Anytime Fitness vs Planet Fitness

Planet Fitness is the stronger target right now, and it’s not particularly close. The gap in average unit revenue tells the story before anything else: $1.87 million versus Anytime Fitness at $447k. That’s a 4x delta in per‑location budget capacity, which directly dictates how much a franchisee can spend on software. Higher AUV means operators can absorb a meaty tech stack—POS, scheduling, marketing automation—without flinching, and it signals a customer base that expects a smoother, more digital experience. For a vendor, that’s a shorter sales cycle and a higher ceiling on contract value per site.

Brand B also wins the growth and TAM argument in a rout. Planet Fitness is still in expansion mode at +4.4% unit growth, while Anytime Fitness is contracting, which means you’re selling into a growing installed base versus one that’s slowly eroding. The procurement model is the real force multiplier: Planet’s approved‑supplier structure lets you sell straight to the franchisee, control your own margin, and avoid getting strangled by a franchisor’s centralized purchasing department. Anytime’s franchisor‑controlled procurement is a walled garden—cracking that requires a long, political enterprise sale with no guarantee of pull‑through to the unit level, despite the slightly fresher FDD filing offering marginal due‑diligence ease.

The meaningful tradeoff is terrain versus timing. Anytime Fitness has a lower initial investment and a franchisor gatekeeper, which would be a nightmare to penetrate, but those operators are starved for efficiency tech on thin margins—a desperate buyer can convert fast if you can reach them. Planet Fitness requires a beefier upfront sales investment to navigate larger, multi‑unit franchisees, but the open procurement path, swelling unit count, and unit‑level economics make it a repeatable, high‑ACV play. You go where the money and the access coexist.

Verdict: Planet Fitness combines open procurement, 4x unit‑level budget, and positive unit growth into a clearly superior B2B software opportunity.