Is FlexWerk a Franchise? Where Else Is It?

FlexWerk is a Carmel, Indiana original — founded by Steve Pirt in 2023 and operating from Carmel City Center — and as of this writing, Carmel is where you’ll find it. If you’re asking because you want to train somewhere nearby, the answer is simple: this is the location. If you’re asking about the business side — whether the model is something you could be part of elsewhere — that’s a conversation to have with the team directly. Both answers, with context, below.

The short answer

FlexWerk operates at 885 Monon Green Blvd, Suite 120, in Carmel City Center — steps from the Monon Trail, with garage parking a short walk away, open 5 AM–9 PM on weekdays and 7 AM–4 PM on weekends, seven days a week. It opened in 2023, and its founder, Steve Pirt, built it around a specific idea: private, fully equipped training suites that fitness professionals rent by the hour and clients experience as their own personal gym. (More on the founding here.)

We’re deliberately not going to speculate about expansion plans or future locations — that’s the company’s news to make, not a content page’s. What we can describe accurately is the model and why it prompts the franchise question so often.

Why people assume it’s a franchise

The question comes up constantly, and it’s actually a compliment to the design. FlexWerk doesn’t feel like a one-off local gym; it feels like a category. The system is unusually legible: suites rent by the hour through an app, with no leases and no memberships. Coaches operate as independent businesses and keep 100% of what they charge. Clients get matched to coaches through FlexConnect. The rooms follow clear specs — FlexSpace Standard, FlexSpace Plus, cardio suites — with consistent equipment and amenities. There’s even a support arm, WerkSolutions, that helps trainers with brand identity, media, and websites.

That completeness reads as “chain,” because we’re used to seeing this level of systemization only from franchises. In reality it’s a purpose-built independent — which, for you as a potential client, is arguably the more interesting version. (What FlexWerk actually is, explained in full.)

The name contributes to the impression too. “FlexWerk,” “FlexSpace,” “FlexConnect,” “WerkSolutions” — a coherent brand family sounds like something designed to travel. Whether it ever does is the team’s story to tell; what the naming actually proves is only that the business was built deliberately rather than improvised, which is a fair thing to notice and a good sign in itself.

What the answer means if you just want to train

Practically? Less than you’d think — and what it does mean cuts in your favor.

You’re not choosing a brand; you’re choosing a facility and, more importantly, a coach. The things worth evaluating are all local and concrete: the 40+ independent fitness professionals who run their businesses in the suites, the private-room format itself, the phased coaching system measured by InBody scans, and the 4.9-star Google record across roughly 69 reviews. Every one of those you can verify with your own eyes in a single visit — which is more than can be said for most national chains, where the brand promise and the local reality are often two different facilities.

There’s also a practical upside to the single-location, founder-operated reality: the standard you’d be evaluating is the standard, not an outlet’s interpretation of a distant playbook. What you see at Carmel City Center is simply what FlexWerk is. Chains trade consistency for distance from the founder’s eye; here the founder’s eye is the quality-control system.

The one genuine limitation is geographic honesty: if you live far from Carmel’s north side, there is no “closer branch” to send you to. FlexWerk draws from Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Zionsville, and Noblesville because Carmel City Center sits within an easy drive of all of them — but a facility you can’t realistically reach twice a week isn’t your answer, no matter how good the model is.

If you’re asking as a professional or an entrepreneur

Some people land on this question from the other side: trainers who’d love to work this way, or business-minded people who look at hourly suite rental and see an idea. Both conversations have a home. Fitness professionals can train clients at FlexWerk today — the suite-rental model with no lease and no revenue split is the entire pitch, the first hour is free for fitness professionals, and the WerkSolutions arm (brand identity through BrandWerk, media through MediaWerk, websites through WebWerk) exists specifically to help coaches build the business side of their practice. The 40+ professionals already based there average about 24 sessions a week, which is the most concrete evidence available that the model supports a full-time practice.

Business and partnership inquiries go straight to the team: the contact page or (888) 353-9975 will get your question to people actually authorized to answer it.

Whatever the future holds for the model elsewhere, you’ll hear it from them first — treat anything you read anywhere else, this page included, as rumor until they confirm it.

Experience the original

However the franchise question evolves, the original is open seven days a week in Carmel. If you’re close enough to make it work, the free consultation — a conversation plus an InBody body-composition baseline, with your first session free — is the way to judge the model by the only standard that matters: standing inside it.