Gym site selection: how to choose a gym location, with Austin data

By the FindTheGym research team · Updated October 1, 2026 · 10 min read

Gym site selection comes down to four numbers: how many people live or work a short drive from the door, whether their income fits your price tier, how many gyms in that same tier already serve them, and whether the rent leaves you a margin. The first number covers a smaller area than most first-time owners expect. Placer.ai's visit data for Club Pilates puts most of a studio's traffic within five miles. Parking, visibility, and co-tenants then decide whether a good trade area turns into members.

How big a gym's trade area is

A gym's trade area is the zone, measured in drive or walk minutes, that its members come from. The best public evidence on its size is foot traffic data. Placer.ai reported in April 2026 that at Club Pilates "around 70% of visits came from patrons travelling less than five miles to reach the studio," a pattern it says "has remained remarkably consistent throughout the chain's aggressive expansion." That's one boutique brand, so I'd treat five miles as the outer edge for a studio and draw it by drive time from your address. Five miles across a river is a longer trip than five miles down an arterial road.

Members also come from where they work. A downtown gym draws office workers who don't show up in a residential census count, which is why our Austin downtown numbers (below) look wildly oversupplied on paper.

Franchisors build drive radius into their own screens. Franchise Times reported in July 2025 that Planet Fitness weighs member workout habits, drive radius, and parking availability, and chief development officer Chip Ohlsson told the magazine that "who co-tenants are" also matters during site selection.

Population: how many members a catchment holds

The national membership rate sets a ceiling on demand. The Health & Fitness Association's 2026 US Health & Fitness Consumer Report counts 81 million Americans with a gym, studio, or fitness facility membership in 2025, which is 26.1% of people ages 6 and older. A catchment of 30,000 people at that rate holds about 7,800 members, and every gym inside the circle is splitting them. A 20,000 square foot big box needs a large share of that pool to itself. A 4,000 square foot studio needs far fewer members, so it can live on a much smaller catchment.

Income has to match your price tier

Match the market to the model. A $10 a month budget club wants middle-income density and a lot of it. A $200 a month Pilates studio can live on a smaller, richer catchment. I'd be wary of a premium concept in a middle-income ZIP, and equally wary of a budget box in a wealthy area with too few rooftops to fill it.

Two Austin ZIPs show how far apart those markets sit. 78739 in South Austin has 20,850 residents and a median household income of $222,552. 78728 in North Austin has 26,776 residents and $74,048. They rank 3 and 8 of 35 in our opportunity index below, and they suit opposite concepts: 78739 a premium studio, 78728 a budget or mid-tier club.

Count competitors by tier, not in total

A raw gym count overstates competition for most concepts. A martial arts school and a 24-hour budget club in the same strip center don't fight for the same member. Count gyms within your trade area that sit in your tier and your category, then count the rest separately.

In Austin, that split matters a lot. Of the fitness listings inside the city, we classify 465 as boutique, 34 as mid-tier, 22 as budget, 11 as premium, 12 as luxury, 6 as nonprofit, and 186 as unknown. A budget operator scanning a ZIP full of yoga and Pilates studios may be looking at very little direct competition.

Parking, visibility, and co-tenancy

Franchisor real estate criteria are the most concrete public benchmarks for size, parking, and visibility.

Brand	Size the brand targets	Other stated site needs	Source
Crunch Fitness	20,000 to 40,000 sq ft, sweet spot 25,000 to 30,000	At least 125 parking spots	Crunch franchise FAQ
Planet Fitness	Average club about 20,000 sq ft	Drive radius, parking, co-tenants, member workout habits	Franchise Times, July 2025
Anytime Fitness	4,000 to 6,500 sq ft	High traffic volume, high visibility, easy access, ample parking	Anytime Fitness franchise site

Crunch chief development officer John D'Anna told Franchise Times that converted retail boxes offer "locational superiority, whether it's by virtue of how long they've been there or how they're built along high traffic corridors." The same article reports that Crunch checks ceiling height, column placement, floor loads, and rent before converting a former big-box store, grocery store, or movie theater.

Co-tenancy also shows up in the lease. PushPress recommends an exclusivity clause that bars the landlord from leasing other space in the property to a competing fitness business, which keeps a rival from opening next door to your members. Count parking yourself at the hours your members will come, since a lot that looks empty at midday on a weekday can be full when a grocery anchor is busy.

Rent benchmarks for gyms

PushPress puts gym rent at $12 to $20 per square foot per year in rural areas and smaller towns, $25 to $50 in metro areas like Denver or Austin, and $60 to $120 or more in New York or San Francisco. Triple net leases add property tax, insurance, and common area maintenance on top: PushPress gives the example of a lease quoted at $18 NNN that costs $24 to $28 all in.

The ratio to watch is occupancy cost against revenue. PushPress advises keeping base rent plus NNN at or under about 25% of revenue and notes that healthy gyms often run closer to 10% to 15%.

Gym market analysis for Austin: a worked example

Here's how the factors play out on real numbers, using our Austin dataset (see /methodology/ for the full method).

How many gyms are in Austin

Austin, Texas has 736 gyms and fitness studios inside city limits, or 7.1 per 10,000 residents, based on findthegym.com's October 2026 count of Google Maps listings against the 1,038,664 people in the 37 ZIP codes that lie mostly inside the city (Census ACS 2023). The mix is 255 gyms, 116 personal training studios, 96 yoga studios, 113 Pilates studios, 78 martial arts schools, 30 bootcamps, 18 boxing gyms, 16 CrossFit boxes, 7 climbing gyms, 3 cycling studios, and 4 barre studios. Chains account for 13.6% of listings and franchises for 8.7%.

Of the chains, Orangetheory has 11 Austin locations, F45 has 10, Gold's Gym has 8, and Planet Fitness has 7. Among the 145 gyms with a monthly price we could record, the median is $80.

Density by area

Area	Gyms	Residents	Gyms per 10k	Median monthly price
Downtown	29	11,114	26.1	$50
Central Austin	135	110,477	12.2	$59
East Austin	92	120,242	7.7	$99.50
South Austin	200	278,706	7.2	$79.50
West Austin	59	110,972	5.3	$120
Northwest Austin	98	274,323	3.6	$79
North Austin	93	401,091	2.3	$79.50
Southeast Austin	30	149,226	2.0	$69.50

The spread is about 13.0 to 1 between downtown and southeast Austin. Downtown's figure is most likely the office-worker effect. It's hard to see 11,114 residents supporting 29 gyms, so those gyms are probably living on commuters. North Austin is the more interesting number to me. It has 401,091 residents, the most of any area, with 2.3 gyms per 10,000. Its $79.50 median price sits near the citywide $80, so a new gym there would compete for a large, thinly served population without having to undercut anyone.

Top ZIPs by opportunity index

Our opportunity index scores each of the 35 Austin ZIPs we rank from 0 to 100. It's the percentile rank of a ZIP's population divided by the larger of its own gym count and the gyms within 3 miles of its center, multiplied by the ZIP's median household income relative to the median of those 35 ZIPs (capped at 1.6). The density score is the percentile rank of gyms within 3 miles.

ZIP	Area	Population	Median income	Gyms in ZIP	Gyms within 3 mi	Opportunity	Density
78725	East Austin	10,810	$102,819	0	1	100	0
78744	Southeast Austin	51,069	$78,474	9	11	97	15
78739	South Austin	20,850	$222,552	3	10	94	12
78754	North Austin	31,410	$92,964	2	9	91	9
78724	East Austin	29,326	$76,906	4	7	88	6
78747	Southeast Austin	21,757	$86,456	6	5	85	3
78717	Northwest Austin	36,085	$140,483	13	17	82	26
78728	North Austin	26,776	$74,048	1	11	79	15
78746	West Austin	28,268	$183,028	19	27	76	32
78748	South Austin	54,942	$107,652	28	41	74	35

Several of the 10 sit in North and Southeast Austin, where the density table already showed few gyms per resident. 78725 shows how an area average hides thin pockets: East Austin as a whole has 7.7 gyms per 10,000, yet 78725 has 0 gyms inside the ZIP. 78746 and 78748 rank 9 and 10 with 19 and 28 gyms because income and population lift them. The index is flagging money in those two, and a budget operator should read their rows with suspicion.

78747 shows how a centroid can mislead. It holds 6 gyms in our data, yet only 5 sit within 3 miles of the ZIP's center point, so at least one is near an edge. A ZIP measured from its middle can hide competitors close to your site.

Limits of these metrics

We measure from the center of each ZIP, not from your candidate address, so a site at the edge of a ZIP sees a different market than the table shows. The 3-mile radius is a straight line, while members judge a gym by travel time. A highway or the Colorado River can make 3 miles a short drive or a long one, so the radius is an approximation.

Our counts also depend on Google Maps listings. Studios without a listing, gyms inside apartment buildings, and corporate fitness centers are missing, and we couldn't assign a price tier to 186 of the Austin listings.

A gym site selection checklist for your own address

Open the Austin market page to see competitive density and gyms per 10,000 residents by ZIP, and note where gyms in your tier cluster.
Shortlist two or three areas where gyms per 10,000 is low and median income fits your price. The Austin directory lets you check individual gyms in each one.
Pull rent quotes and run the occupancy cost math from the rent section against your projected membership.
Order a trade-area report for each candidate address. It measures the market around your exact address instead of a ZIP centroid. Pricing is on the pricing page.

If you're still deciding on a concept, start with how to open a gym or compare gym franchises, since a franchisor's site criteria will narrow your search before any data does.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best location for a gym?

One with enough people a short drive away, incomes that match your price, and few competitors in your own tier. Placer.ai found around 70% of Club Pilates visits come from under five miles away, so judge a site by who lives and works inside that distance.

How do I choose a gym location on a small budget?

Shrink the footprint first, because rent scales with square feet. At PushPress's $25 to $50 per square foot range for metros like Austin, a 4,000 square foot studio runs $100,000 to $200,000 a year in rent before NNN charges. PushPress advises keeping total occupancy cost at or under about 25% of revenue.

How many people do you need near a gym?

Work back from members. About 26.1% of Americans ages 6 and up belong to a fitness facility, per HFA, so 30,000 residents hold roughly 7,800 members shared by every gym nearby. A big box needs far more people than a small studio.

How many gyms are in Austin, TX?

736 inside city limits as of October 2026, or 7.1 per 10,000 residents, by our count of Google Maps listings. Density is 2.0 per 10,000 in southeast Austin and 26.1 downtown.

Is a 3-mile radius good enough for gym market analysis?

It's a fast first screen. For a lease decision, use drive-time areas from your actual address, because highways and rivers can turn 3 miles into a long trip.

Does a crowded area mean I should avoid it?

Not always. Count only gyms in your tier and category. Austin has 465 boutique listings but 22 budget ones, so a crowded boutique area can still be open ground for a budget club.