Why is Pilates so Expensive?

I get this question from clients A LOT and this is one of my biggest pet peeves. However, when I step back and think about it, I realize clients are not digging into the details of a studio business or are simply uninformed.

Do you ever ask yourself why a restaurant is expensive? Or why you just paid $12 for a matcha latte? You could have made one at home. You could have gotten the latte at Starbucks and paid $8. But you drove out of the way to the place that makes the homemade strawberry jam and honey whipped topping and sourced their matcha in Japan and you paid $12 for it.

Pilates is kind of like that.

There are various offerings for various clients and they bring with them a variety of options. You can join a franchise studio that has a monthly rate that was assigned by corporate where no one knows your name and you will be met by an unhappy instructor who hates her job and is waiting for the class to end.

You can go to a studio where an instructor had a weekend reformer training on a reformer that is a replica of a U.S. made reformer and hurt your back, but at least you got your money’s worth!

Or you can go to a pilates studio where the equipment is made in the United States and has every safety certification required by law, you are being led by an instructor with years of education and teaching experience, and you are in an environment that you enjoy being in- one that is clean, organized and well maintained.

We can stay at the Four Seasons, we can stay at a Holiday Inn. You cannot book the Four Seasons for a Holiday Inn price.

Not saying one is better than the other- we all have access to choose what works best for our budget - but if you are willing to spend $12 on a matcha latte without batting an eye at the difference between that and Starbucks, you need to make an educated decision on what you are paying for when it comes to pilates.

Price does matter, and lowering our standards to appease competitors that are out of our league is not something we are interested in competing with.