We (Kelli and Daniel) started Fitness Blender over 11 years ago because we were both passionate about health and fitness, and we wanted to reach more people. In an industry chock full of gimmicks, unhealthy fads, questionable motivational tactics, and doctored images, we felt that people needed, and deserved, better.
Over the last 11 years, we have published over 600 (and counting) free workout videos, as well as hundreds of recipes and healthy living articles, and built a free, custom website full of robust features and functionality.
Both of us feel as passionate about Fitness Blender today as we did on day 1, and neither of us are going anywhere. We have plans to continue designing and filming new workouts and writing new content - both free and for FB Plus. Our ethos and goals with Fitness Blender are the same now as they were when we started—to make quality, unbiased health and fitness information as accessible as possible. For many years, it was just the two of us at Fitness Blender, but over the past few years we have grown our team (mostly behind-the-scenes), so that we can offer more. The growth of our team is key to our sustainability and ability to continue to do what we love, as well as our capacity to offer even more workout videos, health and fitness content, and website features.
We love the small, but dedicated team that we have built, each sharing our passion and ethos for helping people and making “health and fitness attainable, affordable, and approachable.” As a side note, it has been really fun for the two of us to finally be able to share the excitement of our work and ideas with a team. Meet our whole team on our new team page
Sustainability and Support
This next step for Fitness Blender is also about sustainability and personal health. For the first 8 of 11 years of Fitness Blender’s existence, the two of us were doing everything - all of the work, and all of the positions. We love our jobs, but we also work very long hours and need to take care of ourselves, our employees, and our futures. The work demands with just the two of us had become way too much; it was not healthy, and we ran ourselves into the ground both mentally and physically. Who would have thought that years of creating content and running a business and largely free website and content for millions of people a month would be too much for just two people? All jokes aside, years later, we are still getting back on our feet, and finding more sustainable ways to continue to do the work we love. On a personal note, we hope that the growth of our team relieves some pressure, creates some space for continued healing, creativity, new ideas, and the ability to keep bringing passion to our work.
Today, we have a team of very talented people who care about Fitness Blender and our Community as much as we do. We all share the goal of offering even more high-quality content - from doctors of physical therapy, registered dietitians, recipe writers, certified personal trainers, and mental health professionals - all of whom contribute to both free and Plus content. We are so grateful for our small (but amazing) team that handles customer service, web development, graphic and web design, social media, user experience, business operations, and so much more. We honestly don’t know how we did this without them previously. Each member of our team wears multiple hats (happily), and we’re so grateful for each and every one of them.
Free Versus Paid Content
The online fitness industry has changed a great deal since we started over a decade ago. YouTube, for example, which allowed us to begin providing free content, is no longer a viable or sustainable option to support our company’s free content, particularly not for content from other professionals (which we pay for).
We have thought long and hard about how we can continue to provide free and/or low-cost options for everyone, and we’re doing what we can to ensure that we can keep doing what we’re doing, providing free and FB Plus options. The bottom line is that it is expensive to run Fitness Blender; website development, hosting and security, filming and post-production, lighting, and computer equipment and software, legal and accounting services, etc. Put simply, as we have continued to grow, for which we are very grateful, it has become more and more expensive to run Fitness Blender.
While expenses have risen, our ability to earn revenue from our free content on YouTube has dropped significantly—due to ever-changing revenue share, aggressive ad placement, and the growing use of ad-blockers. To address these changes in the online fitness space, many of our competitors engage in aggressive advertising and marketing campaigns, take paid sponsorships, endorse products and/or services, sell information on the people who use their sites, promote or sell supplements, and otherwise earn money on cheap gimmicks or fads. Unfortunately, this has become the backbone of revenue for many (if not most) in our industry. As you’ve heard us say time and time again, the only thing we endorse is eating unprocessed, whole foods, and working out for a strong, healthy body. As a business, we believe good things happen when you put people before profit.
Instead of unethical practices or shortcuts, the content and features that we put forward are only possible through the FB Family’s support for Fitness Blender, whether through the purchase of Workout Programs, subscriptions to FB Plus, views (without ad-blockers) of our free content, or simply by telling others about us (since we don’t advertise). However you support Fitness Blender, we truly appreciate it, as do the millions of users around the world who cannot afford paid content. You are, quite literally, paying it forward and helping us continue to provide free content and site functionality.
Long-Term Goals
Ultimately, our long-term goal is to be able to provide a portion of our other creators’ workout videos for free, not unlike we do now with a split between our free and Plus workouts. We don’t have a set timeline for this, and it will depend on many variables, but this is our hope and all of us behind the scenes are working hard and have a constant eye on how to continue to be as accessible as possible.
We have always felt that honesty and transparency is the best way forward, and we hope that this helps you understand where we’re coming from, what our goals are, and what we’re doing next. We are incredibly grateful for the position we are in and for the work that we get to do. We want to continue this work for many years to come, and we hope that you will be here with us along the way.
To be clear—everything that has ever been free is staying free, and we will continue to create all kinds of new free content. We are doing our best to provide the highest-quality content for the largest number of people, and we are excited about the future. We are thrilled to be able to expand the diversity in training style, intensity, and type of workouts that we offer, as well as a wealth of other physical and mental health content, written by experts, who will also engage with you in a variety of ways.
Thanks to each of you for working out with us, for sharing Fitness Blender with your friends and family, and for generally being a part of this wild ride. We are forever grateful. We are also always open to constructive feedback, and we are constantly searching for ways to make Fitness Blender better for everyone, paying or not. Thank you for being a part of Fitness Blender, and a part of this community.