pave your studio path for a successful journey:

Virtual classes

If you want to enhance your studio profitability and upgrade your studio status, it is essential for you to conduct virtual classes. These classes enable you to target the audience who love to do yoga for physical health and stay in different parts of the world. Thus, virtual courses enable you to grab the attention of a broader audience with the same fitness goals and visions as your studio.

Moreover, offering online classes will also enhance your studio’s profitability in 2024. You just have to share recorded lectures with the broader audience via different platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, or the video-on-demand feature if you are using a yoga studio management software, and the audience has to pay you for the classes. As per the research, yoga studios that offer virtual classes can increase their profit margins by up to 80%.

Yoga style diversification

You can offer different yoga styles in your fitness studio in addition to traditional classes. Thus, you can increase your studio’s profit margins by attracting students who want to pay premium fees for the yoga style they love. To increase profit margins through yoga style diversification, you need to conduct a market analysis to understand what your students want in addition to traditional yoga.

After doing market research, you can implement famous yoga styles for your potential students. As per Reebok’s research, the following styles of yoga are liked by the people worldwide:

Hatha
Vinyasa
Restorative

Offering these yoga styles in your studio enables you to target the audience who love any specific type of yoga and helps you boost your studio’s profit margins.

Let’s suppose you ran a yoga studio in your town two years ago and started giving instructions about the yoga styles trending in the market. Initially, your yoga studio attracted new students and increased its profit margins. However, with time, the student retention rate began to decrease.

At the same time, a new yoga studio started its journey by offering traditional and specialized yoga styles. Thus, your competition attracts students who want to learn new yoga techniques, which affects your business profitability. So, you need to introduce different yoga styles in your studio to enhance business profitability in 2024.

Private sessions

Another way to increase your yoga studio’s profitability in 2024 is to give private sessions to your students. In group classes, you are not able to pay full attention to each student, leading to delayed fitness results. Private sessions enable you to charge an extra amount for the same session, but you have to give full attention to that student, allowing him to improve faster than his companions.

Moreover, introducing private sessions also allows you to attract students who want personalized assistance. Thus, it enables you to attract new students while enhancing their yoga experience.

Nutritional services

If you want to ensure a remarkable yoga experience while enhancing your studio’s profitability in 2024, you have to ensure that your studio also provides nutritional services to your students. Offering additional nutritional services enables you to gain your students’ trust and make them loyal customers. Each yoga style requires a specific diet plan to achieve faster results. Thus, offering a diet plan and yoga recommendations enhances your business profitability and creates a unique yoga experience for your students.

Suppose you open your yoga studio in a place where there are no nutritionists who can give the target audience the diet plan that they require. In your studio, you hire a nutritionist to help you plan the diet plan as per the students’ requirements. Thus, you can attract a broader spectrum of audiences who want a diet plan for their daily lives.

Moreover, offering nutritional services lets you gain your student’s trust and enhance your studio’s profitability. So, it is essential for you to include nutrition in your studio services to achieve profit margins of up to 25%.

Corporate wellness

You can also partner with corporate businesses to enhance your yoga studio’s profitability. Large corporate companies have huge budgets that they want to spend on the well-being of their employees. You can simply share your studio vision with the human resource department and establish a partnership with that corporate business. Under this tie-up, your yoga studio has to offer yoga seminars to the corporate sector employees to highlight the importance of yoga.

Moreover, you must offer yoga sessions to your partner employees before and after work. This enables you to attract new students while ensuring higher profit margins for your yoga studio.

Rental facility

Another way that can help you to increase your yoga studio profit margins in 2024 is the rental facility. You can rent your studio space to a small retailer selling water bottles, apparel and other useful items. Thus, they pay you for using your space in the yoga studio and enable you to enhance your studio’s profitability.

Suppose you run a yoga studio with space accommodating 200 students. Thus, to refresh your students, you want a small shop offering them energy bars and healthy food. For this reason, you can simply rent a small space in your studio to a small retailer, enhancing your studio’s profitability.

Plan yoga retreats

If you want your students to have a remarkable yoga experience, you must plan yoga retreats for them. In yoga retreats, you offer your students the opportunity to fully disconnect from modern-day life for a few days and focus on their health at a beautiful location. You can offer your students a retreat plan for 3–7 days in a tropical location. Your students can consider such retreats a vacation and pay you extra for your services. Thus, you can enhance your studio’s profitability and offer versatility in your services.

For instance, to attract new students to your studio, you could plan a three-day retreat to a tropical location where your students could focus solely on mental and physical health. Thus, it enables you to attract new students while boosting your studio’s profitability, as your students have to pay higher charges for the retreat. So, it is essential for you to offer yoga retreats to your students from time to time, enabling you to enhance your studio’s profit margins in 2024.

Bottom line

Whether you are a fitness enthusiast who wants to start a yoga studio or a yoga studio owner who runs a fitness center, you need to understand how to enhance profit margins in 2024.

Here are the 7 ways you can use to enhance your studio profit margins and enable your studio to stabilize financially. By adding these ways, your business will grow and have an opportunity to grow faster than your competition.