SNAP FITNESS Franchise Complaints
SNAP Fitness Franchise Complaints are plentiful on the Internet.
Do you have a SNAP Fitness Franchise Complaint? Please share it below.
Do you love Snap Fitness? Please tell us why in a comment below!
Also read: ANYTIME FITNESS Franchise Complaints
Also read: SNAP FITNESS 2014 Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD)
Snap Fitness franchise marketing claims that “The Snap Fitness franchise concept is the wave of the future. Regardless of the condition of our Nation’s economy, people always appreciate good value. With single memberships as low as US$22.50 per month, your Snap Fitness franchise provides a great alternative to the big box health club concepts available today
Snap Fitness promises world-class support, including:
- Site Selection
- Lease Negotiations
- Location Build-out
- Ordering Initial Materials & Supplies
- Hands on training at our Minneapolis corporate offices
- On-site sales staff the entire 1st week of your store opening
- Ongoing monthly training and sales seminars
Snap Fitness Franchise Complaints
However, unhappy Snap Fitness franchise owners, former owners and employees tell a different story.
On Blue Mau Mau, a failed Snap Fitness franchisee wrote:
Don’t believe the sales pitch that you can run a successful snap while also working full time somewhere else. This would only work if you are able to pay a full time, sales oriented manager.
Also, you most likely will NOT breakeven within the first 6 months. It could take 12-18 months or more. Make sure you have the financial resources to subsidize your business for the long haul.
These were my two biggest mistakes. I didn’t have the time, energy or finances to keep my business going.
Guest wrote:
My experience in the fitness industry cost me over $200,000. These franchisors are theives at best…
Snap Fitness Crap wrote:
If you choose to sign with Snap Fitness…..Beware
If you become dissatisfied with them and don’t want to renew your agreement, they have a clause in the agreement that prevents you from doing business on your own for two years. Peter Taunton is no better then a mob boss forcing franchisees to stay with him. And the sad part is that they really don’t do anything to help you succeed, except have their name, which I have found no one is familiar with the name anyway unless they have actually driven by a Snap in their area. Biggest mistake I have ever made in my life.
Guest wrote:
Why do Snap Fitness franchises fail?
1. Inaccurate representation of potential financial success by corporate
2. Factual statistics about financial health of current franchisees “not available”
3. Weak business model
4. Inadequate support provided to franchisees by corporate
5. “No contract” memberships become a liability in time
6. Billing, software and technical equipment continually have issues
7. Requires turnover of staff to keep costs low. Revolving door employees.
8. Return on investment, if any, is scant and unjustified for the amount of risk
9. CORPORATE IS MAKING HUGE PROFITS WHILE FRANCHISEES ARE WIPING OUT
PETER TAUNTON = Case # 24040055, Court File # K598001371, Disposition Date 3/18/1999, Minnesota Attorney General’s Office St. Paul, Kaniyohi District Court, Theft-by Swindle-Artifice/Trick/Device or Other, Statute # 609.52.2.4., CONVICTED, Probation Sentence – 2 Years
ARE YOU A SNAP FITNESS FRANCHISE OWNER, SNAP FITNESS FRANCHISEE OR EMPLOYEE? ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE SNAP FITNESS FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
Following up on the comparison from Senior Franchisee above. Let’s say you have a Domino’s franchise. For sell a pizza for $10, it’s a great pizza and your customers are happy with your pizza. You make $2 profit per pizza. Domino’s corporate office charges you $100/month so you can have a web page on their home page. It’s excessive compared to a page you could run on your own through a company like Wix. However, you have no choice.Now, let’s say a customer uses your web page to buy a pizza. Great! Now you can see the benefit of paying for that website. But what happens is that corporate charges you a finder’s fee because someone actually used the page your paying for. As a result now you’re only making $1/pizza and you’re not seeing any pick up in volume.
To make matters worse they raise the finder’s fee on you and now you see your profit per pizza drop to .75/pizza. You’d like to raise your price, but you’re already charging more than Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Little Cesar’s and the local pizzeria.
Now simply apply this to a fitness model and you see one of many problems with Snap Fitness. They’re always going after their franchisees for additional fees and tacking on charges here and there which reduce your profit margin if you’re not able to pass those costs on to your members.
To make matters worse, what you’ll find is that you’re paying a premium for the services Snap/Lift Brands supplies, (such as the billing software Matt Noble mentions) but you’re getting a sub standard product.
90? That google search actually had 167 hits for Snap sites for sale. Here are the first 38:
Montrose, CO
Batesville, MS
Plymouth, MI
Attalla, AL
Vestavia Hills, AL
Lyndon, KY
Mooresville, NC
Sylacauga, AL
Hawkinsville, GA
Columbiana, AL
Lawrenceburg, KY
Mosinee, WI
Palestine, TX
White Oak, TX
Derby, CT
Hugo, MN
Royston, GA
Apple Valley, MN
Waterloo, IA
Indianola, IA
Farmington, MN
Minnetonka, MN
Claxton, GA
Waterloo, IA
Monroe, MI
Indianola, IA
Attalla, AL
Hawkinsville, GA
Dumas, AR
Eden Prairie, MN
Springfield, IL
Anoka, MN
Erie, PA
Blackwell, OK
Pittsburg, TX
Sylacauga, AL
Levelland, TX
Atlas, AL
Collierville, TN
Lawrenceburg, KY
Blackwell, OK
Stuttgart, AR
Levelland, TX
I believe snap has about 900 US locations. If 167 of them are up for sale this is roughly 20% of the existing snap locations. This has to be a sign to anyone looking to buy a snap fitness franchise. There’s a reason for such a mass exodus. It’s a fleecing by snap’s corporate offices of the franchisees.
Yikes. It looks like they added some on since I last searched.
I spoke with a corporate rep and in my opinion they aren’t going to let anyone know that their house is on fire. They certainly didn’t like the fact I found 90 plus locations and asked them straight up about what it said about the brand. They blamed the OWNERS. You don’t have that kind of churn going on and 100% blame the owners.
I asked about selling the location for unbranding. Their response? Nope. They would rather box it up.
I came away with the distinct feeling they are holding all these locations because owners are walking away and the location leases are soon up. If you are a franchisee the beautiful thing is you simply file for bankruptcy. It’s Snap Fitness name on the side of the building not theirs. So in reality both peoples names become mud.
The biggest problem I find in being a Snap Fitness franchisee is that Snap Fitness doesn’t care about member retention. Almost every billing system out there will automatically update a members’ billing information when they’re on a recurring dues billing. This ensures that if a member has received a new credit card due to it be lost, stolen or any other reason (think the new chip cards) their credit card information will be automatically updated.
Instead of doing this Snap Fitness refuses to update their members’ information and instead charges the franchisee $5 for every member whose billing hasn’t gone through for that month. For that $5 they send out an email and have a robo-dialer call the member telling them their billing didn’t go through. My bill this month was $165 because a local bank swapped out all their members’ cards.
Now we have to go through and call every member to get new billing because their robo-dialers and emails aren’t effective. Typically during those phone calls about 10% of the time the member will say “just go ahead and cancel my membership”. Simply updating the members’ billing information would eliminate all of this. However, as normal snap puts their interests ahead of their franchisees. Why let your franchisee simply collect about $1100 when snap can refuse updating the billing and collect an additional $165. Snap is such a F*’d up franchisor. I would never do business with them again.
Only a dumb-ass would buy A snap fitness franchise or anytime fitness franchise or any other type of fitness franchise business , period .
What kind of effort would you do as club manager when you have competitor like planet fitness ($10 a month membership) near you ? if it’s not near your area they will soon open anyway and your monthly snap membership is 4 times the pf monthly membership , and they have bigger gyms and more equipment and services and they are just everywhere , this does not need an expert it’s just a common sense . Buying snap franchise is like committing financial suicide , stay away from this lousy business .
And why would anyone ever pay $120/month for a standard Equinox membership? Worse yet why would they pay $200/month for an Equinox VIP membership? Those people have got to be idiots, especially when there’s a planet fatness 2 miles away. Easy question… Value for your $$.
Kind of like going into a Ferrari dealer and demanding that they sell you a Ferrari for $8,000 because the Kia dealer is selling one of their cars for $8,000. You point out that they’re both cars, each with tires, seats and an engine. The idiots refuse to sell you a Ferrari for $8,000 and you stick it in their face by going out and buying a Kia and laugh at the idiots who bought the same thing as you, a car, for $400K. Ha!! Idiots paying that much for a Ferrari when they could have had a Kia.
I was recently living in Atlanta close to Athletic Club North East. I went on a tour and they had good facilities but the price for me was about $90.00 a month. I didn’t join and also looked at a nearby LA Fitness in Toco Hills. The difference in my mind is the clientele and I’m not talking about a race thing as I saw plenty of Afro-Americans in the Athletic Club North East. I’d rather pay a higher fee to be in a well managed club whose members aren’t mostly comprised of juiced up jocks or ex-jocks who prance around like UFC or professional body building wannabes, grunting and snorting like enraged wildebeests. I want to enjoy my workout and not feel like I’m going to get body slammed at any moment by a backward baseball cap-wearing 24 year old.
I have been unhappy with my franchise since the inception. From errors in billing on their part that has cost me to back pay Snap Corporate about $15,000 to poor support, this franchise is a NIGHTMARE. I am currently dealing with not being able to purchase access cards because I refuse to email a form in with all my credit card information on it instead of just speaking with the order rep. In addition, when you purchase or are required to do an update, beware… one of the employees who handles the approvals for the update also has a conflict of interest as she owns the company that is recommended by SNAP. STAY AWAY!
Before I opened my 24 hour gym, I was actually a member of a Snap Fitness and spoke with several franchise owners. After doing a little math, I couldn’t figure out how most Snaps were making any money with the amount of monthly fees they incur. I’m glad I decided to open up my own gym, instead of franchising. I knew my membership would top out at around 300-350 monthly members, and the numbers with a franchise wouldn’t make it worth my while. ADT, MindBody, and MyZone gave me everything I needed to open up my own 24 hour gym.
Is there anyone here who has been through a snap fitness resell of their club or a closure?
Gina Flood…. Yes I have. Both; Re-sell and Closure. What do you want to know?
Wow… i was thinking about buying one but looking at those reviews it’s obvious the corporate needs to shape up before they ship out… 20% closing? That is absurd! Snap corporate are you guys in denial or you think all is well and good? Karma on business have a way of biting you… i would start doing some reshaping of your franchise model because just that statistic plus looking at Craig’s for people trying to sell equipment from snap closing got me thinking hell no. I would start making up to your franchisees ASAP… Especially if you want to be around in 5 to 10 years.
being a former Snap owner I have a few words of advice, DONT DO IT !!! These people are down right crooks, the fees and lease plus hidden costs become astromonical.
There’s a lot more information from current franchisees at
http://snapfitnesszees.freeforums.net/board/1/general-discussion
If an owner of a Snap walks away from a club , does Snap corporate step in to keep it running?
Cody Sestito, club manager, of the SNAP Fitness on 9 Durant Ave. Bethel , CT 06801 did not allow or offer any resources for my father to activate his Silver Sneakers membership. I explained multiple times during the course of Mr. Sestito’s and I interface this am at approximately 9:45am on 4/24/2019 that I am my father’s power of attorney, healthcare proxy, and caregiver, as he is currently recovering from a stroke. My father, a 76yr old elderly man, needs assistance. I had all the documentation, the silver sneakers member ID, anthem blue cross insurance, medicare ID #, as well as all of his proxy documentation in hand and explained to Mr. Sestito, that I wanted to activate my father’s membership. Mr. Sestito replied, “I don’t care. How do I know you’re not doing this just to use the membership.” He offered no other recourse for me at this point upon my inquiry for further assistance; not a regional manager, not a customer service number, not even an email address. I am very disappointed in the level of customer service SNAP FITNESS shows towards it’s prospective members, let alone the elderly in the Silver Sneakers program.
Any assitance would be greatly appreciated
ONE WORD OF ADVICE “DONT DO IT”, these people are f…..in crooks
Scott:
Could you be more specific?
What should prospective Snap Fitness (or other fitness franchisees) look out for?
What questions should they ask?
Thanks,
ADMIN
Anyone feel free to add your suggestions
Can anyone tell me the current Fee/s to terminate your existing Snap Fitness Franchise?
As a former Snap owner selling my gym was the best day of my life,5 years of losses and broken machines force fed a bunch of promises and horrid inside people to work with (real estate team,support team) The place was sold at a loss and went under finally a year and a half after sale. Snap can not compete with the 10.00 a month gyms all over America and the CEO of Snap lives in a castle insulated from the shops loosing thier asses
Nautical Bowls is Peter Taunton’s new plan. If you are considering buying the franchise, please reach out to as many franchisees as possible and not the ones that corporate provides you. Also ask why Peter Taunton closed his own Nautical Bowls Miami location a year after opening. Please do your due diligence. Ask how many stores in the past 6 months have closed, transferred ownership and owners have gone bankrupt?