The founders, Chuck Runyon, Dave Mortensen, and Jeff Klinger initially met in the early 1990s while employed at a fitness club in
St. Paul, Minnesota. Their collaboration began in 1995 when they jointly acquired and operated the Southview Athletic Club for seven years. Under their ownership, the club grew in membership, growing from 500 to 4,000 members. It was sold in 2001. During their ownership of Southview Athletic Club, they developed the idea for Anytime Fitness after surveying the expectations that long-term members of large gyms had for their fitness clubs. Runyon, Mortensen, and Klinger founded Anytime Fitness in 2002. Eric Keller, a former employee of Southview Athletic Club, was interested in their business concept and agreed to become the first franchise owner of Anytime Fitness. By October 2009, the company had more than 1,200 clubs with around 800,000 members. In December 2009, Jeff Klinger, who had been the company's
CEO since inception, sold his shares in Anytime Fitness and stepped down from his role as CEO. Chuck Runyon took over the role as CEO upon his departure. In 2010, the company announced plans to open clubs in
Japan,
Belgium, the
Netherlands,
Luxembourg, the
United Kingdom, and
Ireland. By 2010, it had already expanded into
Mexico and
India. In 2011, Anytime Fitness expanded into
Qatar,
Poland and the Netherlands. By 2012, the franchise had opened locations in
Australia,
Canada,
Grand Cayman, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands,
Poland,
New Zealand,
Qatar, and the United Kingdom. Waxing The City, a small chain of waxing and hair removal salons, was the first to be bought by the new group in November 2012. Runyon and Mortensen converted Waxing The City into a franchise model similar to Anytime Fitness.
Roark Capital Group acquired a large minority share in Anytime Fitness in March 2014. Mortensen and Runyon remained the company's primary holders and continued to run the business. On October 12, 2015, Anytime Fitness opened its 3,000th club, in
Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. The company moved its headquarters from Hastings to
Woodbury, Minnesota, in April 2016. The new location contained 80,000 square feet of office space with a tattoo parlor and running trail. In June 2017, Anytime Fitness became the first U.S.-based fitness chain to be granted a franchising license in
China. The company entered into a
master franchise agreement with Maurice Levine, who had previously opened franchise locations in
Singapore,
Malaysia, and the
Philippines. In 2019 the Anytime Fitness franchise started to provide passengers on the
cruise ship Magellan Explorer with a gym to exercise traveling to and from
Antarctica. In 2018, Anytime Fitness had over 4,200 gym locations and 3 million clients in more than 32 countries. The number of gyms increased to over 5,200 by 2023. In late February 2024, it was announced that the parent company of Anytime Fitness, Self Esteem Brands, would be merging with
Orangetheory Fitness to form a fitness franchise chain that has more than 7,000 locations (over 1,500 from Orangetheory, 5,500 Self Esteem Brands mostly consisting of Anytime gyms) with combined sales of $3.5 billion. The merger was completed in April 2024. The parent company formed by the merger was named Purpose Brands. ==Operations and amenities==