AKT inMotion Is Making Its Less Popular Classes Cheaper

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Is the least favorite part about your 9-to-5 is that all the boutique fitness classes you like to take after work are so crowded that you can't even get into them half the time? AKT inMotion is changing up its prices to reward those who sign up for less popular class times, like the late morning and mid-afternoon — so maybe it's time to start looking into a freelance career with a flexible schedule.

An email to clients yesterday introduced its "Real Time Pricing" model, made in conjunction with a company called Dibs. It'll fluctuate the class prices based on how many open spots are left, how soon the class is starting, and even how far away you are from the studio you want to go to (in Manhattan, there's the Upper East Side location, plus the new Nomad studio). So theoretically, a class would be at its cheapest when there's an abundance of open spots right before it begins, which typically doesn't happen during those peak hours.

Logging on this afternoon, the system shows that today's 5:30pm class in Nomad is $25, but the 6:30 and 7:30 classes are $27 and $28, respectively. And tomorrow, an 8:15am class is $25, but a 12:30pm one is at $34. And that's the highest price on here over the next few days, beating out the single-class price of $37.

Anyone's able to use it so long as they're signed up for AKT's newsletters. It remains to be seen whether they'll find this model profitable, or whether or studios will pick it up to, but we're eager to watching this pricing experiment unfold in, well, real time.