Many employers give staff a monthly or yearly wellness allowance they can spend at gyms, studios, and on personal training, at your full price. To collect it, you mostly need clean receipts, a card processor that codes you as a fitness business, and packages sized to the allowance.
There’s no network to join, no application, and no fee. For premium gyms and personal trainers, this is often the cleanest outside money available.
What a wellness allowance is
Also called a lifestyle spending account or wellness stipend, it’s taxable money an employer sets aside for employees to spend on their health. It’s not an HSA or FSA. Employees usually spend it through a company card or submit receipts for reimbursement. Common providers include Benepass, Forma, Compt, ThrivePass, Fringe, and Espresa.
Eligible expenses commonly include gym memberships, personal training, yoga, Pilates, spin, recovery, and massage.
How much money is involved
According to Benepass 2026 data, median yearly funding was about $1,200 per employee at companies with 300 or fewer employees.
Compt reports that 34% of its customers offer wellness stipends.
How the money reaches you
Employers fund these benefits in three ways, as Benepass describes them:
- Reimbursement. The employee pays you, submits your receipt, and the employer pays them back.
- Stipend or card. The employee pays you with a company card or a card linked to their allowance.
- Subsidy. The employer pays part of the cost up front, often through a fitness platform. If that platform is Wellhub or similar, you’re back to network rates.
In the first two, you’re paid your normal price by the member. Your job is to make that easy.
Five things to set up
- Itemized receipts. Business name, date, service, and amount, emailed automatically every month. Reimbursement-first providers like Compt approve claims from these.
- Card coding. Card-first providers like Benepass and Forma approve or decline purchases by merchant category. Confirm your card processor classifies you as a fitness business.
- Allowance-sized packages. For example, a $100 monthly package with membership and one training session, or a $200 two-session training package.
- One intake question. “Does your employer give you a wellness allowance?” It tells you which local employers to target and which members can afford more.
- Say it out loud. “Use your wellness allowance here” on your website, in ads, and on a one-page flyer for local HR departments.
Why this matters most for personal trainers
Most insurance and corporate networks pay for basic gym access, not 1:1 sessions. Wellness allowances commonly cover personal training at your full rate. If you run a training-focused gym, start here before any network.
The short answer
Wellness allowances may be the easiest outside money a gym can collect. Nobody has to approve you. Make receipts clean, check your card coding, price a package to fit a $100 or $200 allowance, and ask every new client whether they have one.