How much does a new member cost with Facebook and Instagram ads?

Every month, you pour money into your Facebook and Instagram ads. The real question isn't how much you spent. It's how much each new member cost you. That single number tells you whether your ads are paying off or not. And working it out is far simpler than you'd think.

The number Meta never shows you

Meta's ads manager buries you under metrics: impressions, reach, clicks, "leads." None of them answers your real question.

Meta might proudly announce "40 leads at 6 €." But if only 4 of them actually signed up, your real cost isn't 6 €. It's 60 € per member.

The cost per member finally connects the money you spend to what truly matters: people who walk through your door and pay.

The formula, in one line

Le calcul

Cost per member = ad spend ÷ number of new members

That's it. No ten-column spreadsheet, no training course.

Exemple concret

Last month, at your gym:

You spent 800 € on Meta ads.
Those ads generated 50 leads (forms, messages, calls).
Out of those 50, 10 signed up for a membership.

So your cost per member is 800 ÷ 10 = 80 €.

Is eighty euros good or bad? On its own, that number means nothing. It only makes sense when you compare it to what a member is worth to you.

The other half of the equation

Paying 80 € to win a member who brings in 40 € and quits after a month means losing money. Paying 80 € for a member who stays a year is a fantastic deal.

To settle the question, work out what a member is worth over their entire time with you.

Le calcul

Member value = monthly membership × average number of months they stay

Let's run the numbers

Your membership is 39 €/month and a member stays 12 months on average.

Value of a member: 39 × 12 = 468 €
Cost to acquire them: 80 €

You spend 80 € to earn 468 €. Every euro of ad spend brings back nearly six.

What cost should you aim for?

There's no magic figure. A premium downtown club and a neighbourhood studio don't run on the same economics. But one simple rule holds almost every time:

As long as your cost per member stays under 25 to 30 % of their lifetime value, you're making money.

With a lifetime value of 468 €, you can afford to pay up to 120 or 140 € to acquire a member and still stay comfortably profitable. Plenty of owners panic over an 8 € "cost per lead" when they could happily pay far more for real members.

The most expensive mistake

Never confuse a lead with a member. A lead is a filled-in form. A member is someone who pays. Between the two sits your conversion rate, and that's often where the money leaks away.

Take the example again: 50 leads, 10 members, so 20 % conversion. If you push that rate to 30 % (15 members for the same budget), your cost per member drops from 80 € to 53 €. Without spending an extra euro.

How to track this number without spending your evenings on it

In theory, you have to cross-reference three sources: Meta spend, the number of leads, and the number of sign-ups at the gym. In practice, almost nobody does it, because it's slow and you never know which ad brought in which member.

That's exactly the job AdCoach does for you: it connects your Meta accounts, tracks your leads, and calculates your cost per member campaign by campaign. At a glance, you can see which ad brings in a member for 11 € and which one costs you 90.

À retenir

The cost per lead means nothing on its own. The cost per member is the real arbiter.
Always compare it to a member's lifetime value: aim for under 25 to 30 % of that value.
The most profitable lever is often your conversion rate, not your budget.
Track this number by campaign, or you'll keep funding ads that don't fill the gym, blind.

Until you measure your cost per member, you're flying your ads on gut feeling. And on gut feeling, you fund the wrong campaigns for far too long.