The vocabulary of running a gym

Member churn rate

What churn actually measures, why the standard formula flatters you, and the number to watch instead.

Member retention rate

Churn from the other side — and the step most people miss that lets growth disguise it.

Visit frequency

The single best predictor of whether someone will still be a member in six months.

Member lifetime value

What a member is actually worth — and the arithmetic showing why retention beats acquisition.

Late-cancellation window

What a cancellation window is, what breaks when you set it too short, and how to charge for late cancellations without losing the member.

No-show fee

When charging for a no-show protects your classes, when it just annoys people, and what to do instead.

Class waitlist

How waitlists turn cancellations back into attendance, and why an unmanaged one costs you money.

At-risk member

One quiet week is a holiday. Three is a decision forming — and the difference is the whole job.

Trial conversion rate

The cheapest number to improve — they’re already in the building — and the pattern that predicts it.

Monthly recurring revenue

The number you plan against — and the four movements that explain why flat MRR can hide trouble.

Collection rate

The gap between what you billed and what arrived — revenue you already earned, uncollected.

Payment commission

The percentage most gym platforms take from your members’ payments — where it hides, and what it costs at your size.

Direct debit vs card-on-file

Which one collects more reliably in New Zealand, and why the answer isn’t the one most gyms assume.

Attendance rate

The difference between full on paper and full in the room — and why your marking decides everything downstream.

Capacity utilisation

Whether your timetable matches demand — and the expensive mistake of adding classes to fix a quiet one.

Drop-in pricing

What to charge casuals, and whether drop-ins help or cannibalise your memberships.

Class booking widget

Why embedding your live timetable on your own site converts better than sending people to a portal.

Failed payment recovery

Why a failed payment is a churn problem rather than a billing one, and the message that decides which.

Member acquisition cost

What a new member really costs — and why the ratio to lifetime value is the number that matters.

Member management system

What separates a system that acts from a spreadsheet that stores — and the one-question test.

White-label member app

What a branded app costs elsewhere, and why the branding is the least interesting thing about it.

Gym CRM

How a CRM differs from member management, and why most gyms assume they need the first when they have the second problem.

Mobile credential

Turning a phone into the gym key — what it saves, and the honest catch nobody mentions.

Gym access control system

How gyms let members in without staff on the door, and the question to ask before you buy hardware.

Health declaration

What to ask before someone trains, why versioning matters, and how it protects your coaches.

Digital waiver

What makes a signed waiver actually hold up, and why a PDF in an inbox doesn’t.

PATO score

How a coach picks between twenty squat variations without holding every member’s history in their head.

Risk tier

Why a tier is a decision and a score is just data — and how that removes the deciding.

Positive-mode engagement

The half of member communication most gym software skips — and why guilt never brings anyone back.

Duck health

Why accountability from a cartoon lands where accountability from software doesn’t.

Performance benchmark

The most persuasive retention argument available — and one most gyms already have, losing it to whiteboards.

Configurable member autonomy

The switch that lets one product serve a 24/7 gym and a coaching studio without undermining either.

Verified activity

Why a rewards programme that can be cheated stops motivating the people who don’t cheat.

DuKGest™

The engine behind PATO’s nutrition tracking, and why it can’t invent your macros.