The gym membership you never use

You are not lazy. You were sold a version of yourself that does not exist yet, and the pricing was designed around the gap.

A famous study looked at people who signed up for a monthly gym membership at around $70 a month and then went about four times a month. That works out at roughly $17 a visit. The same gym sold ten-visit passes for $10 a visit.

Almost everyone would have been better off buying the passes. Almost nobody did.

The reason is not stupidity. When you sign up, you are not buying access for the person you are today. You are buying it for the person you plan to be, the one who goes three times a week. That person would get a bargain. That person also tends not to turn up.

Gyms know this. The business model quietly depends on it. A gym where every member came as often as they intended would need three times the floor space.

I do not think the lesson is “never buy a membership”. The lesson is to price things for the person you actually are. Look at the last three months, not the next three. If you went four times a month, buy the thing that is cheapest at four times a month. If that later turns out to be too little, you can upgrade, and you will be upgrading on evidence.

The version of you that goes every day is welcome to buy the membership when he shows up.