Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify
Despite being around for nearly 100 years, pilates has never been so popular.
As previously reported by Glossy, search volume for “pilates” was at an all-time high in January 2004, with small yearly spikes each January since. It wasn’t until 2022 that search numbers topped those 2004 numbers before hitting an all-time in January 2023 and then again in January of 2024.
However, searches have already topped 2024 numbers during the first week of the new year, according to Google Trends. The highest search numbers are coming from Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and the U.K. The U.S. ranks ninth for searches so far this year.
Pilates is a low-impact strength and mobility training practice designed by Joseph Pilates in 1920s Europe to rehab injured WWI veterans. He developed its tenets on a machine crafted from bed springs and wooden boards, which later inspired the “reformer,” a machine with straps and springs that’s been evolved many times over for pilates practices today. Pilates is also taught on a yoga mat using hand weights, stretchy bands and other props.
Partially fueled by celebrity devotees like Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner, and propelled by viral fashion trends like 2024’s #PinkPilatesPrincess, the exercise modality shows no signs of slowing in 2025.
It’s something that Australia-based Emma Stallworthy is betting on with 4-year-old pilates rental and digital class subscription company Your Reformer. The company is well-known in Australia and New Zealand markets and, as of September, has officially expanded to the U.S. with its signature $39-per-week in-home reformer bed rentals. They come with more than 800 high-quality training videos on a corresponding app. The company also sells its reformer beds to consumers as well as studios, gyms and hotels.
Your Reformer is fully bootstrapped by Stallworthy and her husband and co-founder Ben. The duo started as gym owners in Melbourne. After renting out their gyms’ reformer beds during the pandemic, thy sold their gyms and doubled down on this new business. Emma is also a pilates instructor.
The company has nearly no competition for reformer rentals. Leaders in the space selling or financing equipment include Stott Pilates, Balanced Body and Merrithew. Your Reformer beds sell for around $2,500, while the reformer bed prices of the aforementioned manufacturers start at around $5,000.
Outside of the rentals, the company’s reformer sales and corresponding digital classes mak up a unique business model that is best compared to Peloton stationary bikes. Peloton gained massive popularity during the pandemic but later experienced financial distress that led to cuts and the replacement of its CEO in 2024, as reported by CFO Drive.
Stallworthy joined the Glossy Beauty Podcast to discuss the company’s growth and expansion to the U.S. in September, the secret sauce behind growing its digital class subscriptions, its beauty and wellness partnerships, and the overall rise of autonomous pilates classes.
On the rise of digital instructors in a class setting
“From a commercial perspective, what’s exciting is we’ve got studios that are partnering with us and using our products all over the world. We’ve just signed off in Morocco, for example — we’ve got a studio that’s purchasing reformers there. Most of them — I would say 50-60% of them — are doing digital [classes], as well. So they’re putting in kiosks [so students can take autonomous classes on a machine without an in-person instructor].”
On expanding to the US
“What we’ve learned is it’s so much more complex to get a business set up and run over in the states than it is here in Australia. I mean, every state has its own differences and nuances, so to be able to be a country-wide offering? There have been lots of learnings. One of my little mottos is, ‘Learn as you play.’ We’re all really openminded to make sure we connect with the right people. We’ve had some amazing advisors along the way because we certainly know that we don’t know it all.”
On growing reformer rentals
“A lot of businesses don’t do [fitness equipment] rentals because there is a capital investment upfront — obviously, we’ve got to buy those reformers. The reformers that we have on our rental fleet are commercial-grade reformers because we want them to stand the test of time. They’ve got to go in and out of trucks and different homes and we don’t want them falling apart. [We selected] $39 per week [as our rate because] we wanted to price it as about the price of one class per week. A [typical] tenure for rental for us in Australia is about eight months.”
On maintaining subscriptions
“You’ve got to look for constant feedback. Feedback is your gold nugget. So whether it’s surveys, constantly looking at the analytics to see where and why people drop off, or keeping content fresh, it needs to be an investment. You can’t just create something and then hope that people stay forever. How are you engaging them?”
