Running a fitness brand with a video library hosted on Vimeo and membership managed in a separate tool -- so there is no way to restrict content by subscription tier without manual intervention?
Running a live class platform where the booking, streaming, and payment are in three different tools that members have to navigate separately?
Online Fitness Platform Development
Custom online fitness platforms for fitness brands and gyms that need on-demand video, live classes, and membership billing in one place -- not split across Vimeo, a membership plugin, and a separate booking tool.
RaftLabs builds platforms where content access is controlled by membership tier automatically, members book and watch classes in the same place, and trainers manage their own schedules without admin overhead.
On-demand video library with content gating by membership tier
Live class streaming with booking and capacity management
Subscription and pay-per-class billing with trial support
Trainer profiles with scheduling and direct booking
RaftLabs builds custom online fitness platforms for fitness brands, gyms, and independent trainers moving their offering online. We develop on-demand video libraries with content gating by membership tier, live class streaming with booking and capacity management, subscription and pay-per-class billing, trainer profiles with scheduling, member progress tracking, and community features -- all in one platform you own.
100+Software products shipped
·FixedCost delivery
·10-14Week delivery cycles
·24+Industries served
Stop stitching tools together and build a platform you own
Fitness businesses that grow online usually start by combining existing tools. A Vimeo account for video. A Stripe or PayPal link for payments. A Calendly or Acuity for bookings. A Facebook Group for community. Each tool works on its own. The problem is that nothing connects. A member who pays gets access manually. Content restrictions break when someone's plan lapses. New members don't know where to start because the experience is split across four different products.
A custom online fitness platform puts all of it in one system. Members sign up, choose a plan, and land in a dashboard with their content, their class schedule, and their trainer -- no redirects to other tools. Content access is enforced automatically by the platform so a member on a basic plan cannot see premium content without an upgrade. Trainers see their class bookings, manage their availability, and connect with members in the same place they teach.
What we build
On-demand video library and content management
A structured video library organized by category, trainer, difficulty level, or program. Content is gated by membership tier so basic members see a subset of your library and premium members see everything -- enforced automatically, not manually. Videos are delivered via CDN with adaptive bitrate streaming so playback quality adjusts to the member's connection. Coaches and admins upload, organize, and publish content through a back-end dashboard without touching code. Watch history and completion tracking lets members pick up where they left off and lets you see which content gets used.
Live class streaming and booking
Members browse a live class schedule, book a spot, and join the stream from inside the platform. Capacity limits per class with waitlist management when classes fill. Automated reminders sent before class start. The streaming layer connects to your chosen infrastructure -- Mux, Daily, Agora, or a similar provider -- so you are not hosting the stream yourself. Trainers start the stream from a simple dashboard. Recordings are saved and published automatically to the on-demand library after the class ends, or held for review before going live.
Subscription and membership billing
Monthly and annual subscription plans with free trial support and plan upgrade or downgrade flows. Pay-per-class purchasing for members who don't want a subscription. Stripe handles payment processing with the platform managing plan access, renewal dates, and failed payment recovery automatically. Members manage their own billing from a self-service account page so you are not processing cancellations or upgrades manually. Discount codes and referral support built in. Revenue reporting by plan, period, and trainer for the business owner.
Trainer profiles and scheduling
Individual trainer profiles with bio, specialties, class schedule, and member reviews. Trainers set their own availability and the platform prevents double booking. Members can browse trainers and book directly with a specific trainer or simply join any available class. Multi-trainer platforms give each trainer access to their own class schedule, member list, and earnings report while the platform owner sees everything across all trainers. Trainer payouts calculated from class attendance or subscription revenue splits, depending on your business model.
Member progress and engagement tracking
Members log workouts, track body metrics, and see their activity history. Streak and milestone tracking to drive consistency. Coaches see member activity data and can send check-ins to members who haven't logged in recently. Platform-level reporting shows which members are active, which are at risk of churning, and which classes drive the most engagement. For platforms with structured programs, progress is tracked against the program schedule so coaches and members both see how far along they are.
Community and social features
Discussion forums organized by topic or class. Challenges with leaderboards that run for a set period and reward member participation. Members post progress updates and comment on each other's activity. Direct messaging between members and trainers. Group channels for specific programs or membership tiers. Community features are optional and can be added to an existing platform -- the core video and billing layer does not depend on them. For fitness brands where community is a key retention driver, we scope the social layer as a first-class feature rather than an add-on.
Frequently asked questions
Video files are stored in cloud object storage, then processed through a video encoding pipeline that produces multiple quality levels for adaptive bitrate streaming. A CDN sits in front of the storage layer so video is delivered from a server close to the member, not from a single origin. This setup means playback quality adjusts automatically to the member's connection speed and videos load fast regardless of where members are located. We typically use Mux or Cloudflare Stream for the encoding and delivery layer. Storage costs scale with the size of your library. We size the expected storage and CDN cost during scoping so you know what the ongoing infrastructure cost will be.
An on-demand platform stores pre-recorded content that members watch at any time. A live streaming platform lets trainers broadcast in real time and members join at a scheduled time. The two require different infrastructure -- on-demand is largely a storage and CDN problem, live streaming is a real-time media routing problem with lower tolerance for latency. Most fitness platforms benefit from having both: live classes drive community and real-time engagement, on-demand content fills the gap for members who can't attend live. Building both from the start is more efficient than adding live streaming to an on-demand platform later, because the class recording and library publish workflow can be designed together.
Yes. Challenges run for a set period -- a week, a month, a program duration -- and track a specific metric: classes attended, workouts logged, miles run, or a custom goal. A leaderboard ranks participants on that metric and updates as members log activity. Challenges can be open to all members or restricted to a specific membership tier or program. Leaderboards are a strong retention tool on fitness platforms because they create accountability without requiring trainer involvement after setup. We scope challenges and leaderboards as a feature module -- they can be included in the initial build or added after launch.
A focused platform covering video delivery with content gating, subscription billing, and basic member accounts -- without live streaming or community features -- typically runs $20,000--$50,000. A full platform with live class streaming, trainer profiles and scheduling, member progress tracking, and community features runs $40,000--$100,000. The range depends on the number of trainers, the size of the video library at launch, whether you need mobile apps alongside the web platform, and how complex the billing model is. We scope the project before any work begins and give you a fixed cost. See our custom software development page for how we structure the delivery.
Tell us what you are selling today, which tools you are replacing, and where the member experience breaks down. We will scope the build and give you a fixed cost.
