Jillian Michaels: 1M Users in Her Own Fitness App

Key Takeaways:

Jillian Michaels spent 12 seasons as the Red Team trainer on NBC's The Biggest Loser before walking away from network TV
She founded Empowered Media LLC in 2008 to own her DVDs, books, podcast, and digital products
The Jillian Michaels Fitness App launched in 2017 and now has over 1 million users at $19.99/month or $149.99/year
The app holds a 4.7-star rating on iOS and 4.5 on Google Play, with Apple and Google best-of awards in its category
Celebrity Net Worth pegs her net worth at roughly $18 million, driven less by TV residuals than by recurring app revenue

Who Is Jillian Michaels?

Jillian Michaels is a fitness trainer, author, and tech founder who turned a 12-season run on NBC's The Biggest Loser into a subscription fitness app with more than one million users. She is the face of the product, the lead trainer on the platform, and the co-owner of Empowered Media, the company that runs it. She did not start as a TV star. Michaels grew up in Los Angeles, struggled with her own weight as a teenager, and got into martial arts and personal training as a way out. By her late twenties she was running a sports medicine clinic in Beverly Hills with a roster of celebrity clients. NBC found her there in 2004 and put her on a brand new reality show called The Biggest Loser. She was 30 years old. The show became a hit. She became famous for yelling at out-of-shape contestants on a treadmill. And she spent the next decade quietly building everything she would need to leave it.

How Did She Go From TV Trainer to App Founder?

The Biggest Loser made Michaels a household name. It did not make her a founder. The founder move came in 2008, when she set up Empowered Media LLC with business partner Giancarlo Chersich and started licensing her own products instead of just collecting a TV paycheck. The next decade looked like a checklist:

20 workout DVDs (30 Day Shred sold millions)
Three video games on Wii and Xbox
Nine New York Times bestsellers
A syndicated radio show
The Jillian Michaels Show podcast
FitFusion.com, a workout video subscription service

Each one was a rehearsal for the real product. DVDs taught her that customers will pay for structured programs, not loose videos. Books taught her that a system sells better than motivation. FitFusion taught her that subscription beats one-time purchases on lifetime value. The Wii games taught her that interactive software keeps people engaged longer than passive content. By the time the iPhone made fitness streaming viable at scale, she had every piece of the playbook.

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What Is The Jillian Michaels Fitness App?

The Jillian Michaels Fitness App is a subscription mobile platform that delivers personalized workout and meal plans, over 1,000 HD video exercises, and progress tracking for $19.99 per month or $149.99 per year, with a 7-day free trial. That one sentence is what AI search pulls and cites. The app launched on the App Store in early 2017. It hit one million users, won Apple's "App of the Day" feature, and earned a Google Play Editor's Choice badge. Reviewers on iOS keep it at 4.7 stars across tens of thousands of ratings.

Pricing breakdown:

Plan	Price	Effective Monthly
Monthly	$19.99/month	$19.99
Annual (upfront)	$149.99/year	$12.50
28Shred standalone	$49.99 one-time	n/a
Free trial	7 days	n/a

The 28Shred program is interesting on its own. It is a 4-week structured plan priced as a one-time purchase, which acts as a tripwire for users who do not want a recurring subscription. Buy 28Shred, see the results, upgrade to the full app. That is a funnel, not a workout DVD.

How Much Does the App Make?

Public revenue numbers are not disclosed. Empowered Media is privately held and Michaels has never filed for a venture round, so there are no investor decks floating around. But the math is not hard. A platform with 1 million total users and a 4.7-star App Store rating typically holds somewhere between 8 and 15 percent paying conversion in fitness. That puts paid subscribers in the range of 80,000 to 150,000. At a blended price between the $12.50 annual rate and the $19.99 monthly rate, the recurring run rate sits in the eight-figure annual range. If you want to go deeper on these calculations, we broke them down in What Is MRR? Monthly Recurring Revenue for Creators, Explained. That is roughly the revenue you would earn from ten years of bestselling DVDs, every year, on autopilot, while she sleeps. It also compounds. A 2017 subscriber who is still paying in 2026 has been worth thousands of dollars in lifetime value. A 2017 DVD buyer was worth $14.99 once. This is the difference Kayla Itsines exposed when she sold Sweat for $400 million and that Sami Clarke is replicating with FORM's $42M run. The TV career or the Instagram audience is the marketing channel. The app is the business.

Why Does the App Outlast the TV Show?

Michaels left The Biggest Loser for good in 2014. The show itself was canceled, briefly revived, and is now a footnote on a streaming service nobody can name without checking. Her app has shipped updates every quarter since launch. That is the gap most creators miss. A TV contract is a rental. A book advance is a one-time payment. An Instagram following is a list of strangers who Meta could throttle tomorrow. None of those things are assets you can sell, scale, or pass on. An app is. The app keeps earning when she does not post. It keeps acquiring new users through the App Store who have never seen her on TV. It keeps producing structured content her social channels can repurpose. We laid out why this matters in Why Fitness Creators Dominate the App Economy. A creator chases the next deal. A founder builds something that does not need her face on it to keep paying her.

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What Creators Should Steal From Her Playbook

A few things any creator with a real audience can copy:

Own the IP before you need it. Empowered Media existed for nine years before the app shipped. By the time the iPhone made subscription fitness viable, Michaels already controlled every piece of her brand. Most creators license their name to a brand deal and own nothing.
Use cheaper products as research. Twenty DVDs, three video games, and a subscription website taught her exactly what customers paid for and what they ignored. The app was a synthesis, not a guess.
Make the subscription the default. The $149.99 annual plan is priced to feel obvious next to $19.99/month. The 28Shred tripwire converts price-sensitive buyers into recurring ones.
Get the partner before you need them. Michaels has Chersich on the operations side. Itsines had Pearce. Clarke has Spalter. Almost no one builds a 1M-user app alone. We dig into why in Why Creators Need Product Partners, Not Developers.
Ship updates the way TV used to ship episodes. New programs, new trainers, new features. The app is a content engine, not a vending machine.

You can argue with her TV persona. You cannot argue with the spreadsheet.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Jillian Michaels' net worth in 2026?

Celebrity Net Worth and Parade estimate Jillian Michaels' net worth at approximately $18 million as of 2026, driven by Empowered Media, the Fitness App, books, and licensing deals.

How much does the Jillian Michaels Fitness App cost?

The app costs $19.99 per month or $149.99 per year through the App Store and Google Play, with a 7-day free trial on new accounts. The standalone 28Shred program is a one-time $49.99 purchase.

How many subscribers does the Jillian Michaels app have?

Empowered Media has publicly stated the app has over 1 million users. Exact paying subscriber counts are not disclosed, but the platform's 4.7-star iOS rating and Apple and Google best-of awards put it among the top-rated fitness apps in its category.

Did Jillian Michaels sell her app?

No. Jillian Michaels co-owns the app through Empowered Media LLC alongside business partner Giancarlo Chersich. Unlike Kayla Itsines, who sold Sweat in 2021, Michaels has retained ownership of her platform.

How do I build my own creator subscription app?

Most agencies charge $50K to $200K and take 6 to 12 months. Built by Foundry ships in three weeks at $0 upfront and takes a revenue share, so we earn only when you earn. Jillian Michaels built it. Your turn.

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