Should Studio Owners Offer Free Trials? The Honest Truth

Are free trials costing your studio more than they’re helping?

In this episode of Your Studio Podcast, Chantelle and Michelle unpack one of the most debated strategies in the studio industry: free trials. From retention challenges to marketing conversion and admin overwhelm, they explore why the traditional “free trial” model might actually be slowing your studio’s growth.

You’ll learn:

1. Why free trials can quietly damage retention, classroom culture, and student commitment
2. How direct-to-enrolment strategies often outperform trial-based marketing funnels
3. What to do instead if you want stronger conversions, less admin, and more committed students

If you’ve ever felt exhausted chasing trial students who never convert, this conversation will help you rethink your approach and build a more sustainable enrolment model.

✨ Ready to attract more committed students to your studio? Apply to work with us here: https://studioevolution.com/apply

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📖 Full transcript + blog post: https://studioevolution.com/journal/s5-e2-should-studio-owners-offer-free-trials/

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Transcript

Chantelle Bruinsma (00:04):
Welcome to Your Studio Podcast, sharing strategies for studio owners. I'm Chantelle Bruinsma, here with Michelle Hunter, and together we're the CEOs of Studio Evolution, where for over a decade we've helped thousands of studio owners around the world from dance, music, acting, art, yoga, and pilates studios transform their passion into thriving profitable businesses. So if you're a studio owner, grab a cup of tea and settle in. You're in exactly the right place.

Michelle Hunter (00:34):
We're going to do all the self-care in Thailand. I'm just letting you ... And I've just got a request. Can we ... I mean, you come watch me and film my mind. Yes. I want to do a Muay Thai class. Like a private Muay Thai boxing. It's like- Yes,

(00:49):
For you.

(00:50):
I

Chantelle Bruinsma (00:51):
Love that for you. Yes. Yes.

Michelle Hunter (00:53):
And we'll do it really early so it's not hot which is like, you're going to die. Yes. Chantelle will die just sitting in the gym. They've got no aircon in those gyms.

Chantelle Bruinsma (01:00):
I love a sauna. I'm here.

Michelle Hunter (01:02):
I know you do the heat.

Chantelle Bruinsma (01:02):
I love the heat. That's not an issue for me whatsoever.

Michelle Hunter (01:05):
So

Chantelle Bruinsma (01:06):
Talk me through what that's going to look like.

Michelle Hunter (01:08):
So I think there's a more research method process of this, but a lot of people I talk to are like, "Oh my gosh, you're going to Koh Samui for work for ... You're not going there back there for a little while. You have to do a Muay Thai class." And I've always been obsessed with Muay Thai. So I think we find a gym, not a real fight gym. I'm not interested in a hardcore, but kind of like a more tourist gym. And then we ask if we could do a private. Yes. And you could do some of it with me and then they teach you to warm up and I think they give you Muay Thai boxing shorts and then-

Chantelle Bruinsma (01:41):
Yes.

Michelle Hunter (01:42):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm here

Chantelle Bruinsma (01:43):
For the merch. I'm here

Michelle Hunter (01:44):
For the first. I'm like, let's do a Muay Thai class. Do I get shorts?

Chantelle Bruinsma (01:50):
Yeah, I'm there for that. Okay.

Michelle Hunter (01:51):
So please, that's just my one-

Chantelle Bruinsma (01:53):
Honey. I will be

Michelle Hunter (01:54):
Wife

Chantelle Bruinsma (01:55):
Of Instagram and I will record it all for you.

Michelle Hunter (01:58):
And Mitchell said that Mitch is like, Chantelle is going to record the hell out of that and you're going to have so much footage and you're going to be like, Mom's Who Muay Thai. I was like, yeah, yeah. I

Chantelle Bruinsma (02:08):
Bet that's a hashtag. That is a hashtag, isn't it?

Michelle Hunter (02:11):
Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Your Studio Podcast. It is Michelle Hunter here with my work wifey, Chantelle Bruinsma. And today we are going to be talking about ... I love talking about this subject because I see you get all fired up Chantelle and it's to free trial or to not free trial.

Chantelle Bruinsma (02:31):
I have my soapbox ready and I'm ascending it as we speak, Michelle. This is a topic I feel very strongly about

Michelle Hunter (02:40):
Because

Chantelle Bruinsma (02:41):
I've seen it transform the businesses of our clients and there's a lot of factors that go into whether to do free trials or not. So I'm going to just mental note to myself, dial it down and just bring compassion because there's a lot of fear around not doing a free trial, right? There's a huge amount of fear of if I ... But everyone else is doing free trials, so why the hell would they choose me?

Michelle Hunter (03:09):
Yeah. I get it. Exactly. And before we go on disclaimer, we have touched on free trials before in a previous season, but today we're going to go a bit more heavy into it, into how it also relates into marketing and just that scarcity and fear piece as well. So let's head into the fear piece, Chantelle, because as you said, no free trials, a lot of people are going ... Because it's what we've ... I think growing up in a studio, every studio that I worked in, we did free trials. I think every lesson I went to growing up, I went to a trial first before I enrolled. It was the thing that's always been done.

Chantelle Bruinsma (03:45):
Yes. It's incredibly normal and it comes from a place of generosity and it comes from a place of truly wanting people to have a great experience. And I think we have to zoom out

Michelle Hunter (03:59):
And

Chantelle Bruinsma (03:59):
Look historically at our industry and also the hearts of the people in it, right? It comes from that place of worthiness is I think probably the crux of this. You come from such a place of devotion as a studio owner that you want to ensure people are making the right decision, they're having a great time. I guess for me, it's that kind of coming back to the very simple question of when you go out for dinner to a restaurant, that's a trial, but you have received services and there is a reciprocation of money,

Michelle Hunter (04:38):
Right? Yeah.

Chantelle Bruinsma (04:39):
And there's a lot of businesses out there that it would be impossible for them to offer a trial. However, somehow in our little beautiful industry, it's become normalized. And the difficult thing about when something is normalized is that it kind of becomes entrenched in expectations and it's hard to be cycle breakers. It's hard to move away from what feels safe and secure and normal and easy. It's not easy to stop doing free trials, but I want to talk today about the impact of free trials first and foremost and to look from a broad perspective, what free trials can do to the business.

Michelle Hunter (05:20):
And

Chantelle Bruinsma (05:22):
Here's where I start. It's where I end is kind of the core of my whole philosophy and it's retention. So I don't only want to think about the experience of a student coming to your studio for the first time. I'd actually like to swing the focus onto your current students. So what happens is that when you invite a student to come for a trial into the studio, that needs a lot of attention. So they're being greeted, they're being kind of welcomed, they're being introduced to all of the facilities and kind of getting them really well acquainted. And at the end of the class, you then have this pressure on yourself to connect and ask how they're going and try and enroll them, right? And every bit of that attention is taken away from your current students. And that has an impact on retention too, because when a teacher is consistently having their attention diverted to free trials, it misses the opportunity to retain the students you already bloody have.

(06:28):
And so for me, first and foremost, it's this kind of sabotaging the dynamic in the room. The more we have consistency of people in a classroom where you know that, oh, Jen's here and Bob's over there and there's this continuity, there's camaraderie, there's connection, there's belonging. That's precious, right? Yeah. That is so precious. And if we disrupt that too much, too frequently, it makes the experience feel more transactional. And I don't like that. I think it really changes the tonality of the class, Michelle, and that's icky

(07:06):
To me.

Michelle Hunter (07:07):
That is icky. And what about the flip side? I know when a lot of people have a lot of free trials and they're bringing the people, like say you're a teacher and say you're having constant free trials, right? So their time is really spent taking the attention away from their current students and the culture and the free trial. But when they get so many of them, they're kind of like, "Oh, it's just a free trial. It's just a free trial." They're coming in and it's just a free trial. Sometimes the free trials then is also not even getting converted because there's so many coming in free trials. And do you kind of understand what I'm trying to say here?

Chantelle Bruinsma (07:41):
Yeah, because there's so many coming in. It's in the mental load of keeping track of free trials, the administrative load of follow through and follow

Michelle Hunter (07:50):
Up.

Chantelle Bruinsma (07:51):
It's a

Michelle Hunter (07:52):
Fucking nightmare. It defeats the purpose of actual conversion, in my opinion. It's like because you're so maxed with the teachers trying to ... And you care about the key trial, you don't do it well.

Chantelle Bruinsma (08:03):
And it's also the double sell, right? So you've got to sell them in to come for a free trial. You still have to do all the communication about how to get there, what to do, what time to come. You've got to do all of the booking in, you've got to do all the comms, and then you have to do the sell to kind of, "Oh, would you just go in this very simple $39 a month or $80 a month, kind of whatever it is kind of the plan." So it's doubling the amount of admin load that you have to do. Not to mention then you have to prep the teacher. "Oh, you've got little Susie coming in for a trial today. "And so the teacher has to ... So there's a lot more administrative load that needs to kind of come on board, which is just, it's exhausting.

(08:44):
It's exhausting.

Michelle Hunter (08:46):
And I might be going off the track here, but is there a correlation with this and with a lot of our yoga and Pilates studios who kind of have that like 30 day pass, it's very similar or they might like a two week pass. We've seen this a lot and we've worked through a model with this and without going into too much detail of a business model, is there similar effects there when they're just having like a come and go two week pass where you offer a great deal and ...

Chantelle Bruinsma (09:10):
Yeah. Okay. This is where it gets a bit uncomfortable everyone to strap yourselves in here because what if you actually did the accurate sums of the amount of treatment who came in for a trial or for just a kind of low ticket price package, like a kind of cast pass, whatever, and then never actually kind of return to the studio after that. If you did those sums, they're actually quite horrifying and financially it's devastating because if you literally imagined if you'd retained every single one of them, what the growth of your business would have been, it's staggering. If you just looked at, okay, I've had many clients, I had a hundred new trials this year, then-

Michelle Hunter (09:59):
Fire out.

Chantelle Bruinsma (10:00):
Yeah. Oh, honestly, you do the sums, it's around about that often. It's not unusual. That's only kind of like, it's not a lot. It's like the kind of two

Michelle Hunter (10:11):
A week. But when I say far out, I know how much work goes in the upfront investment they're doing still for a free trial compared to a paid person. That's why I go fire out because I know the admin load with studio owners of marketing, confirming that trial, the reminders, the greeting, telling them where to go, where to come. I just know it's the same amount of effort.

Chantelle Bruinsma (10:31):
It totally is. So you're having to double the sell and then you still always have in the back of your mind like they're a trial. Even the word grates me, Michelle, I'll be

Michelle Hunter (10:40):
Honest with you. You're so passionate about this.

Chantelle Bruinsma (10:43):
Oh my God, it actually grates me. What are we trialing here? No, I philosophically not my soapbox. Anyone who steps through the door of your studio

(11:01):
Has to feel like they belong. You're one of us now. You have found your home. You belong here. This is not a trial. It's like having someone come over for dinner and then be just kind of like, oh, but just like, would you just stay on the veranda? I'll feed you on the veranda. It's like the mentality shift of any inquiry, seeing them as someone who belongs as part of the family versus someone who's here for a trial is just see how you feel. You know, if you believe in your classes, if you know the quality of service that you deliver and their level of education and the transformation, the connection and how they're going to be enriched, then why would we doubt it? Why would we doubt it? We don't. And the reason we doubt it is because we're scared. We're scared to stand in our value.

(11:48):
We're scared to stand in our worth and say, "It's this amount of money." And we just get them straight on. I want to encourage each of you as you're cringing in this moment, you're in your car going, "Oh, squirming right now." But here's my model of the world, right? Yeah. It takes as much energy and time and effort to enroll someone for a free trial as it does for a paid

(12:16):
Enrollment. Now, whether that's just get them straight into membership, which is my preferred approach, or they do a substantial paid experience of paid this, even like a six week, whatever that might be,

(12:27):
What that might look like for you. But the heart of it is like once they are in, they are in. So we do a full onboarding. What happens is then that we have eliminated a huge amount of admin load in double communication. We've eliminated that kind of pressure to like, "Oh shit, I didn't follow up after." That person just ran out of class after them. I did get to talk to them about how they found the lesson and like if they want to enroll. So now I've got to kind of chase them, right? I've got to

Michelle Hunter (12:57):
Kind

Chantelle Bruinsma (12:57):
Of contact them, I've got to text them, I've got to email them, I've lost the foot, I've lost the opportunity.

Michelle Hunter (13:02):
Yeah, it's too much. And so

Chantelle Bruinsma (13:02):
It puts pressure on you and pressure on the teachers and the pressure to connect on that first impression is just, it's a lot versus we just say, "Come and roll, you're part of the family. Let's get you really comfortable and make sure you're very comfortable." And I believe in having a very, very strong guarantee, happiness guarantee,

Michelle Hunter (13:27):
Guarantee. Yeah. Talk us through this because this is like a lot of, if you're on your morning walk and you're like, "But how do we, if they want to go, " it's like, what is that guarantee?

Chantelle Bruinsma (13:37):
So the guarantee can look like if you're not completely comfortable at the end of your first month, we will kind of not continue any payments and we wish you every happiness.

Michelle Hunter (13:47):
Just

Chantelle Bruinsma (13:47):
Very simple, very simple. I don't recommend a money back guarantee.

Michelle Hunter (13:53):
I was just going to say, you don't need to refund because you're still ... If you went to an osteo clinic, that's one-on-one, you still have to pay. And then if you don't like them after ...

Chantelle Bruinsma (14:02):
No.

Michelle Hunter (14:02):
Don't refund.

Chantelle Bruinsma (14:04):
No, no, we don't refund, but we just kind of offer to not continue. So we have a 30 day. And then again, that's why it's very clean. If you get someone onto membership, there's no future payments. But again, it's the feeling I want you to consider, the feeling of your current students in the classroom of ... There's not that transaction like, "Oh, we're welcoming Sarah into our class." And then for the teachers like, "Oh, that pressure, I don't have to chase them out the door when they're leaving." The teachers can just like, "Let's get to know you and settle you in. " The admin load of not having to double selling and double kind of follow up and double sales to get them into the trial and then on. For you as well, the statistics of when you get someone who kind of comes and pays, they stay.

Michelle Hunter (14:48):
So

Chantelle Bruinsma (14:48):
Your business, what's been dramatic that I've seen dozens, tens and tens and tens of times over the years is that when we hold a studio owner to step into their worth and we move away from free trials, their business grows. Straight away, what you're going to find is that you have less enrollment technically because you might not be having this kind of flood of free trials, but they're vanity numbers, right? That's not actually kind of conversion or retention. What we see after time is that the people who are coming in stay and the compounding of retention is, again, what we know is what grows studios. So you can be getting 10 free trials a month or whatever, but if they're not converting, you're still fucked, right?

Michelle Hunter (15:32):
That's money down the drain.

Chantelle Bruinsma (15:35):
And if everyone's offering free trials, but that's the fear, but the studio down the road offers free trials, so why are they going to pay to come to me?

Michelle Hunter (15:43):
Well, it's positioning too. What does it say when you offer free trials and you don't offer free trials?

Chantelle Bruinsma (15:49):
I'm someone who wouldn't choose a studio if they offered a free trial. And again, some of you, we've had a lot of talks about in the past, like studio hoppers, people who just kind of coming and testing, then change the game.

Michelle Hunter (16:04):
Yeah.

Chantelle Bruinsma (16:05):
Change the game. Don't waste

Michelle Hunter (16:07):
Your time. We're not a studio where you can just come and test and disrupt the class. That's not what we're about here. No.

Chantelle Bruinsma (16:12):
No, we're not here for that. We want people who are going to belong, who are here because they want this and you know you can facilitate that. You know you can connect with them, but a free trial in my experience devalues your studio. It detracts when you're positioning in the market and it is administratively a clusterfuck.

Michelle Hunter (16:36):
For someone who worked in admin and studio, oh my gosh, 22 years ago, it is an admin cluster. And you know what is also a cluster if I can go there? It's kind of like the next level. Paid marketing with free trials as well. Oh,

Chantelle Bruinsma (16:53):
Michelle.

Michelle Hunter (16:57):
I review a lot of Facebook ad data and to Chantelle's discussed, I love it.

Chantelle Bruinsma (17:04):
It's not discussed. It's not discussed. It is gratitude and admiration that I don't have to do it as much as you do it. I know my strengths and I know your strengths and your strengths are my God impressive when it comes to data. Holy moly, you are the master.

Michelle Hunter (17:19):
I just find it interesting because it tells a story like when you're running paid ads to free trials, you are going to get a higher opt-in. So you're going to spend more money because more people are going to be click on your ads. Depending on your ad creatives, if you're testing, the cost per lead or click might be okay and come down. But it's that intention. They're signing up for a free trial, a form. Again, you've got to build in all this admin. You've got to build in all these reminders. You got to build this funnel. So big. You got to build everything you're paying ad spending, directing them to this free trial. And I'm telling you, the work that you got to do to make sure if you get 200 people register for your banger open day and then cut that percentage of what turns up and then because a lot of them might be studio hoppers, it's just not ... It's funny, I was just reviewing some studio data recently and the studio, my sister's studio fee.

(18:11):
And I kind of like looked in her account and she ran some open days for free trials and she actually got more and higher conversions direct to enrollment in her peak period compared to a free trial open day. And literally while she was sleeping and she was investing just as amount of work because that funnel that she did for direct enrollment was so well thought out, great ads, a lot of admin, but she had to do that for the open day as well. And she got the ones for direct enrollment in her sleep and they just paid and they just signed up.

Chantelle Bruinsma (18:45):
It's

Michelle Hunter (18:45):
Like magic. Yeah, it's magic. And look, you're not going to get there overnight. She has followed the course of how to implement all those stages and touch all those pain points during the funnel and the enrollment process. But it's really weighing up that free trial, especially when you're spending money to grow your studio to the return. And that's how I also look at it as well when you talk about profitability and retention.

Chantelle Bruinsma (19:11):
For sure. I mean, that's staggering. I mean, there's like very recent data that you ran two campaigns, one for free trial, open day, one direct to enrollment, and then director enrollment just smashed it.

Michelle Hunter (19:21):
Yeah. And look, and other regions and other studios are probably having huge success with the open days and free trials, but we just know the effort that you put into converting them to direct and remote is very similar and it's just what performs better.

Chantelle Bruinsma (19:36):
Yeah. And look, there's some studios that I know that are hugely successful and they do free trials. And I'll come back and have this as a full disclaimer. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Exactly.

Michelle Hunter (19:47):
Exactly.

Chantelle Bruinsma (19:48):
If it's working, but you must have a very good strategy for conversion and

Michelle Hunter (19:53):
That's

Chantelle Bruinsma (19:53):
The difference. I

Michelle Hunter (19:54):
Was going to say, and I think I know the studio that you're talking about, their open days are like a total off swift concert. They are unbelievable. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I want to come. I don't even live anywhere near you. " But their nurture, like what they put into their conversion, their nurture team is probably just as much as they're investing in something that you're doing instead. And that is because, and that's why it works because they're taking that part so serious. They're not just relying on them coming in to convert the door. It is a beast and it's a big beast to feed, but they do it so well.

Chantelle Bruinsma (20:32):
Big.

Michelle Hunter (20:33):
Big. Was I

Chantelle Bruinsma (20:34):
Kind enough, Michelle? Was I kind?

Michelle Hunter (20:36):
You made your point. You were kind, but you still went in. I've seen this in person at a lot of live events. It's like, no, no free trials. And then Chantelle puts a pen down, puts her whiteboard master down. She's like, okay.

Chantelle Bruinsma (20:49):
I think I do need to find another approach to communicating this because I don't know if it's the most effective, but I guess I get angry at how many people are struggling

Michelle Hunter (21:02):
And

Chantelle Bruinsma (21:03):
They stay struggling because of fear. That's what shits me in this. It's the fear of if I do say, no, you just have to pay. And the fear of ... Fear is not a strategy for growing the studio. If you are seeing free trials work very, very well, then keep going for

Michelle Hunter (21:25):
Sure.

Chantelle Bruinsma (21:26):
But if they're not, maybe just consider what I've had to say.

Michelle Hunter (21:30):
Yeah. Yeah. And you're very passionate because a lot of the people that we work with, you know personally, you've come to know them so personally and you don't want them offering the free meal than someone just going and then being out of pocket. Genuinely it's like, you deserve better than that. You deserve better than that.

Chantelle Bruinsma (21:49):
Your classes are so valuable and your time is so valuable and the time that goes into doing this is just what I probably struggle with the most.

Michelle Hunter (22:02):
Yeah. Well, Peeps, I hope you got a lot of that today.

Chantelle Bruinsma (22:08):
I'm putting my soapbox away.

Michelle Hunter (22:10):
Yeah. And you know what? And if you're looking for a community of studio owners that can ...

Chantelle Bruinsma (22:16):
It will tell you really hard things in a not particularly compassionate way.

Michelle Hunter (22:21):
Or tell me that you deserve more or work with you and show you the process of how they've done that or how the systems they're putting in place to make sure that nurture sequence is effortless or direct to enrollment. We would love to work with you. And if you head over to studioevolution.com/apply, you can submit a little application form and find out what's the next best step of working with us here.

Chantelle Bruinsma (22:44):
I'm just that loving friend who'll be like giving you the kick up your pants to do the scary thing that you know you've got to do, but you're too scared to do it. It's my role to do.

Michelle Hunter (22:52):
And I can give you some Facebook ad geek out, data, KPIs, metrics to be looking out for and telling your agency that they've got to be meeting so they're not pulling the wool over your eyes. That's what we're going to do for you.

Chantelle Bruinsma (23:06):
Oh, Michelle Hunter. What a woman. What a woman. See you next time, friends. See you.

Michelle Hunter (23:12):
Bye.

Chantelle Bruinsma (23:12):
Bye. Love what you're hearing and want more? Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And the good news is that we've pulled together a bundle of our most popular resources from marketing and retention to pricing and systems, all in one place for you to binge. Inside, you'll find videos, tools, and templates waiting for you. Everything you could need to start creating growth in your studio right now. All you got to do is visit studioevolution.com/start and dive on in.