Burn Boot Camp: a Very Profitable Franchise Earning $400K (2023)

With 350 gyms in the US alone, Burn Boot Camp is a popular fitness chain among franchisees for its price point: you would have to invest (only) $314,800 to open a new franchise, much lower than the average investment for fitness clubs ($1 million).

In addition, a Burn Boot Camp gym is also a very profitable business: we found it generates on average $400,500 revenue per year and a 24% EBITDA margin.

So if you’re considering investing in a Burn Boot Camp gym as a franchisee, in this article we’ll go through everything you should know about its financials. Especially we’ll see how much it really costs and how much profits you can make with this franchise. Let’s dive in!

Key stats

Franchise fee	$50,000
Royalty fee	6.0%
Marketing fee	2.0%
Investment (mid-point)	$315,000
Average sales	$400,000
Sales to investment ratio	1.3x
Payback period*	5 years
Minimum net worth	$300,000
Minimum liquid capital	$150,000

What is Burn Boot Camp?

Burn Boot Camp is a fast-growing American franchise of fitness studios for women based in Huntersville, North Carolina.

It was founded in 2012 by husband and wife Devan and Morgan Kline in Huntersville, North Carolina.

Burn Boot Camp studios offer challenging and transformative 45-minute workouts, complete nutritional support, trainer-focus meetings, a complimentary child watch, and access to online workouts.

The chain began franchising in 2015, and today it has over 335 gyms in 40 US states.

Burn Boot Camp franchises pros and cons

Pros

• Comprehensive training: The franchisor has a detailed training program to help franchise owners understand the business concept easily and quickly. Franchisees receive training in areas such as equipment, customer service, hiring and training the right staff, and sales.
• Marketing and advertising: The brand has a passionate, creative, and well-established marketing strategy to help franchisees create awareness of their locations, attract new customers, and drive up sales and revenues. It offers franchisees resources and guidance to create targeted local and national campaign promotions so that they can grow and succeed.
• Operations support: The franchisor has an experienced management and franchise operations support team to help franchisees establish and run a successful gym. Franchisees get access to top leadership’s growth strategies, a network of successful franchise partners, ongoing support, field operations, and timely performance reviews and updates.
• Site selection and construction: The brand has an experienced real estate team to help franchisees identify the best location in terms of traffic and demographic patterns. Franchisees also get help with layout designs, equipment selection, and the construction of an ideal gym facility.
• Third-party financing: The brand helps its franchisees with planning and sourcing for funding through third-party partnerships. Franchisees get funded for franchise fees, equipment and inventory, and payroll.
• Exclusive territory protection: The franchisor allows the franchisees to operate their gyms in a designated development market area. It does not allow any other franchises or operates related and competing brands in the protected area.
• Multiple revenue channels: Boot camp has in place a variety of revenue streams to help franchisees meet members’ needs and diversify revenue. These include membership options and add-on services such as nutrition supplements.

Cons

• Not a passive investment: The franchise does not present an absentee ownership opportunity. Franchisees must be actively involved in the decision-making and daily operations of their fitness centers.
• Not a home-based business: The franchise cannot be operated from a vehicle or home. Franchisees are required to have fixed office space, warehouses, or retail facilities.
• Not a part-time business: The franchise is not a part-time or side business. The studios are open as per the parent company’s operating hours.
• Strong competition from Orangetheory Fitness, Snap Fitness, Crunch Fitness or Workout Anytime to name a few

How much does a Burn Boot Camp franchise cost?

You have to invest around $314,846 to open a Burn Boot Camp fitness franchise, which is typically 3,500 – 7000 sq. ft. in size.

This is an average; indeed, it varies based on many factors, such as the location of your fitness camp, its size, market conditions, and other factors.

In addition to the initial franchise fee of $50,000, which you must pay to the franchisor, you would also pay for the leasehold improvements, furniture and fixtures, signage, equipment, insurance, etc.

Burn Boot Camp startup costs

Here’s the full breakdown of costs:

Expense	Amount
Initial franchise fee	$50,000
Leasehold improvements	$4,000 – $150,000
Signage	$6,000 – $12,500
Furniture, fixtures and equipment	$22,490 – $32,840
Staffing	$28,000 – $43,000
Additional Funds	$10,000 – $30,000
Other	$38,805 – $129,567
Total	$181,785 – $447,907

What is the turnover of a Burn Boot Camp?

On average, a Burn Boot Camp franchise makes $400,500 in sales per year.

This is the average sales per franchised fitness camp for 100 of the 228 franchised fitness camps that were open for all of 2020, as per the 2021 Franchise Disclosure Document.

In addition, Burn Boot Camp generates $76 revenue per square foot, in line with the franchise fitness industry ($80 on average as per our fitness benchmarks).

Logically, a gym that opened a few years back would typically have a higher revenue vs. a recently opened gym. That’s also true to Snap Fitness gyms as indicated in their FDD:

• Mature outlets (opened more than 2 years ago) have an revenue of $429,500
• 2-year outlets and 1-year outlets have an average revenue of $394,400 and $358,500 respectively

How profitable is a Burn Boot Camp franchise?

We estimate a Burn Boot Camp franchise makes $94,000 in profits per year. This represents a 24% EBITDA margin.

Yet, note that we estimate EBITDA and not net profits here. In short, whilst EBITDA represents the “true profitability” of a business as it excludes non-operating expenses like corporate taxes, debt interest and depreciation, it’s not net profits. Net profit instead are the profits left after all expenses have been paid.

As such, if EBITDA margin is 24% of revenue, net profits are always lower (we estimate net profits to be about 15% of sales on average for fitness franchises).

Profit and loss	Amount	% revenue	Notes
Revenue	$400,526	100%
Staff	(112,147)	28%	industry average
Rent	(102,000)	25%	as per FDD
Royalty fee	(32,042)	8%	as per FDD
Marketing	(20,026)	5%	industry average
Other Opex	(40,053)	10%	industry average
EBITDA	$94,258	24%

Also note that Burn Boot Camp does not provide detailed information on the profit and loss of its franchised gyms in its Franchise Disclosure Document or anywhere else, apart from revenue, rent costs and royalty fees. Instead, we had to estimate labor, marketing and other expenses by using our own fitness benchmarks as described in the table above.

Is it a good investment?

So is it worth investing the required investment cost of $314,800 upfront? Well we think it does.

Indeed, assuming a 15% net profit margin we found a Burn Boot Camp franchised gym has a 5 years payback: that’s excellent for a fitness club.

In other words, if you were to invest in a Burn Boot Camp as a franchisee, either with a loan and/or investors money and your own funds, you would repay all creditors (and yourself) within 5 years on average. After that you can simply reap the profits.

As a comparison, we found fitness franchises have payback periods of about 8 to 10 years on average. So anything around 5 years is excellent, and as such we consider Burn Boot camp to be a great investment.

How does it compare vs. other Fitness franchises?

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