Does Tona Offer Solutions for Gyms and Personal Trainers?

Updated

Yes. Tona positions itself as a fitness app for both gym users and gyms, and it explicitly offers a business solution aimed at gym owners and personal trainers. The stated goal of that offering is boosting member engagement and retention. According to the site, the platform is trusted by over fifty gyms, PTs, and studios.

What Tona Provides for Gyms and PTs

The business-facing pitch is built around the same core features that individual users get, repurposed to keep members active and connected to a facility.

Engagement through competition

Tona's central claim is that competition drives exercise. The site cites a 2016 University of Pennsylvania study stating that competition has been scientifically proven to make people exercise up to 90% more. For a gym or PT, that translates into a retention argument: members who compete with each other have a reason to keep showing up.

The competitive layer includes:

  • Leaderboards for every level
  • Challenges against friends and gym buddies
  • Matching against other users of a similar competitive level

Community and social connection

Tona describes itself as "the social network for gym goers." Members can connect with gym buddies, and workout plans can be built from scratch or from templates and then shared with friends or strangers. For a gym, this creates an in-app community layer that exists alongside the physical facility.

Progress tracking members can see

Members can compare daily, weekly, and monthly achievements, view all-time stats, and filter by the exercises and body areas they want to improve. Visible progress is one of the more concrete retention tools a gym can offer, since it gives members evidence that their membership is producing results.

What the App Records

The recording side matters for PTs in particular, because it determines how much detail a trainer can review with a client. Tona supports:

  • Any workout type, any exercise, anywhere
  • Rep-by-rep and set-by-set logging
  • Calories, load, time, pace, and distance
  • For Apple Watch owners: calories, heart rate, and percentage of max heart rate

How to Evaluate It for Your Gym

The site does not publish pricing, contract terms, or a feature-by-feature breakdown of the business tier, so the practical path is to look at the business solutions page directly and then compare it against what your members actually need.

A reasonable checklist before committing:

  1. Confirm the business offering's scope. The site links to a dedicated solutions page for gym owners and personal trainers — that is where the specific business features should be described.
  2. Check platform availability for your members. Tona is available as an Android app and an iPhone app, so both major mobile platforms are covered.
  3. Test the competition mechanics with a small group. Since the retention argument rests on leaderboards and challenges, running a pilot with one class or training group will tell you more than the marketing copy.
  4. Ask about the gym/PT relationship. The site mentions integrations and partners but does not detail how a gym's account relates to individual member accounts.

Who This Fits

Tona's business solution is aimed at gym owners and personal trainers who want members interacting with each other inside an app rather than training in isolation. The fit is strongest if:

  • Your members already respond to challenges and leaderboards
  • You want a shared space for workout plans you can distribute as templates
  • You have Apple Watch users who want heart rate and effort data captured automatically

It is a weaker fit if you need detailed administrative tooling, class scheduling, or billing — none of which appear in the material available here.

The most direct next step is to visit the business solutions page linked from the Tona homepage and watch the explainer video, then decide whether the competition-and-community model matches how your members actually behave.