/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/45251498/ClassPassRunner.0.jpg)
Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.
Do you have a committed relationship with your gym? That's cool. We totally respect those boundaries. But for people who like to play the fitness field, drop-in passes and classes get expensive. That's one of the reasons ClassPass has been so well-received. For $99, you get 10 classes at an assortment of studios throughout San Francisco. Assuming that you use all 10 classes, you save money, (which you will probably then spend on cute workout clothes).
We've been testing a free ClassPass trial for two weeks, and it still makes sense. (We've already signed up to pay the full price.) Instead of memorizing ten different MindBody passwords —because we try to do the whole Internet security thing— we use one ClassPass login that gives us access to all of the partner studios. Instead of paying $35 for a drop-in class at Core40, we'll pay less than $10. And if we want to exceed the three visits per studio per month cap, we can always splash out for a full-price single class.
There are, of course, drawbacks. Where some gyms allow cancellations 12 hours in advance, ClassPass has a 24-hour cancellation period. The booking window also closes earlier: While experimenting with the system, we noticed that ClassPass booking cuts off one hour before a class begins, but we could still book the same class (at full price) through an individual gym's MindBody site. So, no, it's not perfect. But there are tradeoffs to saving a few bucks.
If you're curious about the service, ClassPass is offering an unlimited classes promo through the end of August. New members can sign up to receive unlimited monthly classes for the rest of 2014 at the standard $99 per month rate. (Existing members can also take advantage of unlimited classes, but must commit to membership through the end of 2014.) If you want to flirt with different studios, it's a good time to sign up.
Or just keep going steady with your gym. It's all good.
· ClassPass [Official Site]
· ClassPass Will Help You Sweat More for Less [Racked]