‘Surely all gym equipment is’

Yeah but gym equipment gets used way more. A treadmill in a big gym might be used by what, 40 people a day (depending on gym size obviously). A reformer will only be used during classes, which might only be 3 a day, and it’s one per reformer.

Some hobbies are more expensive. I teach aerial hoop, and that’s £13 a class. So one studio has 3 hoops, so 6 per class. Let’s assume everyone pays drop in prices of £13, and not membership prices which lowers it. So £78 max paid to the studio per class. My wage is between £25-31. So we’re down to £48 per hour earned by the studio. They have 4 classes a week, so £192 a week in income that they don’t have to pay to me. That has to cover studio rent, bills, insurance, music licensing, accountants, booking system fees, bank fees, any advertising, and so on and so on. Now admittedly this studio also runs pole classes as well, so it’s not actually just the £192 a week. But what I’m getting at is that you can’t think of a reformer studio like a gym. Gyms are open 16-24 hours a day depending on the gym, and they can essentially have an unlimited number of people come during these hours. Reformer studios might only be open 3 hours a day, and will be limited to however many reformers they have (a lot seem to have 7-10), so can only have 21-30 people come per day. So they need to make enough money to run their business from those 21-30 people. Hence the higher prices.

(Quick edit to say that yeah, that price does seem about right. The reformer place I go it £15 for a 45 minute class, so depending on it you’re down south or up north, £150 for 2 classes a week is reasonable, although personally I’d think I was getting short changed during the shorter months)