Teardowns › Homepages & product pages › That’s-not-all technique

PureGym adds a £0 joining fee on top of 50% off

State the main offer, then add a real extra on the next line.

PureGym · Homepage · UK visitors, logged out · puregym.com · captured 4 Nov 2026

ConditionalThat’s-not-all technique Urgency

PureGym homepage: PureGym adds a £0 joining fee on top of 50% off — puregym.com · our capture, 4 Nov 2026, logged out. Numbers match the steps.

Step by step

1
That’s-not-all technique
“plus £0 joining fee” on the red bar.
2
That’s-not-all technique
“+ £0 joining fee” under the 50% off headline.

Prices quoted in pounds (£), exactly as shown on the page we captured. Prices vary by region and change over time.

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What to steal

State the main offer, then add a real extra on the next line.
If the extra ends soon, print the date. This page says “Hurry, ends soon” and does not.

What to test next: “50% off your first month” alone vs the same headline with “+ £0 joining fee” under it. Measure joins and uses of the code SAVEHALF.

In plain words

Why it works

PureGym uses the that’s-not-all technique: adding a bonus before the person responds makes the offer easier to accept (Burger 1986). The red bar reads “Get 50% off your first month plus £0 joining fee. Use code: SAVEHALF. Hurry, ends soon! Selected gyms only.” The hero states the base offer, “50% off your first month”, and the line under it adds the extra: “+ £0 joining fee. Use code: SAVEHALF. Selected gyms only. Hurry, ends soon!” The “plus” and the “+” put the £0 joining fee on top of the discount, before anyone joins. “Hurry, ends soon” is urgency with no date on this capture (Inman & McAlister 1994). Whether the extra fee waiver lifts joins is not public.

Honest nudge or dark pattern?

Conditional

Conditional: the discount, the £0 fee, the code SAVEHALF and “Selected gyms only” are on the screen before a gym search. The hurry line has no end date, so the deadline cannot be checked from this capture.

Sources: Captured by Nudgeswipe, 4 Nov 2026 (UK homepage, logged out)

Context

PureGym UK homepage, logged out, on 4 Nov 2026. Cookies were declined. The search field placeholder reads “Search by town, city, or postcode”.

The research

The research behind it

● Strong evidence · More on that’s-not-all technique, with sources →

Next: run it on your product

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Pattern: PureGym: PureGym adds a £0 joining fee on top of 50% off
Bias: That's-not-all technique: Adding a bonus or discount before the person responds makes them more likely to accept.
Why it nudges: PureGym uses the that's-not-all technique: adding a bonus before the person responds makes the offer easier to accept (Burger 1986). The red bar reads "Get 50% off your first month plus £0 joining fee. Use code: SAVEHALF. Hurry, ends soon! Selected gyms only." The hero states the base offer, "50% off your first month", and the line under it adds the extra: "+ £0 joining fee. Use code: SAVEHALF. Selected gyms only. Hurry, ends soon!" The "plus" and the "+" put the £0 joining fee on top of the discount, before anyone joins. "Hurry, ends soon" is urgency with no date on this capture (Inman & McAlister 1994). Whether the extra fee waiver lifts joins is not public.
Our verdict: Conditional. Conditional: the discount, the £0 fee, the code SAVEHALF and "Selected gyms only" are on the screen before a gym search. The hurry line has no end date, so the deadline cannot be checked from this capture.
Source page: https://nudgeswipe.com/examples/puregym-plus-zero-joining-fee/ (JSON: https://nudgeswipe.com/api/teardowns/puregym-plus-zero-joining-fee.json)

Rules: say a brand "uses" a tactic, never that it "worked"; outcomes are not public unless the company published them; no invented uplift estimates; flag mixed evidence. Honest nudge = true, visible, easy to reverse, and in the user's interest. Dark pattern = hides costs, fakes scarcity or popularity, shames, or makes leaving harder than joining. Quote company-published results as "X reports", with the source link, and don’t generalise them. Don’t cite retracted or failed-to-replicate studies as support (e.g. Ariely & Wertenbroch 2002). Don’t state study figures unless they’re on this page or in a source you can link. If an idea crosses the line, link the matching deceptive.design pattern.

Tasks:
1. Ask me for my product, the flow (URL or screenshots) and the goal.
2. Audit where this pattern already appears, or could, in that flow.
3. Propose 2-3 ethical experiments: hypothesis, variant copy or UI, primary metric, and a guardrail metric (refunds, complaints, cancellations).
4. Flag every dark-pattern risk and say how to stay on the honest side.

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Sources

Our capture of puregym.com, 4 Nov 2026
Burger (1986), Increasing compliance by improving the deal: The that’s-not-all technique. doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.51.2.277
Captured by Nudgeswipe, 4 Nov 2026 (UK homepage, logged out): puregym.com