The private members club business model: where the money actually comes from

The private members club business model sells recurring access to a place and its people, then earns again on what members spend inside. Soho House & Co’s fiscal 2024 accounts split $1,204 million of revenue into 35% membership, 40% in-house spending and 25% other. And a 1,000-member club losing 10% of members a year must recruit about 8 a month just to stand still.

• Five revenue lines: joining fees, annual dues, food and drink, events and private hire, and bedrooms where the club has them.
• The one large public benchmark: the Soho House & Co 10-K for fiscal 2024: 35% membership, 40% in-house (food and beverage, accommodation, spa), 25% other. The company filed to deregister with the SEC in February 2026, so no later annual report is public.
• Dues carry the margin: in our illustrative 1,000-member London model, dues are 46% of revenue but about 70% of contribution.
• Joining fees are small: in a club that is not growing, they are about 1% of revenue. Soho House stopped charging new members its one-time registration fee from 4 April 2022, and requires them instead to buy House Introduction Credits that are spent in its Houses.
• The churn-replacement number: new members needed a month to stand still = members × annual attrition ÷ 12.

What is the private members club business model?

A private members club charges a recurring fee for the right to use a place that non-members cannot. Its value rises with who else is admitted. That is the boundary with its neighbours. A gym sells equipment and classes to anyone who pays. A hotel sells rooms to anyone with a card. A peer network sells the other members, but usually has no building. The club sells both the building and the other members, and it controls supply by application.

In the UK the model comes in two legal shapes, and licensing law separates them. The Home Office’s section 182 guidance describes proprietary clubs as “run commercially by individuals, partnerships or businesses for profit”, needing a premises licence. Members’ clubs, owned by their members, can hold a club premises certificate. This page describes the proprietary shape.

A private members club is a subscription business with a hospitality business inside it, and the subscription is the part that pays for the building.

Where does a private members club’s revenue actually come from?

Only one large operator publishes audited figures in this format. Soho House & Co reported fiscal 2024 revenue of $1,204 million: $418 million membership, $482 million in-house and $304 million other. “Other” covers businesses outside the Houses, such as Soho Home retail, Soho Works and stand-alone restaurants. A single-site club has no equivalent line, so the illustrative model below leaves it out.

The table is our revenue-mix model for a single London club of 1,000 members. Every input is a labelled assumption, not measured data. The £2,000 average subscription sits between the £1,500 The Groucho Club and The Conduit publish and the £2,250 Home House publishes, as read on 29 September 2026.

Food and drink looks like a third of the business, but on these margins it contributes about a seventh of the money left after direct costs. Dues contribute more than two-thirds. Swap in your own margins and the ranking can change, but in most models it will not. Every member who leaves takes their subscription, which is the highest-margin line, and their spend with them.

Why are joining fees such a small part of club revenue?

Because a club only collects them when someone new joins. In the model above, a club replacing 10% attrition collects £50,000 of joining fees, 1.1% of revenue. It collects more only while it is growing. Published London joining fees are also small next to the subscription. Home House, for example, lists a £499 joining fee against a £2,250 subscription on its membership page.

Soho House has restructured its fee. Its 10-K says “the one-time registration fee is no longer applicable to new members admitted from April 4, 2022”. New members are instead required to buy House Introduction Credits, redeemable on food, drink and bedroom stays in the Houses and expiring after three months. Registration fees paid before then were amortised over 20 years in its accounts. The same filing describes the company’s membership acquisition cost as low, “since we do not conduct any paid marketing for Soho House”. It reported more than 112,000 applicants on its waitlist at 29 December 2024.

A joining fee is a growth receipt, not a business line: a club that is not recruiting is not earning it.

How many new members does a club need each month just to stand still?

The churn-replacement number is members × annual attrition ÷ 12. No credible public attrition figure exists for UK social clubs. Soho House describes its retention only as “very high” and gives no percentage. The closest published benchmark is American. The CMAA 2022 Finance and Operations Report (2021 data, 440 clubs) gives median attrition of 3.3% for city and athletic clubs, and CMAA’s previous report (2020 data) gave 5.7%. The bands below (5%, 10%, 15%) are assumptions, set above those figures because a young proprietary club with no waiting list usually loses members faster than an established one.

Convert that into enquiries before you believe it. If 1 in 4 qualified enquiries joins (an assumption), the 1,000-member club at 10% attrition needs about 33 qualified enquiries a month to stay the same size. Every enquiry it answers late comes out of that 33.

Each leaver in the model takes £2,000 of dues and £1,500 of food and drink spend with them. Losing 100 members costs £350,000 of revenue a year, and about £217,500 of contribution on the table’s margins. That is four times the joining-fee income that replacing them brings in.

How do private members clubs fill places without paid advertising?

Mostly through members. Soho House’s 10-K attributes awareness of its memberships to members spreading it “organically through word of mouth”. At smaller clubs, the usual mechanisms are nomination by existing members, a membership committee, founder-hosted events and a waitlist that is actually worked.

Three things decide whether that is enough:

1. Waitlist depth. A club with more applicants than places can stay selective and spend nothing on acquisition. A club without one is replacing the churn number above every month from its own network.
2. Speed of response. A nominated or referred candidate is a warm enquiry that cools fast. Why the first hour matters is in our speed-to-lead conversion benchmarks.
3. The former-member list. People who resigned for reasons that have since changed, such as moving city or a new job, are the cheapest candidates a club has. The method is in our guide to running a database reactivation campaign. Consent rules apply. The ICO’s PECR guidance limits marketing emails and texts to individuals who have given specific consent, or previous customers under the soft opt-in.

When does the members club model stop working?

Use these tests against your own numbers. The thresholds come from the arithmetic above, not from an industry dataset.

• Dues cover less than the building. If annual dues do not cover rent, rates and core staff, the club is a restaurant with a door policy. Every quiet month in food and drink then threatens the lease.
• The churn number exceeds what your network can supply. When the monthly replacement number is higher than the qualified enquiries you reliably get, the club shrinks. It shrinks slowly enough that it is noticed late.
• Members exceed the room. Selling more places than the building can serve on a peak evening raises this year’s dues and next year’s attrition.
• Joining fees are funding operations. A plan that needs joining-fee income to pay running costs only works while the club grows.

Running replacement recruitment in-house costs hours more than money. Take 33 qualified enquiries a month at six contact attempts of five minutes each, plus a 30-minute tour or call for each: about 33 hours a month, much of it in evenings. How other operators handle it, and what they charge for it, is covered on our business clubs and masterminds page and in the business club lead generation agency comparison.

Frequently asked questions

How do private members clubs make money?

From annual dues, joining fees, food and drink, events and private hire, and bedrooms. In Soho House & Co’s fiscal 2024 10-K, $418 million (35%) of $1,204 million revenue was membership, $482 million (40%) in-house spending and $304 million (25%) other businesses. Dues usually carry most of the margin.

What is a members club?

A members club is a venue that only members and their guests can use, with membership granted by application and paid for by subscription. In the UK, licensing law separates clubs owned by their members from proprietary clubs run for profit. The Home Office section 182 guidance says proprietary clubs need a premises licence.

How many members does Soho House have?

Soho House & Co reported approximately 271,500 members at 29 December 2024, including approximately 212,400 Soho House members, across 45 Soho Houses, with a waitlist of more than 112,000 applicants. Its figures include active, frozen and non-paying members.

What is a good member retention rate for a club?

No public UK figure exists for social clubs. The CMAA 2022 Finance and Operations Report, based on 2021 data from 440 clubs, gives median member attrition of 3.3% for city and athletic clubs and 4.3% for golf and country clubs. That implies retention of roughly 96% to 97% at the established clubs CMAA surveyed.

What should go in a private members club business plan?

Include the revenue mix by line with margins, the dues needed to cover rent, rates and core staff, and an attrition assumption. From that, add the monthly churn-replacement number, and the qualified enquiries a month needed to meet it. If joining fees are needed to pay running costs, the plan depends on growth.