Joe Wicks: How PE With Joe Became a Fitness App Empire

Key Takeaways:

Joe Wicks built his audience posting 15-second recipe videos on Instagram — then sold 900,000 copies of his first cookbook
During COVID-19, his PE With Joe livestreams hit 955,185 concurrent viewers on March 24, 2020 — a Guinness World Record for a fitness workout stream
The Body Coach App launched in December 2020, reached 1 million downloads in its first year, with 130,000+ paying subscribers at £69.99/year
Google Play named it "App of the Year" for 2022; Apple awarded it "Editor's Choice"
In January 2026, ITV invested £3 million in the app through a media-for-equity deal — validating the subscription model at scale

Most creators treat a viral moment as a paycheck. Joe Wicks treated his as a foundation. When nearly a million households tuned in to watch him do HIIT workouts in his living room during UK lockdown, the obvious move was sponsorships and brand deals. He did the less obvious thing: he built an app. That app now has institutional investment from ITV. This is how it happened.

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Who Is Joe Wicks?

Joe Wicks (Instagram: @thebodycoach, 4.7M followers; YouTube: @thebodycoachtv, 2.7M+ subscribers) is a British fitness coach, author, and entrepreneur from Epsom, Surrey. He was born September 21, 1985, and studied Sports Science at St Mary's University in London. Before anyone knew his name, he was a personal trainer doing one-on-one sessions and struggling to scale. The ceiling was obvious: there are only so many hours in a day you can charge for. So in 2014, he started posting 15-second meal prep videos on Instagram. The format was simple and fast. Short enough to stop the scroll. Useful enough to save. His "Lean in 15" philosophy — healthy meals in 15 minutes, workouts that fit real life — spread through word of mouth before Instagram had even figured out video.

How Did 15-Second Videos Turn Into a Business?

The short videos worked. His following grew. By 2015, he had a book deal. His first cookbook, Lean in 15, sold over 900,000 copies in the UK alone. It became one of the best-selling UK cookbooks of the year. He followed with more books in the series, all charting. By the end of the decade, The Body Coach Ltd had reportedly earned over £24 million. He also ran online fitness plans — the "90 Day Shift, Shape and Sustain Plan" at £147 per person. Hundreds of thousands of people bought them. One-time purchases. Good revenue, but not recurring. That's the part worth paying attention to. Books sell once. Plans sell once. Brand deals run for a campaign. None of it compounds. Joe had an audience that trusted him. He had credibility built from years of free, useful content. He just hadn't built the product that converts that trust into monthly recurring revenue. Then the pandemic happened.

What Made PE With Joe Different?

On March 23, 2020, the day the UK government announced schools were closing, Joe announced he would stream a live PE lesson on YouTube every morning at 9am. He called it PE With Joe. He filmed it from his living room. The format was simple: 30 minutes of HIIT, friendly enough for kids, accessible enough for parents joining alongside. No gym. No equipment. Just Joe and his energy. The second stream, on March 24, 2020, attracted 955,185 concurrent viewers — a Guinness World Record for the most viewers of a fitness workout live stream on YouTube.

He kept going. 70+ days of daily live workouts. During a period when millions of families were stuck at home, Joe showed up every morning. He raised £580,000 for NHS Charities Together from donations during the streams. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to fitness and charity. But here's what the headlines missed: PE With Joe wasn't just charity work. It was the most effective brand-building exercise a fitness creator has ever run. Every parent who did those morning workouts with their kids became a warm lead. Every teacher who used his streams for remote PE classes spread his name further. When he launched The Body Coach App nine months later, he had the most engaged fitness audience in the UK.

What Is The Body Coach App?

The Body Coach App launched on December 10, 2020. It was built with ustwo, the London digital studio behind Monument Valley. The app packages everything Joe was delivering in one-off plans and livestreams into a single subscription product:

HIIT workouts, yoga, pilates, and strength sessions
A personalized meal planner tailored to your goals
A workout planner to stay on track
Live Bootcamp sessions with Joe
Daily progress tracking tools

Subscription pricing: £69.99/year. The results came fast. Over 1 million people downloaded it in the first year. More than 130,000 paid the subscription fee. And critically, the product kept getting better — Google Play named it "App of the Year" for 2022, and Apple awarded it "Editor's Choice."

This is the model that Kayla Itsines proved with Sweat — a fitness creator uses free content to build trust, then converts that trust into a subscription product. Kayla did it through Instagram workout posts; Joe did it through daily YouTube livestreams. Different trigger, same outcome.

How Does the Business Model Work?

Joe's revenue history shows a clear evolution:

Phase	Product	Revenue Type
2014–2015	Instagram content	Brand deals, one-time
2015–2019	Books + 90 Day Plans	One-time purchases
2020–present	The Body Coach App	Recurring subscription

Each phase built on the last. The Instagram content made him famous enough to sell books. The books and plans made him rich enough to build an app. The app makes him money every month without launching a new product. 130,000 subscribers at £69.99/year is just under £9.1 million annually. That's a floor — and it's a floor built on recurring revenue, which is worth more than a lump sum because it compounds. Each year those subscribers renew, the business runs. That math is exactly what we break down in the brand deals vs subscription apps comparison — the compounding arithmetic that makes recurring revenue so much more powerful than one-time deals.

130,000 subscribers at £69.99 is £9M/year.

The math on subscription apps is not complicated. What's complicated is building the product. That's our job.

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Why Did ITV Invest £3 Million?

On January 1, 2026, ITV announced a media-for-equity investment of up to £3 million in The Body Coach App. The structure is a "media-for-equity" deal through ITV Adventures Invest: ITV provides advertising inventory across its linear channels and ITVX streaming service in exchange for equity in the business. The Body Coach App's TV commercial launched during Joe Wicks' New Year's Day show on ITV1 and ITVX. This kind of deal doesn't happen for apps that are struggling. Media companies trade their most valuable asset — airtime — for equity in companies they believe will grow. ITV saw The Body Coach App and made a bet. That's worth more than any press release. It also means Joe's distribution just got dramatically bigger. An annual subscription at £69.99 with ITV broadcast reach behind it is a different proposition than organic growth alone.

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What Creators Can Learn from Joe Wicks

Joe's path from Instagram videos to ITV-backed app business isn't an accident. It's a pattern that shows up across the creator economy. He went deep before he went wide. Joe didn't try to be all things. He picked fitness, specifically accessible fitness for real people in real kitchens and living rooms — and he became the authority. Depth of trust beats width of reach every time. He made the transition at the right moment. PE With Joe came first; The Body Coach App came nine months later. He used the viral moment to build an audience so warm that conversion was inevitable. The timing wasn't luck. He hired professionals to build it. The Body Coach App was built by ustwo — a world-class digital studio. Joe didn't try to learn to code or use a vibe-coding tool. He understood that a subscription product people pay £69.99/year for needs to work reliably, look great, and keep getting better. That requires a real team. This point matters. As we've written about in why creators need product partners, not developers, the mistake most creators make is treating app development like a one-time project. Joe built an ongoing product partnership. The app keeps shipping new features. It won awards four years after launch. He stacked recurring on top of one-time. Books and plans still sell. The app generates MRR. None of the revenue streams cancel out the others — they reinforce each other. The books drive people to the app. The app gives people a reason to keep buying the books.

Building Bigger Than Your Audience

Joe Wicks has 4.7 million Instagram followers and 2.7 million YouTube subscribers. He could make a comfortable living just from brand deals and publishing advances. But the ITV investment isn't coming for his follower count. It's coming for the app — the recurring revenue product he built on top of that audience. That's the difference between a creator and a creator-founder. Followers give you leverage. Products give you a business. The audience is the raw material. The app is what you build with it. Joe was a personal trainer who hit the ceiling of his hourly rate and found his way out through content. Then he hit the ceiling of one-time sales and found his way out through a subscription app. Each ceiling he broke, he found the next floor higher up. If you have an engaged audience and you're still selling brand deals and one-time products, you're at the ceiling. The next floor is a subscription product your audience pays for every month. That's what BUILT BY FOUNDRY builds.

Joe Wicks built it. Your turn. We build software businesses for creators — 3 weeks to the App Store, we handle everything technical forever.

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Frequently Asked Questions

How does Joe Wicks make money?

Joe Wicks generates revenue from four main sources: The Body Coach App subscription (£69.99/year), book sales from his Lean in 15 series, occasional brand partnerships, and speaking and TV appearances. The app is his primary recurring revenue product.

What is The Body Coach App?

The Body Coach App is Joe Wicks' subscription fitness platform, launched in December 2020. It offers HIIT workouts, yoga, pilates, and strength sessions alongside a personalized meal planner and live Bootcamp sessions. The app costs £69.99/year and is available on iOS and Android. It was named Google Play "App of the Year" in 2022 and received Apple's "Editor's Choice" award.

How many people watched PE With Joe?

On March 24, 2020, 955,185 households watched PE With Joe simultaneously — a Guinness World Record for the most viewers of a fitness workout live stream on YouTube. Joe ran the free daily workouts for 70+ days during the UK's first lockdown.

Did ITV invest in The Body Coach App?

Yes. In January 2026, ITV announced a media-for-equity investment of up to £3 million in The Body Coach App through its ITV Adventures Invest fund. ITV provides advertising inventory across its channels and ITVX in exchange for equity in the business.

How many subscribers does The Body Coach App have?

The Body Coach App reached 130,000+ paying subscribers and over 1 million downloads in its first year (2020–2021). Current subscriber figures have not been publicly disclosed.