Selling Your Studio Is How You Honor What You Built

Nope. And honestly, earlier is better. Many of our clients come to us 12–24 months before they plan to list. That lead time is where the real work happens: identifying what would reduce your valuation or slow a deal, and fixing it before it costs you money. The consultation is free either way, and a 30-minute conversation now can shape everything that comes later.

We have a unique take on this where before you’re actually ever selling we want you to be very open about your intention to sell one day. Normalize it. Make sure your staff knows. Make sure they know it’s an opportunity for them, and in an ideal scenario the buyer will step up from within. If that ship has sailed and you want to keep it a secret, every conversation starts under NDA. We never list your studio publicly with your name on it. Buyers sign an NDA before they see a single financial figure. Your staff, your landlord, your competitors, and your members don't find out unless and until you decide to tell them. Most sellers tell their team only after a deal is signed. We handle the process so you can keep running your business in the meantime.

Boutique Fitness Broker works on a success fee basis, paid upon the successful sale of your business. Our standard success fee is 10%. In larger deals it steps down to 9% on the 2nd million, 8% on the 3rd, and so on. We require a $5,000 nonrefundable engagement fee due at signing, which is credited at closing against the success fee. The initial consultation and valuation estimate are always free. The structure ties our success to yours. We want what is best for you regardless of the buyer or the price.

Most boutique fitness studios sell within 6–12 months, though the timeline varies. The biggest factors are readiness and asking price. It is so important to have clean financials, documented systems, and a team that can operate without you. Owners who start exit planning 12–24 months before listing consistently close faster and with stronger offers.

If you're thinking about selling, starting that conversation now is rarely too early.

Buyers use SDE, Seller's Discretionary Earnings, multiplied by a market multiple, typically 2–4x for boutique fitness. That multiple rises with recurring memberships, low owner dependency, a favorable lease, and a stable team. Smaller studios with healthy profits often sell faster and for more than larger studios with unhealthy profits.

We'll discuss your valuation during an initial consultation, with no obligation.

That's almost always one of the first things sellers ask, and it's something we negotiate hard for. In a typical deal, the new owner keeps the existing team and honors active memberships. The Letter of Intent stage is where we lock in commitments around staff retention, member transitions, and how the handoff actually plays out. We help you find buyers who get it — operators who understand that the team and the community ARE the business, not assets to strip out.

It's one of the most common deal-breakers in boutique fitness M&A — and one we know how to get ahead of. We start the lease conversation early, often before we even take you to market. We help you (or your attorney) approach the landlord with the right framing, vet potential buyers against your lease's financial covenants, and structure the deal in ways that make landlord approval more likely.

It depends on the locations, the buyer pool, and your goals — and the answer has real impact on total value. Some portfolios command more as a package; others perform better sold location by location. There's no universal right answer, and making that call without a clear-eyed analysis can cost you. We help multi-location owners think through the structure strategically before committing to anything.

Yes. We’ve worked with dozens of franchises. Franchise sales add two steps — formal franchise assignment and franchisor approval during escrow — and we handle both.

Bottom line, you’ll net more while having an expert advisor run the whole process. Going at it alone is inadvisable just because of the emotional entanglements. Buyers are paranoid. Sellers are defensive. It’s a bad mix. Selling on your own means running your own competitive process, finding your own potential buyers, playing internal candidates against external ones, negotiating without comparable data or experience, and managing due diligence, SBA lenders, landlords, and attorneys at the same time. That's possible, but it usually costs more than it saves. A specialized broker brings a vetted buyer network, market-calibrated pricing, and the experience to anticipate the issues that derail deals before they appear. Boutique Fitness Broker has seen what goes wrong. Most of the time, we can stop it from happening.