Starting today, ClassPass will no longer offer members an unlimited workout option.
It’s a dramatic but not entirely unprecedented move for the three-year-old startup, which rose to popularity by offering an unlimited number of fitness classes at a variety of studios for a flat monthly fee. In the last two years, the profit-focused company introduced tiered packages and raised prices as much as 50% in some cities.
ClassPass members who currently have the unlimited package will be able to keep their existing plan for another full billing cycle before being moved to the “core” plan of 10 classes a month, the company says. Of course, the shift means members in most cities will be paying less—and getting less—under the new plan.
For example, in New York City, where members paid $200 for unlimited, they will now pay $135 for core. As a courtesy, the company is giving current unlimited members an additional 10 free classes a month for the first three months.
The unlimited plan was scrapped after “several attempts to appropriately price” it, said ClassPass founder and CEO Payal Kadakia in a statement. In an open letter posted on the company’s blog, Kadakia explained that it proved unsustainable as the company’s member base grew.
For every class taken, we paid our studio partners. The more classes that were taken, the more we paid. As you can imagine, our business costs increased rapidly. So we raised our plan prices in an effort to compensate—but we tried not to raise them too much. After all, we wanted to remain as accessible as possible. But in some cities, we even had to raise our prices twice in one year, which was awful for our members and painful for my team. We simply couldn’t make the plan work for our business.
Kadakia added that asking members to work out less to reduce costs wasn’t an option. “We’d be sabotaging the vision at the very heart of this company,” she wrote.
Here’s a look at what ClassPass costs in every city, by plan.
Related: Check out Payal Kadakia on Coins2Day’s 40 Under 40
Earlier this week, ClassPass introduced a new set of add-on packages meant to supplement its tiered packages.