A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Equinox’s $40,000-a-year membership has a waiting list of more than 1,000 people, as demand for luxury health and wellness programs soars, according to the company’s chairman.
The high-end fitness chain’s “Optimize by Equinox,” launched in 2024, is one of the most expensive gym memberships in the world and includes everything from personal training and nutrition to sleep coaching, massage therapy and a “health concierge.”
Harvey Spevak, Equinox’s executive chairman, told Inside Wealth that the program has seen remarkable demand and highlights the “insatiable” demand by the wealthy for longevity and wellness products.
“Health is the new luxury,” Spevak said. “The number one thing in the experience economy, besides travel, that the consumer wants, is, ‘How do I live a high-performance lifestyle?'”
The Optimize program is all part of Equinox’s strategy to become the leading luxury brand in the fast-growing business of health and wellness.
The global wellness market is expected to reach nearly $10 trillion by 2030, up from $6.8 trillion in 2024, according to estimates from the Global Wellness Institute. With the population of millionaires and billionaires aging, and an explosion in companies and products promising miracle cures, the wealthy are driving much of the spending.
Equinox has grown beyond fitness clubs to expand into hotels and hospitality, personalized performance programs, IV centers, blood-testing collaborations and more.
The company opened its first hotel in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards neighborhood in 2019 and is about to open a second in Saudi Arabia. Spevak said Equinox will likely have close to a dozen hotels around the world – including the Middle East, Caribbean and U.S. – within the next seven to eight years.
Equinox currently has 115 fitness clubs and has plans for 40 more – including locations in Nashville; Toronto; Charlotte, North Carolina; and South Florida. Despite being the largest retailer in New York by square feet, it’s continuing to add more in its home city, Spevak said.
The Optimize membership leverages Function Health, a lab test company, to provide clients with tests for 100 biomarkers twice a year, which could then serve as guides for a fitness, nutrition and lifestyle program tailored to each client.
Spevak said the program has rolled out in Los Angeles and Dallas and will eventually launch in New York.
The company also recently created a personalized program for women called EQX ARC. Using diagnostics, wearables and specialized coaching, the program is designed around the different stages of a woman’s life and health journey, and already has its own wait list.
Spevak said the company’s IV drip lounge at the Equinox Hotel in Hudson Yards — its only drip lounge thus far — has already become “a seven figure business.”
Equinox Hudson Yards is the brand’s truest realization of its holistic lifestyle promise, giving members access to signature group fitness classes, a 25-yard indoor salt water pool, hot and cold plunge pools and a 15,000 square foot outdoor leisure pool and sundeck. The Equinox at Hudson Yards footprint offers ample opportunity for training, working, regenerating, socializing, community building, eating and more.
Matthew Peyton | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
While Equinox is private and doesn’t disclose financials, Spevak said 2025 was a “record year” for the company and he expects 2026 “to be even bigger.” He said other high-end consumer companies are reaching out to Equinox to partner on health and wellness.
“When you think about the economy moving from a product economy to an experience economy, a lot of big consumer companies are saying, ‘Well, how do I continue to serve my consumer and health and wellness, and who do I talk to?'”
“There’s truly only one brand that has the authority and the brand equity,” he said.
