Orangetheory terminated no franchisees in three years, yet non-renewals rose from 1 to 26 while openings fell to 13. The disclosure data shows a system shrinking by owner choice.
In 2023, one Orangetheory Fitness franchisee reached the end of a franchise term and chose not to sign again. In 2024, eight did. In 2025, 26 did.
Those figures sit in Item 20 of the brand's 2026 franchise disclosure document (FDD), the filing a franchisor must hand every prospective buyer, as tabulated by Averan Advisors. Over the same three years, Orangetheory terminated zero franchise agreements. It did not push anyone out. A growing number of owners simply walked away when their term ran out.
The shrinkage itself is no longer news. Inc. tallied it again on Oct. 19: about 1,333 U.S. studios at the end of 2023, about 1,198 by June 2026, according to Franchise Investor Data, roughly 135 fewer in under three years. Rolling Out listed seven confirmed 2026 closures, from Washington, D.C., to Harker Heights, Texas. What the FDD adds is the mechanism.
Openings of franchised studios fell from 53 in 2023 to 27 in 2024 to 13 in 2025. Studios that stopped operating for other reasons rose from 22 to 47 to 61. Add the non-renewals and departures went from 23 to 55 to 87. The franchised network ended 2025 at 1,209 studios, down from 1,311 two years earlier.
The difference between a closure and a non-renewal matters. A closure mid-term often means a studio ran out of money or an owner cut a loser. A non-renewal is a scheduled decision: the 10-year term ends, and the owner looks at the next decade and passes. Orangetheory's unit count grew 218% from 2014 to 2016, Franchise Times reported, so a large class of studios is now reaching that decision point, often alongside a lease renewal.
OTFInsider, a site that tracks studio closures, put it plainly in a tracker it updates continuously. "The story is a lease-renewal wave compounding with thin post-COVID margins, not a brand-wide retreat," it wrote, and it flagged 2027 through 2029 as the next window to watch for studios opened in the 2017 to 2019 expansion.
The 2026 FDD reports average gross sales of $802,145 for the 1,189 franchised studios open through the 12 months ended Feb. 28, 2026, with a median of $750,643. The average was $857,377 a year earlier, Franchise Times reported. The same filing says 95 studios closed permanently during that 12-month window, every one of them open at least a year.
The spread between studios is wide. The top quartile averaged $1,205,826 on 630 monthly members. The bottom quartile averaged $475,979 on 284. Opening one costs $764,577 to $1,104,920, according to the FDD, and owners pay an 8% royalty plus a 3% brand fund contribution, with a minimum local advertising spend of $2,500 a month, per Averan's reading. Averan also noted that the brand fund may rise to 5%.
Beverly Bradshaw, counsel at Next Era Legal who advises boutique fitness franchisees, told Inc. that the drop does not mean the model is broken. "It means the 'open as many as possible' phase is over, and studios now have to make money on their own," she said.
She also pointed to a structural tension owners feel at renewal time. Royalties are charged on gross sales, "so the franchiser gets paid whether or not the studio is profitable." Most franchisees personally guarantee their leases, she added, so closing can still mean paying rent on an empty space.
Orangetheory is not shrinking in a vacuum. Its parent, Purpose Brands, laid out a plan last week to add 2,500 gyms by 2030, most of them Anytime Fitness clubs overseas. The same company is now managing a smaller Orangetheory system under new leadership. An amended FDD filed Sept. 14 names Juan Carlos Loredo global brand president since September 2026 and Stephanie Schon domestic brand president since May, Averan reported. Athletech News reported in September that the new global president is a former Pizza Hut executive.
The system's recent history explains some of the caution among owners. Franchisees formed the Team Orange Independent Franchise Council in 2024 over membership growth and studio profitability, Franchise Times reported. The same year, the brand's largest franchisee, Honors Holdings, wound down, and lender WhiteHorse Finance ended up controlling more than 100 of its studios through Camarillo Fitness Holdings, which closed several more.
Not every operator is heading for the exit. Stephanie Altenburger, CEO of Thrive Venture Group, owns 31 Orangetheory studios and told Franchise Times in July that her units sit in the top quartile of the system and that two more acquisitions were in the works.
"I felt like I wanted to be a part of the comeback, and I felt like I could lead it, so I said all right, we're going to pivot and change course and I'm just going to do it myself," Altenburger said.
That split, strong operators consolidating while other owners decline to renew, is the same pattern we saw when F45 traded unit count for franchisee quality. It can leave a brand healthier at the studio level and smaller on the map.
For a prospective buyer, the useful question is no longer how many studios Orangetheory has. It is which side of that split a given territory sits on, and what the owner across town decided the last time a renewal date came up.
Orangetheory did not respond to a request for comment from Rolling Out. The next renewal decisions arrive on the calendar whether the brand comments or not.
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