Issue No. 1 · Published 23 August 2026 · What Gyms Cost
What 344 London gyms actually charge, all-in, checked against each operator's own website every night. This is the first issue: the price record began 18 August 2026, so what follows is 6 nights of observations, not a trend. We are publishing anyway, on purpose — the record has to start somewhere, and it deepens every night from here.
This index is built from 1742 price observations across 6 nights, 18 August 2026 to 23 August 2026. 296 of 344 gyms have at least one recorded observation. That is not enough to show a trend, so this issue does not include one — no month-on-month change, no weekly line, no "vs last month" figure. What it does show — this month's median, the spread, and how price varies by borough, operator and gym type — is accurate as a snapshot, because every figure in it comes from the same nightly-verified data as the rest of the site. As more nights land, the same page you're reading will start showing genuine movement instead of a flat line.
Figures as of 22 August 2026, from 294 priced gyms that night. Not the full 344 — see coverage, below. We captured prices again on 23 August 2026, but whole operators were missing from that night's read, so its median is not comparable and these figures come from the last intact sample instead.
The spread of all-in monthly prices across every gym with a published rate. Most gyms cluster well below the mean — a handful of premium clubs pull the average up without moving the typical price much.
| Price band | Gyms |
|---|---|
| £20–£24 | 10 |
| £24–£28 | 19 |
| £28–£32 | 56 |
| £32–£36 | 49 |
| £36–£40 | 32 |
| £40–£44 | 21 |
| £44–£48 | 10 |
| £48–£52 | 5 |
| £52–£56 | 2 |
| £56–£60 | 1 |
| £64–£68 | 1 |
| £68–£72 | 1 |
| £72–£76 | 3 |
| £76–£80 | 2 |
| £80–£84 | 4 |
| £88–£92 | 6 |
| £92–£96 | 2 |
| £96–£100 | 10 |
| over £100 | 49 |
Every one of London's 33 boroughs has at least one tracked gym. Medians below are of priced gyms only — a borough with few priced gyms is a thinner sample and should be read as such.
| Name | Price/mo | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Croydon | £26 | 6 priced gyms |
| Barking and Dagenham | £28 | 2 priced gyms |
| Lewisham | £28 | 6 priced gyms |
| Havering | £30 | 1 priced gym |
| Harrow | £31 | 6 priced gyms |
| Barnet | £31 | 7 priced gyms |
| Brent | £31 | 10 priced gyms |
| Bromley | £31 | 5 priced gyms |
| Ealing | £31 | 9 priced gyms |
| Hillingdon | £31 | 5 priced gyms |
| Hounslow | £31 | 8 priced gyms |
| Greenwich | £32 | 9 priced gyms |
| Redbridge | £32 | 3 priced gyms |
| Newham | £32 | 10 priced gyms |
| Haringey | £32 | 10 priced gyms |
| Kingston upon Thames | £32 | 4 priced gyms |
| Sutton | £33 | 2 priced gyms |
| Enfield | £33 | 6 priced gyms |
| Bexley | £33 | 4 priced gyms |
| Merton | £33 | 6 priced gyms |
| Waltham Forest | £35 | 4 priced gyms |
| Southwark | £35 | 17 priced gyms |
| Lambeth | £38 | 11 priced gyms |
| Hackney | £39 | 8 priced gyms |
| Islington | £40 | 12 priced gyms |
| Tower Hamlets | £40 | 15 priced gyms |
| Camden | £42 | 17 priced gyms |
| Hammersmith and Fulham | £44 | 8 priced gyms |
| Richmond upon Thames | £46 | 6 priced gyms |
| Wandsworth | £54 | 16 priced gyms |
| City of London | £96 | 17 priced gyms |
| Westminster | £100 | 25 priced gyms |
| Kensington and Chelsea | £180 | 8 priced gyms |
The same chain prices differently branch to branch — the bar shows the spread from cheapest to dearest London site, the dot is the median.
| Group | Cheapest | Median | Dearest | Gyms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fitness4Less | £20 | £20 | £20 | 3 |
| JD Gyms | £22 | £26 | £30 | 3 |
| The Gym Group | £21 | £31 | £42 | 85 |
| PureGym | £24 | £36 | £52 | 86 |
| énergie Fitness | £22 | £36 | £58 | 18 |
| Snap Fitness | £37 | £40 | £80 | 10 |
| BLOK | £78 | £80 | £82 | 2 |
| Fitness First | £54 | £90 | £120 | 16 |
| Gymbox | £83 | £100 | £108 | 10 |
| Psycle | £100 | £100 | £100 | 7 |
| Ten Health & Fitness | £110 | £110 | £110 | 10 |
| Nuffield Health | £68 | £110 | £140 | 4 |
| Virgin Active | £98 | £124 | £200 | 5 |
| Heartcore | £237 | £237 | £237 | 8 |
A gym can carry more than one category — a club with a pool and a class timetable counts in both. Read this as "what gyms offering X charge", not as mutually exclusive segments.
| Name | Price/mo | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Gym | £35 | 256 priced gyms |
| Classes | £100 | 109 priced gyms |
| Yoga | £100 | 9 priced gyms |
| Cycling | £100 | 7 priced gyms |
| Pilates | £110 | 20 priced gyms |
| Swimming | £260 | 20 priced gyms |
Across 6 nights the log recorded 9 differences between consecutive snapshots. A review found the pattern — several branches of one operator moving by different amounts on the same night, and two branches of another chain converging on an identical new figure — more consistent with a change in which plan our scraper reads as the headline price than with genuine repricing. Until there is enough depth to tell the two apart reliably, we are not publishing a movers section. We would rather show nothing than show noise dressed up as news. This section will appear from a future issue once we can distinguish a real price change from a data artefact with confidence.
What's in the all-in figure. Twelve months of dues, plus joining, admin and annual fees, divided by twelve. Intro offers are shown but excluded — they expire. Where a discount is contractually held for the full 12 months, that held rate is the one used.
Where prices come from. Each operator's own public website, never a directory or a phone quote. Every gym page links the exact source URL it came from.
What the nightly run does. Re-reads all 17 operator sites from scratch, re-resolves boroughs from ONS postcode data, re-checks every price against the page it came from, records that night's prices, and publishes only if the whole run succeeds — how we collect data →.
The Better/GLL gap. Better publishes drop-in rates, not a monthly membership price, so its 56 London sites sit outside every median in this issue.
Record start. The price record began 18 August 2026. History cannot be backfilled — issue 1 is necessarily the shallowest issue this series will ever publish.
What this issue does not claim. No trend, no month-on-month change, no movements, no seasonal adjustment, no year-on-year comparison. Every median is a same-night snapshot. Third Space's 16 gyms carry forward from their last verified read rather than being re-observed this issue — see /status/.
What Gyms Cost, London Gym Price Index, Issue 1 (August 2026), https://whatgymscost.co.uk/price-index/2026-08/, figures as of 22 August 2026.
This issue updates nightly while August 2026 remains the current month, so a citation should note the 'figures as of' date above. Once September 2026's issue publishes, this page's numbers are frozen — a stable, permanently citable snapshot.
This is issue 1 of a monthly series. Issue 2 publishes in September 2026, once the record has grown from 6 nights to a full month — the same nightly run that keeps every gym page current is what builds each issue.
