Mako's normalized North American fitness search universe contains 260,095 canonical venue records: 245,928 in the United States and 14,167 in Canada. Within that wider landscape, 44,686 records fall into five class-based formats closest to boutique fitness. These are complete counts for the declared search universe—not an official census of every physical venue.
The Mako search universe is a closed analytical population built from the canonical records in compile-v13. Every canonical record is normalized into a common geography and one of 14 reporting categories. Exact one-to-one identities already represented in the compile are reconciled; ambiguous identities remain separate rather than being silently merged.
For this report, “complete” means every canonical record in that declared dataset is included in the calculations. It does not mean an independent authority has proven that the file contains every operating fitness venue in the United States and Canada.
That distinction matters because official industry classifications cannot describe the whole class-based market on their own. The U.S. Census Bureau's 2022 NAICS definition for fitness and recreational sports centers covers facilities such as gyms, fitness centers, swimming facilities and racquet-sport centers. Statistics Canada's corresponding 2022 definition is similarly facility-oriented. Instruction-led yoga, Pilates, dance, martial arts and personal-training businesses can appear under different classifications or discovery sources.
The Health & Fitness Association's FIT Tracker definition uses “boutique” for smaller, format-specific studios—such as yoga, cycling, HIIT and Pilates—that commonly sell class packs or unlimited memberships. Mako uses those formats as a recognizable class-based core while keeping its wider fitness landscape visible so readers can see the denominator and adjacent competition.
The Mako universe therefore uses a category-normalized, multi-source search model instead of treating one industry code as the market denominator.
Gyms and health clubs dominate the wider venue landscape, but no single boutique format represents the whole class-based market. Yoga is the largest boutique-studio category in the normalized universe, followed by Pilates/reformer/barre, CrossFit/strength and boutique HIIT/functional fitness.
| Normalized category | Venue records | Share of search universe |
|---|---|---|
| Gym / Health Club | 104,745 | 40.27% |
| Martial Arts / Combat School | 40,324 | 15.50% |
| Dance / Movement Studio | 26,349 | 10.13% |
| Yoga Studio | 17,861 | 6.87% |
| Aquatic / Swim Facility | 14,045 | 5.40% |
| Multipurpose Recreation / Sports Center | 10,053 | 3.87% |
| Pilates / Reformer / Barre Studio | 9,693 | 3.73% |
| CrossFit / Strength Gym | 8,373 | 3.22% |
| Boutique HIIT / Functional Fitness Studio | 7,874 | 3.03% |
| Specialist Fitness Facility | 7,682 | 2.95% |
| Gymnastics / Cheer / Tumbling Facility | 6,442 | 2.48% |
| Personal / Small-Group Training | 5,520 | 2.12% |
| Indoor Cycling Studio | 885 | 0.34% |
| Climbing / Bouldering Facility | 249 | 0.10% |
| Total | 260,095 | 100.00% |
The table should not be read as revenue, membership or retention share. It measures records in the normalized search universe. A venue can be commercially important without being numerous, and a large venue category can include several business models that behave differently.
For operators, the practical point is that “boutique fitness” is not one market. A yoga studio, a Pilates studio, a CrossFit affiliate and a cycling studio may all sell recurring access to scheduled classes, but their capacity, pricing, visit cadence and retention workflows can differ materially.
The United States contributes 94.55% of records and Canada contributes 5.45%. That split describes the Mako source universe, not a population-adjusted venue-density comparison.
| Country | Venue records | Share of search universe |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 245,928 | 94.55% |
| Canada | 14,167 | 5.45% |
| Total | 260,095 | 100.00% |
The country totals should not be converted into claims such as “the United States has 17 times as many fitness venues.” The source families, discovery depth and verification mix differ. A defensible comparison begins with normalized categories and clearly states whether the denominator is the Mako search universe, an official business count or a verified physical-location set.
Texas, Florida and New York are the three largest US geographies in the normalized search universe. Together they contain 60,537 records—24.62% of the US total and 23.27% of the combined US–Canada universe.
| US state | Venue records | Share of US records |
|---|---|---|
| Texas | 24,916 | 10.13% |
| Florida | 18,822 | 7.65% |
| New York | 16,799 | 6.83% |
| Pennsylvania | 11,319 | 4.60% |
| Illinois | 11,114 | 4.52% |
| Ohio | 9,518 | 3.87% |
| New Jersey | 9,482 | 3.86% |
| Georgia | 9,140 | 3.72% |
| North Carolina | 9,138 | 3.72% |
| Massachusetts | 7,933 | 3.23% |
These counts make Texas, Florida and New York obvious geographic research priorities. They do not automatically make them the strongest first-party-verified datasets. Verification depth is tracked separately from inclusion in the normalized search universe.
Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta contain more than four-fifths of the 14,167-record Canadian search universe. Ontario is the largest Canadian geography in the file, with 3,788 records.
| Canadian province | Venue records | Share of Canadian records |
|---|---|---|
| Ontario | 3,788 | 26.74% |
| Quebec | 3,137 | 22.14% |
| British Columbia | 2,574 | 18.17% |
| Alberta | 2,092 | 14.77% |
| Top four | 11,591 | 81.82% |
The Canadian data is especially useful for province-level research because each normalized record retains province, city, source-packet and evidence fields. It is less suitable for a single Canada-versus-US “winner” claim because the two country layers were assembled through different source mixes.
Basic location and contact fields are widely present, while public generic email and structured pricing are uncommon. This makes the dataset stronger for landscape research and website-level analysis than for mass email outreach or universal pricing comparisons.
| Public field | Records with field | Coverage of 260,095 records |
|---|---|---|
| City | 256,699 | 98.69% |
| Street address | 249,004 | 95.74% |
| Postal code | 243,603 | 93.66% |
| Public phone | 227,011 | 87.28% |
| Public website | 215,249 | 82.76% |
| Public generic email | 9,888 | 3.80% |
| Linked public-plan venue | 4,726 | 1.82% |
The email figure intentionally excludes inferred or personal-looking addresses. Missing information remains missing instead of being guessed.
Every canonical record has at least one evidence URL in the compiled field, but an evidence URL is not the same thing as a current first-party verification. It can document discovery or provenance without proving that every business fact is current.
The public pricing layer contains 16,955 plan records linked to 4,726 venues, an average of 3.59 plans for each venue with captured pricing. It contains memberships, class packs, drop-ins, introductory offers, programs, private sessions and other published offers.
That is enough to support a substantial standalone pricing report, but not enough to assign a universal North American average. The 4,726 covered venues represent 1.82% of the full search universe, and venues that publish pricing may differ from those that require a sales conversation.
A defensible pricing report should therefore:
The search universe is most useful for understanding competitive visibility, category concentration and the structure of public offers. It is not a member-retention dataset.
Three practical conclusions follow.
First, class-based fitness is fragmented across several formats. A generic gym benchmark can hide the operating reality of a yoga, Pilates, barre or HIIT studio. Each category deserves its own report and its own pricing and retention questions.
Second, discoverability is uneven. Most records have a website and phone, but structured public pricing is rare. A studio with a clear location page, current class model and understandable public offer can be easier to compare and evaluate than competitors that leave those details implicit.
Third, market presence does not reveal member health. Venue counts cannot tell an operator whether members are returning on their normal cadence, whether attendance is drifting or whether a retention workflow is working. Those questions require customer-level attendance and membership data, which is where Mako Pulse begins.
The findings are complete for the declared normalized Mako search universe, but several limitations remain material.
The normalized Mako search universe contains 260,095 canonical venue records: 245,928 in the United States and 14,167 in Canada. The count is complete for the declared compile-v13 analytical population. It is not an official government count of every operating physical venue.
Gym and Health Club is the largest normalized category, with 104,745 records, or 40.27% of the search universe. Among the class-based formats closest to boutique fitness, Yoga Studio is largest with 17,861 records, followed by Pilates/Reformer/Barre with 9,693.
Texas has 24,916 records, Florida has 18,822 and New York has 16,799. Together, the three states represent 60,537 records, or 24.62% of the US search universe. These are dataset counts, not population-adjusted venue-density rankings.
Ontario has 3,788 records, Quebec 3,137, British Columbia 2,574 and Alberta 2,092. Together, those four provinces contain 81.82% of the Canadian search universe.
It is complete as a normalized analytical dataset: every canonical record in the declared search universe is counted. It is not presented as independently proven coverage of every real-world venue. That is why the report distinguishes normalization, verification, freshness and physical-market completeness.
No. The report measures venue, category, geography and public-data coverage. It contains no member-level attendance, membership or churn outcomes. Retention analysis requires customer-level operating data rather than venue-directory records.
A market map can show where studios are visible. It cannot show which members are returning later than usual inside one studio.
Mako Pulse uses available studio data to surface descriptive, rules-based retention signals for review. Start with Pulse for free, or open the Mako app to see the current workflow.
