The XXIst century world is becoming health-conscious and eco-friendly; the wellness and fitness app market presents a compelling opportunity for startups. As the demand for personalized, accessible, and innovative fitness applications continues to surge. A well-designed fitness app with intuitive navigation, and useful features can tap into this growing trend, offering users personalized workout plans, progress tracking, and community engagement.
Investing in a fitness app development is not just about joining a “green” trend in the market; it’s about contributing to a healthier lifestyle for many people. With the right features and user experience, your app can stand out in a competitive field and drive significant user engagement. We offer you a comprehensive guide to understand how to create a fitness app that is functional and covers the requirements and needs of potential users.
Fitness Apps Niche Review as a Part of Sportech Market
The fitness app niche is quickly growing in the mobile app market, as the number of people who care about health and wellness is also growing. Still, the fitness app market is very competitive. Many apps are trying to grab users’ attention.
A driving force in the fitness app industry is wearable technology. Software development teams design fitness apps to sync with IoT devices such as smartwatches and fitness trackers. The benefits are obvious: providing users with activities and progress tracking, various exercise options, calorie tracking features, etc. Additionally, these apps incorporate social features to connect with friends, compete, share achievements, and engage in fitness communities, chats, boosting user motivation and engagement.
Fitness Apps Market Revenue Change
- 2017
- 0.11
- 2018
- 0.21
- 2019
- 0.42
- 2020
- 0.94
- 2021
- 1.95
- 2022
- 3.13
- 2023
- 5.00
- 2024
- 6.86
- 2025
- 8.30
- 2026
- 9.22
- 2027
- 9.74
- 2028
- 10.04
- 2029
- 10.06
Source: Statista
By Statista, revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2029) of 7.96%, resulting in a projected global fitness app market volume of US$10.06bn by 2029.
Fitness apps are gaining traction among users of all age groups, with adults aged 18 to 64 utilizing them for physical activity and weight management or focusing more on diet and nutrition.
Due to the effectiveness of these apps, the industry is experiencing a surge in investment. Modern technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality, are revolutionizing the fitness industry.
These innovations enable sports and fitness businesses to create sportech platforms and mobile fitness apps with options like downloading personalized parameters: weight, height, and contra-indications due to health. They also offer monitoring of weight training, workout plans, professional recommendations, and meditations online and while visiting gyms.
Identifying the Target Audience and Demand
Understanding your target audience helps develop a fitness app that resonates with users. Key segments include:
- Fitness Enthusiasts: Individuals seeking advanced workouts, tracking, and progress monitoring.
- Beginners: Users looking for simple, easy-to-follow exercise routines and guidance.
- Health-Conscious Individuals: Users interested in overall wellness, including diet and mental health.
- Athletes: Professional and amateur athletes needing specialized training programs.
Types of Sportech Apps
| Wellness Apps, Workout Apps and Activity Tracking Apps | Provide users with structured workout plans, exercise routines, and instructional videos. Those apps usually offer their users customizable workout schedules, video demonstrations, progress tracking, and goal setting. Those apps monitor and record daily physical activities, such as steps taken, distance traveled, and calories burned. To cover all those purposes, developers use GPS tracking, activity logs, step counters, and integration with wearable devices like Apple watches. |
| Health and Fitness App | Offer a comprehensive approach to health, combining fitness tracking with additional health insights. These apps include activity tracking, sleep monitoring, heart rate tracking, and wellness assessments. |
| Personal Training Apps and AI-Powered Coaching Apps | Provide personalized training programs and virtual coaching to help users achieve their fitness goals. Fitness app developers usually cover here custom workout plans, live coaching sessions, goal tracking, and personalized feedback. Often, artificial intelligence helps to provide personalized training plans, feedback, and coaching to enhance users' fitness routines |
| Diet and Nutrition Apps | Assist users in managing their diet and nutrition to support their fitness and health goals. These apps help with meal planning, calorie counting, nutrition tracking, and recipe suggestions. |
| Yoga Apps | Offer guided yoga sessions and routines to improve flexibility, strength, and mental relaxation. As a user you can get yoga routines for different levels, instructional videos, progress tracking, and breathing exercises. |
Those apps are considered advanced or complex as they generate custom workout plans based on user data and goals. They also provide immediate feedback on exercise form and performance using AI. Advanced functionality helps adjust workout intensity and recommendations based on user progress and feedback and also analyzes user performance data to optimize training and prevent injuries.
Metaverse Health and Fitness Market
The market encompasses the use of virtual and augmented reality technologies to provide health and fitness services and information. This includes a broad spectrum of applications such as virtual personal training, virtual rehabilitation, virtual therapy, and virtual wellness programs.
The Metaverse Health and Fitness market is about to reach a value of US$8.5bn in 2024. The global market is expected to result in a projected market volume of US$56.1bn by 2030. And the United States is the leading contributor to this market, generating the most value of a projected market volume.
Metaverse Health And Fitness Market Size
- 2022
- 5.8
- 2023
- 6.8
- 2024
- 8.5
- 2025
- 11.6
- 2026
- 17.1
- 2027
- 25.6
- 2028
- 36.8
- 2029
- 48
- 2030
- 56.1
Source: Statista
VR health and fitness app offers a transforming experience to engage users with sports and fitness activities. VR technology helps apps create interactive environments that enhance training, competition, and enjoyment.
Virtual Gyms and Sports Arenas: Users train in simulated environments that mimic actual gyms, or outdoor settings.
Interactive Workouts: VR enables users to participate in workouts guided by a virtual trainer.
Metrics: The app gives you a real-time update on user performance metrics, tracking heart rate, calorie expenditure, and movement accuracy, providing instant feedback.
Multiplayer Mode: Users can compete with friends or other players in virtual sports events, races, or fitness challenges.
Progress Monitoring and Rewards: The app features leaderboards and rewards for top performers. Also, users can earn points, unlock achievements, and compete in virtual challenges.
Virtual Coaching: Users receive personalized coaching and feedback from virtual trainers and also get demonstration techniques and correct forms in a 3D environment.
Simulations: The app offers various sports simulations and refining techniques.
Virtual Meetups: Virtual fitness classes or group workouts allow you to connect with others with a passion for sports and similar fitness goals.
NOTE!
VR app development has some hardware requirements, such as VR headsets and controllers, to fully experience the app’s features. Also, integrating VR technology requires a significant investment in development and testing to ensure a smooth and effective user experience.
VR Fitness App Example
The Supernatural VR App is a cutting-edge virtual reality fitness platform that combines beautiful environments with engaging workouts. This app was designed for users seeking a unique and interactive fitness experience, various physical exercises, and virtual exploration. This app leaves users in awe with breathtaking virtual locations, ranging from serene natural landscapes to futuristic cities, enhancing the workout experience with stunning visuals.
Professional trainers guide each workout and offer on-the-spot direction, inspiration, and feedback to ensure participants carry out the exercises effectively. The app also includes guided meditation and relaxation sessions and gives access to recovery tools and techniques designed to improve flexibility, reduce muscle soreness, and enhance overall well-being.
Examples of Leading Fitness Apps in the Market
Fitbit (2007) Users can log their food intake, activities, and weight, allowing them to monitor their progress over time. They can set daily and weekly goals for steps, calories burned, calories consumed, and distance walked. Additionally, the fitness app idea covers features with community page where users can participate in challenges and compete with others.
Nike Training Club (2016) Nike Training Club offers workout options and training plans. Nike created it to offer a comprehensive approach to fitness that combines strength, endurance, and flexibility exercises to aid users in achieving their health and fitness objectives. It provides customizable training plans, video and audio guidance options, and progress tracking.
Apple Fitness+ (2015) The fitness app integrates relevant metrics and HealthKit data, including heart rate, based on the type of exercise performed. For outdoor activities, it provides summaries that include weather conditions at the time of the workout and a map outlining the route taken during the exercise.Strava is an American internet service that tracks physical exercise and includes social networking features. Initially, it focused primarily on tracking outdoor cycling and running activities.
Strava (2009) is an American internet service and workout app that tracks physical exercise and includes social networking features. Initially, it focused primarily on tracking outdoor cycling and running activities.
PUMATRAC (2013) This cutting-edge fitness application is designed to enhance users’ running and tracking experiences. It combines advanced tracking technology with personalized coaching features and aims to support and motivate users to achieve their fitness goals. The app tracks key performance metrics such as heart rate, calories burned, and elevation changes to help you assess your workout effectiveness.
Top Fitness and Sport Apps by Revenue (in million U.S. Dollars)
- MyFitnessPal: Calorie Counter
- 12.25
- Strava: Run, Bike, Hike
- 5.68
- Peloton: Fitness & Workouts
- 5.18
- Lose It! – Calorie Counter
- 4.39
- Fitbit
- 4.18
- Fitbit: Health & Fitness
- 4.12
- JustFit: Lazy Workout & Fit
- 3.75
- YAZIO Calorie Counter & Diet
- 3.74
- WeightWatchers: Weight Health
- 3.41
- BetterMe: Health Coaching
- 3.37
Source: Statista
In January 2024, MyFitnessPal led the fitness apps market, generating over $12 million in in-app revenues. Strava secured the second position, earning approximately $5.68 million in combined revenues from Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. Peloton followed with around $5 million in revenue, while Fitbit, known for its popular wearable fitness and health tracking devices, generated $4.18 million from its brand app and an additional $4.12 million from its Google-powered app.
Functionalities We Advice To Cover
We want to outline some essential features for gym app, workout plan app, and fitness application. Startups choose different features they want to implement to ensure their target audience gets the most benefits from the fitness app.
| User Profiles and Personalization: | Users should have the option to create profiles. This option helps you monitor users' activity, helps them set fitness goals, and receive personalized workout plans based on their preferences and progress. |
| Workout Plans and Tracking: | Offer different workout routines, from weight workouts to yoga kriyas, with performance metrics tracking. Users also can have an option to set and compare their fitness goals, body parameters and preferences. |
| Integration with Wearable Devices: | IoT devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers offer synchronization to provide real-time data and insights. |
| Social Features and Community Engagement: | Social features and community engagement are important options for encouraging users to connect with friends, join fitness challenges, and share achievements, fostering a supportive community around your digital product and attracting fitness influencers. |
| Nutrition Tracking: | It helps log meal recipes and track nutritional intake and eating habits, providing a holistic approach to a healthy lifestyle for your app users. Gamification: Features like badges, rewards, and leaderboards enhance user motivation to achieve goals set and inspire to move the progress forward. |
| Educational Content and Resources: | If your fitness app provides video tutorials, workout videos, articles, tips, and instructions on fitness, nutrition, and overall well-being, users will learn something new. |
| Location-Based Features: | This feature allows the app to map the route taken during workouts and provides detailed summaries for outdoor activities. It displays weather conditions during outdoor exercises to give context to workout performance. |
| Data Security: | This feature ensures that user data is protected against unauthorized access. |
| Free Trial Feature: | It offers users a limited-time free trial period to explore essential features and content within the app. It's up to you to define its duration, such as 7, 14, or 30 days, allowing users to experience the core app functionalities. Implementing automatic enrollment in the trial with minimal user effort is also very convenient, typically requiring only basic sign-up information. You need this data for retargeting and sending notifications as the trial period is about to finish, encouraging users to upgrade to a paid subscription before the trial expires. |
| Payment System Integration: | Any digital product needs to support various payment methods and in-app purchases (such as exclusive content, personalized coaching, or advanced features), providing flexible subscription plans, such as monthly, quarterly, or annual options. Needless to say, all payment transactions should be processed securely and have an automatic renewal option. |
| AI-Powered Recommendation System: | Utilize artificial intelligence to offer real-time feedback, adjust workout plans, and provide personalized recommendations. |
| Virtual Classes and Live Workouts: | Provide access to live or on-demand classes with professional trainers for a dynamic and interactive experience. |
| Holistic Health Integration: | Integrate with mental health and wellness resources, such as meditation guides and stress management tools, to address overall well-being. |
| Gamification: | Features like badges, rewards, and leaderboards enhance user motivation to achieve goals set and inspire to move the progress forward. |
Why Is the Discovery Stage For Your Fitness Application Development Process?
The Discovery Stage lays the groundwork for the whole app development process, ensuring that the final product is relevant and can be commercially successful. The discovery you make as an initial step of your software development project helps pinpoint gaps in the market by analyzing successful fitness apps, competitors, and potential audiences. This overall analysis helps you to define core features based on their importance to users and business goals. It ensures that the most critical functionalities are developed first, aligning the app with user needs and expectations.
Focusing on core features keeps the project on track, avoiding unnecessary complexity and costs. Assessing technical requirements and constraints early on helps identify potential challenges and solutions, reducing the risk of costly setbacks during development. The Discovery Stage includes validating the app concept with potential users and stakeholders and helping with accurate planning and budgeting.
This ensures that resources are allocated effectively and prevents overspending. It also helps with ideas for monetization strategy and bonus app features, adding value, and outlining your app in the app stores. The LaSoft fitness app development team offers three discovery stage plans for their clients, covering vital discovery options for any mobile app development process.
Three Discovery Stage Plans by LaSoft
If you want to ensure that your project is grounded in market realities, user needs, and strategic goals, it’s worth investing in the discovery stage.
What Is MVP In The Fitness App Development Process?
Minimum Viable Product (MVP) refers to a version of the app that includes only the core features necessary to meet users’ primary needs and validate the app’s concept. The fitness app developers design MVP to be functional and valuable but is stripped down to the essentials, allowing developers to launch quickly and efficiently.
Check out our comparison table to learn the difference between the prototype and MVP:
| Aspect | Prototype | MVP |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Validate concepts and design | Validate the product idea and test market demand |
| Development Stage | Early stage, before development | Initial development phase |
| Functionality | Limited or no functionality | Fully functional with essential features |
| Audience | Internal stakeholders, designers, early users | Early adopters, real users |
| Cost and Effort | Low-cost, low-effort | Higher cost and effort than a prototype |
| Feedback | Design and usability feedback | Real user feedback and market validation |
The MVP allows real users to interact with the app, providing valuable feedback on its usability, functionality, and overall appeal. This helps validate whether the app meets their needs and expectations.By releasing an MVP, developers can test the app’s concept and core features in the market before committing to full-scale mobile app development.
Feedback collected from MVP users helps make iterative improvements. This process involves refining features, enhancing user experience, and addressing issues based on users’ monitoring and fitness app usage data. After validating the basic features, developers usually add functionalities based on user needs and market demands.
How Much Does it Cost to Make a Fitness App from Scratch?
The cost to make a fitness app varies based on different key factors, which can help you budget and plan for your app development project.
Scope: Defining the scope is fundamental in budgeting and planning for an app development project. It provides a clear roadmap for the project’s features, timeline, and resource needs, ensuring the development process is efficient and cost-effective.
Basic Features vs. Advanced: The more features you include, such as workout plans, GPS tracking, and social sharing, the higher the development cost. Advanced functionalities like AI-based coaching or integration with wearable devices also increase costs.
| Fitness App Basic Features | Registration Goal Setting Activity Tracking Sleep Tracking Push Notifications Social Media Integration In-app payments Multiple device synchronization |
| Fitness App Advanced Features | All the basic level features + Workout routines In-app Purchases Geo Location Video Tutorials Security Protocols Integrating wearable devices Online consultation |
| Fitness App Complex Functionalities | All basic and medium-level features + Al-driven personal coach Gamification Live streaming Video-on-demand |
Cross-Platform Development: Developing for multiple platforms (iOS and Android) increases costs compared to creating an app for just one. Adding a web-based version of the app can also increase costs.
UI Design and User Experience
Your app needs a high-quality design orwith user-friendly interfaces to engage users. Complex designs and interactive elements raise the cost. Extensive prototyping and usability testing can also add to development expenses.
Dedicated Team Model: The cost can vary due to the location of your development team. Developers from North America or Western Europe charge more than those from Eastern Europe. Check out our guide on Nearshore as an answer to the global IT talent shortage.
Hiring an in-house development team may involve additional costs, such as salaries and benefits. At the same time, outsourcing can offer more flexibility and potentially lower costs but may come with communication and coordination challenges.
Services Integration and Data Security: Integrating third-party services, such as payment gateways, social media platforms, or wearable device APIs, like Apple Watch, can add complexity and cost to the project. Data security measures and compliance with data protection regulations can also impact development costs.
QA and Ongoing Maintenance and Updates: Testing across various devices, operating systems, and use cases ensures app reliability and performance. Regular updates, bug fixes, and feature enhancements are essential for app longevity and can add to the overall cost. This includes server costs, software updates, and user support.
Regulatory and Compliance Requirements: If the app involves health data or integrates with healthcare services, compliance with regulations such as HIPAA (in the U.S.) or GDPR (in Europe) may be required, impacting the cost. Also, before the app launch, you should consider adherence to app store guidelines for submission and approval, which can also affect development and operational costs.
In conclusion, the complexity of the features, the platform choice, the requirements for design and user experience, the location and expertise of the development team, the need for integration, ongoing maintenance, and regulatory compliance affect the cost of developing a fitness app. By carefully considering these factors during the discovery stage, you can better estimate the budget required and make informed decisions throughout the fitness app development process.
LaSoft Case Sh1FT
SH1FT is an online coach portal that offers SH1FT 101 instructor training, and Video Coach Manual through mobile apps. As a business model, the app offers SHIFT and LIFT training materials. Any trainee has an opportunity to pass through the SH1FT Assessment and get the status of a SH1FT graduate.
Any SH1FT Graduate is able to sign up, for £9.99, to officially become SH1FT Squad. Once you are a part of the squad, you get access to branding and will have access to the one-of-a-kind SH1FT App to deliver workouts in any environment. In addition, as part of the community, you will have access to the online SH1FT Coach Portal.
LaSoft Discovery Case Pe4Bespoke
Project overview: The application is designed to provide users with personalized online coaching. Initially, users complete an onboarding questionnaire that covers their sports experience, medical needs, and any restrictions to ensure they receive the most suitable program. The app focuses on active engagement with clients by offering ongoing support and addressing their questions and requests.
Unlike other fitness apps that rely solely on recorded videos, this app differentiates itself by allowing users to maintain direct communication with their coach, ensuring a more interactive and responsive fitness experience.
Why People Consider Using Fitness Apps
Example of Potential User Personas
1. Amanda Danes (Lawyer, amateur)
Age: 32 y.o.
Work: Layer
Education: Master’s degree in Legal
Location: Chicago, USA
Character: Amanda is an attentive and responsible person. That is why she spends a lot of time working overtime to complete planned tasks.
Pain point: Amanda has a pretty busy working schedule and is facing a problem in that she cannot find a Coach who will be able to train her because of her lack of time
Goal: Amanda is looking for a solution where she can easily schedule a workout and have constant access to her Coach.
Key Takeaways After The Market Discovery
- 1. There are a lot of user types with different goals that are searching for an application that would help them reach their goals. Defining those user types and focusing on several to make a product efficient and profitable would be better.
- 2. There is a significant number of similar applications on the market, so it’s essential to determine the benefits and key features of the application that will distinguish the application from others.
- 3. Many people are likelier to work out at home with limited equipment and in their free time. It’s good to have a library of workouts that will cover different types of workouts.
- 4. These days, many people are interested in tracking their health indicators and workout progress with wearable devices, so it’s good to integrate with them.
- 5. Different applications are mostly aimed at amateur athletes who want to work at home and give them access to a workout library.
Summary
Fitness apps are increasingly popular due to health-conscious trends. To succeed, an app should offer personalized features like workout plans, progress tracking, and community engagement. Integration with wearables and innovations like AI and VR enhance the user experience. At the very beginning of your development process, it’s important to validate your app idea with experts who can make a discovery in the market and advise you on a dedicated team model you need, competitors in the market, the cost of your app, and its functionality.
Identifying your audience—whether beginners, athletes, or wellness enthusiasts—is key. Essential app features include user profiles, workout tracking, social interaction, and gamification. Starting with an MVP helps validate the concept while focusing on usability and cost-effective development ensures success in the competitive market.
