How to Structure Your Pole or Aerial Studio Pricing for Predictable Monthly Revenue

Most pole and aerial studio owners measure their business by what their bank account looks like at the end of the month. Some months it looks fine. Some months it doesn’t. The variation feels like the cost of doing business and most owners learn to live with it.

But really, It’s not the cost of doing business. It’s the predictable result of a pricing structure built on drop-ins and one-off purchases instead of on memberships and recurring revenue.

This post covers why that structure produces unpredictable income, what a healthier structure looks like, and the recurring revenue target your studio should be aiming for. 

What is monthly recurring revenue, and why does it matter for pole and aerial studios?

Monthly recurring revenue, often shortened to MRR, is the income your studio collects every month from subscription-based payments. Memberships are the most common form. Recurring class pack auto-renewals can count as well, depending on how they're structured.

The defining feature is predictability. If you know with reasonable confidence what your revenue will be on the first of next month before the month even starts, that revenue is recurring. If you have to hope the right number of drop-ins walk through the door this week to cover rent, you do not have recurring revenue. You have income, but you do not have stability.

For pole and aerial studios specifically, this matters more than it does for most fitness businesses. Your fixed costs are high. Rigging inspection, equipment maintenance, insurance, and rent for high-ceiling spaces are not optional and not flexible. A studio with unpredictable income trying to cover these expenses is a studio that lives in low-grade financial stress, even when the classes look full.

Why is 80 percent monthly recurring revenue the goal?

In the Pricing Overhaul® method the target is 80 percent. A sustainable service business should aim for 80 percent of its revenue to come from recurring sources. 

That number is not arbitrary. It is the threshold at which a few important things start to happen.

Your business becomes financially stable. With 80 percent of revenue predictable, the remaining 20 percent (drop-ins, workshops, one-off events) becomes upside instead of survival. You stop running the studio month-to-month and start running it on a forecast.

Your business becomes operationally calmer. When you know what is coming in, you can make real decisions about hiring, equipment, marketing, and your own pay. You stop reacting and start planning.

Your business becomes sellable. A studio running at 80 percent recurring revenue has an asset a buyer can actually value. Drop-in revenue cannot be underwritten by a buyer because there is no contractual basis for assuming it continues. Membership revenue can. This matters even if you never plan to sell, because building a sellable business and building a sustainable one are the same project. The exit-value question deserves its own deeper post, but the short version is this: a business with no recurring revenue is not a business someone else would buy, which is often a sign it is not a business that fully supports you either.

Most pole and aerial studios are nowhere near 80 percent. Most are closer to 30 or 40 percent, with the rest of their revenue coming from drop-ins, class packs, workshops, and one-off purchases. That gap is the problem.

Why do most pole studios fall well short of 80 percent monthly recurring revenue?

Four structural reasons.

Drop-in pricing is the default in this industry. Most pole and aerial studios were built around the drop-in model from the beginning. New students take a drop-in class to try it. (Maybe even a free drop-in) Returning students buy class packs as needed. Memberships, when they exist, are often added on as one option among many rather than positioned as the spine of the business.

Class packs that expire too slowly kill recurring revenue. A 20-class pack with a six-month expiration window functionally lets a student pay once and visit at their own pace for half a year. That is a one-off purchase dressed up as a package. It feels like recurring revenue when the sale happens. It’s not. It’s actually setting you up for lower revenue in the following months.

Memberships are often priced as a small discount on drop-ins rather than as a genuinely different relationship to the studio. When a membership is just a 10 percent discount on the drop-in rate, students do the math and stay flexible. When a membership is a meaningfully better deal that comes with a meaningfully different relationship to the studio, students convert.

Owners often treat memberships as one option among many rather than as the spine of the business. The pricing page lists drop-ins, packs, memberships, and workshops as parallel options. Students choose whatever feels most flexible. That feels accommodating. It also guarantees you stay below 80 percent MRR forever.

What does a pricing structure built for 80 percent monthly recurring revenue actually look like?

Memberships are the spine. Everything else is built around them. This is a structural shift, not a tactical one. The pricing page changes. The conversation with new students changes. The intro experience changes. The way you talk about your studio changes. You are not adding memberships to the existing structure. You are rebuilding the structure with memberships at the center.

Concretely, this means:

Memberships are the headline offer. They appear first on the pricing page, in studio conversations, and in marketing. Drop-ins exist for travelers, visiting friends, and occasional students, but they are not how a regular practice happens at your studio.

Memberships are meaningfully better than drop-ins, not slightly better. The math has to work for the student. If a student visiting twice a week pays roughly the same on drop-ins as on a membership, they will stay on drop-ins for the flexibility. The membership has to be the obviously better choice for anyone visiting more than a defined threshold.

Class packs are restructured or eliminated. Long-expiration class packs are the enemy of recurring revenue. If you keep them at all, they need to expire faster and cost more per class than memberships. Their job is to bridge students into memberships, not to compete with them.

The intro offer points toward membership from day one. This is its own conversation and deserves its own post. For now, the headline is that an intro offer's job is to introduce a student to the structure of the studio, including memberships. A discounted drop-in does not do that.

How does a drop-in heavy studio shift toward membership-based pricing?

This is not a quick adjustment. It is a restructure, and it touches almost every part of the business. Most clients I work with see meaningful shifts within a year of intentional work, but how fast the change moves depends entirely on how committed the owner is to actually restructuring rather than just adjusting.

The high-level sequence:

Audit the current revenue mix. Calculate what percentage of your current revenue is genuinely recurring versus one-off. Be honest about long-expiration class packs. They are not recurring revenue.

Rebuild the membership offer. Most existing memberships in this industry are priced too close to drop-ins. The membership has to be redesigned as the obviously correct choice for a regular practice, with the structure (and price) to back that up.

Restructure the pricing page. Memberships first. Drop-ins last. The visual hierarchy of the page should make it obvious where the studio wants students to land.

Change the new-student conversation. New students get introduced to the studio through an intro experience that points toward membership, not through a discounted drop-in that points toward more drop-ins.

Communicate the shift to existing students with care. This is the part where the mental health side of my coaching work matters most. Existing students have built habits around your current structure. Changing it requires honest communication, fair transition options, and respect for the relationships you've built. It also requires you to hold the line on the new structure even when individual students push back.

This shift is uncomfortable. It is also the difference between a studio that runs you and a studio you run. And I’ve seen it done successfully repeatedly. 

What about students who genuinely want flexibility?

The honest answer: a small number of them will leave, and that is okay.

Most students who say they want flexibility actually want predictability. They want to know what their studio practice costs, when they can attend, and how their relationship to the studio works. A well-structured membership gives them all of that more effectively than a drop-in habit does.

The students who genuinely need flexibility, the ones whose schedules truly do not allow for a regular practice, are best served by class packs at a price that reflects the convenience they're buying. Not by a drop-in rate that quietly subsidizes their flexibility at the expense of your business.

The students who leave because they cannot or will not move to a membership are usually the students who were never going to commit to your studio anyway. Their departure is not the failure of the restructure. It is the result you wanted.

What is the first step a studio owner should take?

Calculate your current recurring revenue percentage. Total recurring monthly income divided by total monthly revenue. Get the real number.

If you're below 50 percent, you have a structural problem and the membership offer itself is likely the first thing that needs work. If you're between 50 and 70, you have the right foundation but the pricing structure is leaking. If you're above 70, you're in striking distance of 80 and the work is in the details.

Most studio owners do not know their recurring revenue percentage. They have a rough sense. They know it could be better. That is not the same as having the number in front of them.

The number is the starting point. Everything else is built from there.

Rachel Yacobucci is a business coach for service-based entrepreneurs, with a specialization in fitness coaches, pole and aerial studios, and 1-on-1 practitioners. She is a Certified Pricing Overhaul® Coach and brings a mental health background to her coaching work.

If you want a clearer picture of where your studio's pricing currently stands, the Pricing Clarity Diagnostic is a 10-minute strategic tool that gives you a snapshot of your current pricing stage, the red flags costing you money, and your next concrete step.