For climbing gyms, “build it and they will come” once held some truth. The 2000s and 2010s saw an explosion of gyms across the United States, with rapid development and expansion from coast to coast. The number of U.S. climbing gyms was growing 5-10% most years, according to CBJ’s Gyms & Trends Report, and by the end of 2025 there were nearly 700 facilities in operation.
But keeping those doors open is a lot harder today. Per CBJ’s Climbing Gym Operator Forecast Dashboard, two of the trends squeezing gym finances the most have been increased expenses and reduced consumer spending. At the end of last year, roughly 85% of the operators CBJ surveyed indicated total expenses at their gym were some or much higher in 2025 compared to 2024, and 71% saw consumer spending at their gym get somewhat or a lot worse. As a result, 69% of surveyed operators reported stagnant or decreased revenues last year.
Especially in a slower economy, running a sustainable business requires knowing what keeps members coming back and adjusting to the times—and the survey data showed many gyms are still finding ways to do so, with 61% of surveyed operators at the end of 2025 saying they expected revenues to be higher in 2026. Success is still more than possible as a gym, but it now takes more precision and research than ever before. As the industry settles into a new norm and economic conditions remain challenging in many places, operators are often refocusing on their operations and prioritizing the member experience.
CBJ connected with two industry veterans to hear more about how they’ve been adapting—or observed other gyms doing so—as well as how they advise gyms to build resilience. For each tip below, we outlined action items as practical takeaways for your business.
#1: Focus on the Customers You Already Have
Customer retention provides your economic floor as a business. And in slower times, where day pass numbers dip, your member base is that ‘floor’ you return to.
When looking to improve things, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s already working. Clay Chaszeyka, founder of Harness Consulting and longtime marketing expert, has spent years advising operators around the industry. And in that time, working with dozens of gyms on the ground, he has noticed a shift toward retention-first strategy, particularly during slower seasons.
“The biggest change I’ve seen is a shift away from growth-at-all-costs thinking and toward retention, attribution, and operational visibility,” said Chaszeyka. “The best gyms know who they are for, what kind of experience they are trying to create, and why someone should choose them over other fitness, recreation, or family entertainment. And the long-term health of most climbing gyms depends on whether they can consistently turn interested first-timers into confident, connected, recurring customers.”
But what does this principle look like in practice? “On the marketing side,” said Chaszeyka, “that means moving away from ‘we need more awareness’ as the default answer and getting much more disciplined. It means asking questions like:
- “Which channels are driving first visits?”
- “Which first visits are turning into members?”
- “Which members are at risk of cancelling—and why?”
- “Which programs are retaining families, adults, beginners, youth athletes, etc.?”
As he points out, awareness does not necessarily equate to retention. Kristin Horowitz, founder and CEO of The Pad Climbing—which operates gyms in California and New York and is making a return to Nevada—echoed Chaszeyka’s thoughts on retention. “With an established community, it takes more intentional work,” said Horowitz. “You have to look at your demographics, see how many times people came before dropping off, and then do personal outreach, or automate it where you can, which helps remind them why they came in the first place.”
Ultimately, the two agree there is no shortcut to building retention. But when the economy is rough, that stored trust is what keeps many consumers around. In fact, it’s often what will drive customers to support you more, rather than less, during slow times.
Action Items:
- Track and analyze data on why your members sign up and why they decide to leave.
- Have an organized, official system for gathering consumer feedback.
- Know what services and products you’re uniquely suited to provide your community.
#2: Prioritize Your Member Experience
“The biggest opportunity,” said Chaszeyka, “is to treat engagement as an operating system, not a calendar of events.”
Both Horowitz and Chaszeyka see targeted engagement as critical—the key word being targeted.
“A lot of gyms think ‘engagement’ means hosting more comps, parties, or member nights,” said Chaszeyka. “But it starts with how a first-time visitor is welcomed, whether they know what to do after their first visit, whether a new member gets integrated into the community, and whether existing members feel seen.”
“I talk to a lot of climbing gyms in crisis,” explained Horowitz, “and member experience is one of the biggest things they can do to improve revenue. People often assume that if the numbers are not where they want them day to day, the problem is that not enough people know the gym exists. But often, people do know…they just are not coming back.”
To support this point, Horowitz added her own story about The Pad’s gym location in New York. “Growth there was a little slower than I expected,” she said, “and the instinct from employees was ‘we need to advertise more.’ But when I looked at the number of waivers signed in our opening year, it was around 11,000! That told me people knew we existed. The real question was: Why did they not come back? And what reasons can we give them to return?”
Horowitz also added that staff are “the best engagement strategy…having people who make members feel included every time they walk in. Ultimately,” she said, “it still comes down to reinvestment in your people on the ground.”
Chaszeyka believes that “gyms should be thinking about the first 30, 60 and 90 days of a member’s experience. Are new members invited into classes, leagues, meetups or clinics? Are beginners given a clear path beyond their first day pass? And are staff trained to recognize, then invite, people to take the next step?
“Stop thinking about running a climbing gym,” he said. “Instead, run your gym like you are in the hospitality business with a carefully curated experience for each new customer.”
Horowitz believes the employee experience requires a similar focus on curation. “My team is almost entirely millennials,” she said, “and the expectations of younger employees and customers have been a learning curve for us—and, I would expect, the industry. But instead of resisting that, we are trying to lean in and listen, both on the employment side and the service side…because that age demographic has been our bread and butter.”
Action Items:
- Ensure your programs and marketing address different types of members.
- Know why members keep coming back; it’s what not to cut during slow seasons.
- Encourage your staff to engage with members on a personal level.
#3: Invest In Your People
Your staff experience and member experience are strongly connected and often impact each other.
Relationships are, in one sense, investments. For climbing gyms, that investment is often literal. Committing to your customers (and staff) hopefully pays off in the long haul. And as your staff build connections with your member base, and vice versa, the two can strengthen one another.
“The biggest operational shift for [The Pad] has been toward people development,” Horowitz told CBJ. “As the industry has matured, we are moving away from the idea that a climbing gym job is just a fun temporary job. Instead, we’re offering soft-skill development, career ladders, and real leadership pathways.
“We are still a small industry,” said Horowitz, “but we are increasingly made up of people and companies who know how to play the corporate game. So, if you shortchange the things that create trust and belonging, you will probably regret it later.”
In the past, frontline climbing gym staff were typically seen as transient by nature, often traveling to (or from) different places. But a rising demand for professionalism within the industry has brought more attention to long-term positions with career advancement, and gyms today are keeping people around for longer.
“How we used to operate won’t work if we don’t evolve,” Horowitz said. “Those offerings I mentioned earlier, for example, didn’t matter as much when we started out. But if we want to attract and retain quality employees, we have to give them a reason to work with us.”
Action Items:
- Encourage and train staff to connect with the community, especially via programming.
- Aim to retain quality staff who contribute to your members’ positive experiences.
- Provide professional development opportunities that also address gym needs.
#4: Replace Intuition With Information
“Without visibility into consumer behavior, gyms often make decisions based on gut feel,” said Chaszeyka. “And in a downturn, that can get expensive quickly.”
As much as the market can be studied and predicted, there will always be a degree of uncertainty. This reality is why, according to Chaszeyka, gyms should be as certain as possible in their decision making. “I think the industry needs to get more comfortable with data,” he said. “If a gym cannot measure things [like] where members come from, why they stay, why they leave, and what drives profitable growth, it becomes much harder to navigate a tough economy.
“When the market gets tighter, you cannot afford vague effort,” he stated. “You need to know what is working, what is not working, and what is worth protecting.”
Horowitz added that some things contribute to success in ways you don’t see firsthand. “I have never believed, for example, that social media directly drives sales in the same way people sometimes want it to,” she said. “But it does build reputation, and that matters more now than it used to. People want to see authentic connections online that match what they experience inside the gym in real life.”
Chaszeyka suggests that, for successful decision making, you need a strong partnership between 1) measuring data and 2) finding patterns in data. “The gyms that keep growing tend to make decisions before they are forced to, because they know their numbers and they know to protect the customer experience,” he told CBJ. “Successful gyms are not just looking at total revenue each month and hoping the line goes up. They know which customer segments are growing and which ones need attention.”
Similarly, Chaszeyka also stated that, when marketing, it’s vital to be intentional about which campaigns reach each member group. “The same message should not go to every customer all the time. A parent with a kid in youth programs cares about different things than a college student, a first-time visitor, a new bouldering member, or a long-term lead climber.
“The gyms that communicate more personally usually feel more community oriented. In hard times,” he advised, “gyms need to keep contact with their members, keep nurturing new climbers, keep promoting programs, and keep showing people why the gym belongs in their lives.”
Action Items:
- Focus on tracking and analyzing metrics tied to measurable business outcomes.
- Separate out revenue streams by where they come from and which groups contribute.
- Tailor messaging to specific customer groups; not everything has to be for everyone.
#5: Handle Pricing Carefully and Consistently
Both Horowitz and Chaszeyka agreed that it’s possible to raise prices without causing community backlash—but it requires careful planning and forethought.
Knowing when to raise prices, and how to communicate that change, is a challenge for any business. When asked about raising prices to survive downturns, Horowitz said, “I think raising prices without damaging trust requires two things: 1) visible value and 2) restraint. You either need to add value to the membership (for example, we now offer 24/7 access), or you need to make price changes gently and consistently—ideally, both.
“That is also one of the reasons we keep certain amenities free, like rental shoes, and have no initiation fees,” she continued. “Those small choices say, ‘We are not looking for extra ways to charge you.’”
“The way it is communicated matters a lot,” added Chaszeyka. “Most members understand that rent, labor, equipment, etc., have all gone up. What they do not like is being surprised, confused, or made to feel like the gym is raising prices while the experience is getting worse.
“Gyms do not have to apologize for needing to run a sustainable business,” he said. “But they should treat pricing as a moment of trust, not a simple revenue lever. If members believe the gym is being honest and the value is still there, a reasonable price increase is much easier to accept.”
“One thing I have learned,” Horowitz offered, “is that making a big production out of a price change can make it worse, even when the reasoning is sound. We held back our first gym’s prices back for years post-COVID, but eventually we had to bring it into alignment. And when that time came, we did a larger campaign around it, thinking that would build trust, but it did not work how we hoped.
“Smaller, steadier, more predictable changes tend to work better than delaying the correction until it feels dramatic,” said Horowitz. “A major theme that’s come out of The Pad is our need to be consistent, and that goes for our pricing too.”
“The best approach is to be clear, direct and respectful,” added Chaszeyka. “Give people notice. Explain what the increase helps protect or improve. And tie the price change to things members actually care about, like routesetting quality, staff wages, or expanded gym hours.”
Action Items:
- Be consistent, direct and clear about any price changes, no matter how small.
- Make sure price changes are tied to improvements members will care about—for example, facility upkeep, expanded programming, or staff wages.
- Consider phased increases: “grandfathering for a set period, or a clear member benefit that accompanies the change,” to quote Chaszeyka.
#6: Safeguard What Not to Cut
According to Chaszeyka and Horowitz, there is a clear industry trend toward focusing on member retention, quality services, and strong communication strategies. But as business owners know, giving more attention and resources to one aspect of the business can mean less to give elsewhere. So, what is the right balance for climbing gyms?
Horowitz’s advice began with what gyms should not skimp on. “During downturns, the places I am most reluctant to cut are the things that shape trust: staff quality, cleanliness, safety, routesetting, and the feeling people get when they walk into the gym,” she explained. “If you cut the things that make the gym feel cared for, you usually pay for it later in churn, reputation, and staff turnover.”
Chaszeyka shared a similar opinion. “Where gyms cannot afford to cut is the member experience. Routesetting, cleanliness, safety, front desk experience, staff training—these are not optional. If you cut too deeply there, you may improve the spreadsheet for a month or two, but you damage the reason people are willing to pay in the first place.
He also stated that to make efficient cuts, “gyms need to understand what is actually driving revenue: what is keeping members engaged, and where people are dropping out.
“A lot of gyms also have marketing activities that feel productive but are not actually connected to business outcomes,” he explained. “So, that is an area worth auditing carefully. It might mean trimming underperforming ad campaigns, consolidating unused software, reducing low-attendance events, simplifying retail buying, or reassessing hours and staffing models if the data supports it.
“The gyms that merely survive are often reactive,” Chaseyzka said. “They wait too long to adjust pricing, cut the wrong things, under-communicate, and rely too heavily on the assumption that ‘the community’ will carry them. But the community still has to be built, maintained, and supported by a healthy business.
“Those who will lead the next phase of the industry will combine community with operational discipline,” he said. “It cannot just be one or the other.”
Action Items:
- If considering cuts, don’t compromise the member experience and what shapes trust.
- Audit expenditures with an eye on the data and what drives positive business outcomes.
- “Be careful about cutting communication and marketing too aggressively,” said Chaszeyka. “In slow seasons, silence is not a strategy.”
