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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
From a reformer studio in Newstead to a 24-hour club in North Lakes, a fitness business is worth what its members keep paying, month after month, not the spike in sign-ups each January.
A Brisbane gym or fitness studio is normally valued on sales of businesses in the same format, applied as a multiple of maintainable earnings. Its place in the range turns on how long members stay, what they pay on average, the share of revenue on minimum-term contracts compared with month to month, any finance owing on the equipment and the years left on the lease.
Usually an ownership change is coming. A boutique studio in Paddington has an offer from a multi-site operator. A franchisee in Springfield cannot complete a transfer until the franchisor sees an agreed price. Two partners who built a strength and conditioning gym in Woolloongabba want to split. A separating owner needs the business valued at a fixed date for a property settlement, a lender wants a figure before refinancing the equipment, or an accountant restructuring the group needs a market value the ATO will accept.
A surprising number of gyms change hands on the wrong measure. A headline member count does not show how many of those members will still be paying next year, at what rate, or how many unpaid hours the owner works on the front desk and the floor. A valuation shifts the focus to the earnings the membership base reliably produces once the owner draws a proper wage and worn equipment is replaced on schedule.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Market Approach leads. Enough Brisbane studios and clubs change hands that recent sales are better evidence than a projection resting on hopeful membership growth.
We sort sales by format before anything else: 24-hour access clubs, class-based boutique studios, franchised sites and independents. Within each group we compare catchment, floor area, size of the membership base and lease term, and apply the resulting multiple to maintainable earnings.
Where members sign genuine minimum-term contracts, capitalised earnings are given more weight, because that revenue can be forecast with reasonable confidence. If an equipment replacement or a rent review is due within a few years, a discounted cash flow shows the cost in the year it falls, which a single multiple cannot do.
Before capitalising earnings we cost a manager at market rates to replace the owner, and price any classes or personal training sessions the owner runs at what an instructor would charge. In an owner-operated studio this check usually says the most.
Equipment and fit-out are valued at what they would sell for, net of any finance still owing. Gym equipment depreciates fast and is often financed up to close to its value, so the assets usually add less than the owner expects.
The biggest gap between two valuations of the same gym is usually normalisation, so our reports set out every adjustment and why it was made. For Brisbane fitness businesses they typically include:
Format and location decide which sales are fair comparisons. Boutique reformer, yoga, boxing and HIIT studios in Newstead, Teneriffe, West End, Paddington and Bulimba charge high fees per member from small, costly tenancies, often on short leases. The 24-hour clubs in North Lakes, Springfield, Logan, Chermside and Mount Gravatt rely on volume, lower weekly fees and large floor plates near shopping centres and new estates. They are different businesses, and averaging their sales gives a multiple that fits neither.
Brisbane gyms closed for relatively short periods during the pandemic, but 2020 and 2021 are still distorted by closures, restrictions and support payments, so we rely on the trading years since. We read those years month by month: sign-ups typically peak in the new year, and we look at how attendance and cancellations move through the hot summer months in clubs and studios alike. A business that can produce churn by month and by membership type is valued with more confidence than one that can only show a total.
The lease usually caps the value. A fitness fit-out is expensive and cannot be taken with you, so a buyer needs enough remaining term to recover it. Many gyms in shopping centres and retail strips are leased under the Retail Shop Leases Act 1994 (Qld), where disputes with a landlord are usually taken first to the Queensland Small Business Commissioner for mediation, and an unresolved dispute will reduce the price. The business base around these gyms is growing: Queensland recorded a net increase of 19,244 actively trading businesses in 2025 to 2026, with 2,814,778 nationally at 30 June 2026 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). That growth does not lift a particular gym's value by itself; its members and its lease do.
The report states its purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the information relied on, including exports from the membership system, and points out where that information is incomplete. It explains each approach considered and the method chosen, sets out each normalisation adjustment with its reason, and reconciles the results into a range, with the weighting described in plain language.
When gym partners fall out or a sale is contested, the argument is fought over that reconciliation. A report that cannot say why comparable sales outweighed capitalised earnings, or how the churn rate was chosen, will not survive a second expert, whether the matter is in the District Court of Queensland, the Supreme Court of Queensland or a property settlement in the Brisbane registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. Our reports are prepared in line with APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and signed by a credentialed certified valuer who will explain and defend them.
Which assumption about my membership would an opposing expert attack first, and how would you answer? A valuer without a ready reply has not finished the job.
An Indicative valuation suits an owner testing a buyer's offer or an asking price before going further. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report is the usual choice for a sale, a franchise transfer or refinancing equipment. A Detailed report is needed for a property settlement, a dispute between partners or any engagement another expert will review.
The reader decides the depth. Where a court, a lender, the ATO or another expert might test the figure, choose the fuller report.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.