Kayla Itsines is an Australian personal trainer, entrepreneur, and author best known for creating the Bikini Body Guides fitness program and co-founding the Sweat women’s fitness app.
She began training clients from her parents’ backyard in Adelaide in 2009 and built a global fitness community that counts tens of millions of followers across social media platforms.
Who is Kayla Itsines?
Kayla Itsines is an Australian personal trainer, author, and entrepreneur who built one of the world’s largest female fitness communities through her workout guides and the Sweat app.
She started training clients one-on-one before social media transformed her business into a global brand with millions of users.
She co-founded the Bikini Body Training Company with Tobi Pearce in 2013, then launched the Sweat app in 2015.
By 2016, Sweat generated more revenue than any other fitness app in the world.
After selling Sweat to US fitness giant iFIT in 2021, she and Pearce bought the app back in late 2023.
Itsines now serves as Sweat’s co-founder and head trainer, with the platform offering over 5,000 unique workouts across 26 exercise programs.
She holds the 2024 Australian Financial Review Young Rich List ranking of number 34, with an estimated net worth of $171 million.
Time magazine listed her among the 30 Most Influential People on the Internet in March 2016.
Early Life of Kayla Itsines
Kayla Itsines grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, in a Greek-Australian family with strong cultural roots.
Her parents, Anna and Jim Itsines, both worked as teachers in Adelaide, and the family maintained close ties to Greek heritage, including language, food traditions, and extended family in Greece.
Her younger sister Leah Itsines followed a parallel path in health and wellness, becoming a personal trainer and food stylist with a substantial following of her own.
As a child, Kayla loved sport and played basketball, netball, and soccer. She recalls being intimidated by the gym environment as a teenager, until a personal trainer encouraged her to start somewhere.
That early experience with fitness culture later shaped how she designed her own programs to be accessible to beginners.
She attended Concordia College in Adelaide. After finishing school, she enrolled at the Australian Institute of Fitness, where she trained formally as a personal trainer.
Kayla Itsines Age / Birthday
Kayla Itsines is 35 years old as of 2026, born on May 21, 1991.
Her zodiac sign is Gemini, a sign often linked with adaptability and communication, both of which fit her ability to reach millions of women through social media.
As of 2026, she continues to run Sweat and lives on the Gold Coast in Queensland.
Kayla Itsines Ethnicity and Nationality
Kayla Itsines is Australian by nationality, born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia.
She is of Greek descent, a heritage she speaks about openly and which runs through both her family’s language and food culture.
Her parents both have Greek roots, with her father’s family from the Greek island of Kos and her mother’s family from Tripoli in the Peloponnese.
Kayla Itsines Education
Kayla attended Concordia College in Adelaide for her secondary schooling. After graduating, she trained at the Australian Institute of Fitness, where she completed her personal training qualifications.
That training gave her the formal foundation she used when she started working with clients at a women’s gym in Adelaide in 2008.
She has cited her early gym work as the period when she started noticing the common goals that women sought from exercise.
Her practical experience working with real clients proved more formative than any classroom.
The feedback from those early sessions shaped the format of her first Bikini Body Guides.
Kayla Itsines Career
Kayla Itsines started her professional career in 2008 at a women’s gym in Adelaide.
Within a short period, she began training clients privately, including from her parents’ backyard, charging $1 per minute with a minimum 30-minute session.
Bikini Body Guides and Early Growth (2013-2015)
Itsines launched her first major product in 2013. After her clients began posting before-and-after photos of their results on Instagram, she gained thousands of followers rapidly.
Tobi Pearce, her then-partner and co-founder, suggested she formalize her training method into an e-book so she could sell it online.
In March 2013, she and Pearce established the Bikini Body Training Company, with Itsines as director and Pearce as CEO.
Their first two Bikini Body Guides followed shortly after: the first covering Itsines’ workout routines, the second covering nutrition information developed with dietitians.
The Instagram community that formed around her guides grew quickly.
Her online following numbered in the millions within two years, driven entirely by client transformation photos and consistent posting.
She received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year recognition in 2015 alongside Pearce, marking one of the first major business awards for the brand.
Sweat App and Global Expansion (2015-2021)
In 2015, Itsines and Pearce launched the Sweat app, which housed her BBG workout programs alongside meal planning tools and a community feature.
In its first full year, Sweat generated more revenue than any other fitness app globally, a milestone confirmed by multiple industry reports at the time.
Time magazine named Itsines one of the 30 Most Influential People on the Internet in March 2016, noting her use of social media to build her brand.
That same year, Forbes listed her among the world’s top social media fitness influencers, and the Australian Business Review Young Rich List valued her and Pearce’s combined wealth at $46 million.
The Sweat app grew to more than 30 million downloads and generated close to $100 million in annual revenue by 2020.
It offered programs far beyond her original BBG format, expanding to yoga, barre, Pilates, and strength training under a roster of trainers.
In 2016, Pan Macmillan published her first print book, “The Bikini Body 28-Day Eating and Lifestyle Guide.”
A second book followed, “The Bikini Body Motivation and Habits Guide.” In 2021, her BBG program was renamed “High Intensity with Kayla” to broaden its positioning beyond its original branding.
In July 2021, Itsines and Pearce sold Sweat to Utah-based fitness equipment company iFIT for a reported figure of up to $403 million.
The Sweat Buyback and Recent Work (2023-Present)
In late 2023, Itsines and Pearce bought Sweat back from iFIT, whose core business had shifted back toward fitness hardware.
The price of the buyback was not disclosed. Following the deal, Pearce moved into an advisory capacity, while Adam Koch remained as CEO.
Itsines returned as Sweat’s co-founder and head trainer with expanded editorial control over the platform.
She added new programming tracks focused on strength training and pregnancy and postpartum fitness, areas she had developed personally after the birth of her children.
In January 2024, she published “Reboot with Kayla,” released by Penguin Random House, shifting her messaging toward a more holistic approach to health and fitness.
In April 2024, she launched the “Sweat Daily with Kayla Itsines” podcast, covering fitness, nutrition, mindfulness, and sleep.
By 2024, the Australian Financial Review placed Itsines at number 34 on its Young Rich List with an estimated net worth of $171 million.
Kayla Itsines Awards and Recognition
Itsines has received several notable recognitions across business and media:
- Time magazine: 30 Most Influential People on the Internet (March 2016)
- Forbes: Top Social Media Fitness Influencer (2016)
- EY Entrepreneur of the Year (2015, alongside Tobi Pearce)
- Cosmopolitan Woman of the Year
- Australian Financial Review Young Rich List: number 34 (2024)
Kayla Itsines Husband
Kayla Itsines married Jae Woodroffe in December 2023 in a ceremony held at her family home in Adelaide.
The couple announced their engagement in July 2022, shortly after which they also announced that Itsines was pregnant.
Woodroffe and Itsines began dating in 2021. Their relationship became public through her social media, where she shared personal updates throughout her second pregnancy and the wedding.
After the ceremony, the couple moved to Queensland, relocating from Adelaide to the Gold Coast.
In March 2026, they purchased a $13 million waterfront mansion in Mermaid Waters, Queensland, a five-bedroom property on a 2,280-square-metre triple block with 81.5 metres of water frontage, featuring a tennis court, infinity pool, wine cellar, cocktail bar, and pontoon.
Kayla Itsines Children
Kayla Itsines has two children. Her daughter, Arna, was born in April 2019 and is Itsines’ child with former partner Tobi Pearce.
Her son, Jax Stokes Woodroffe, was born on January 5, 2023, and is her child with husband Jae Woodroffe.
Itsines spoke openly about both pregnancies through her social media. After Arna’s birth, she developed a postpartum fitness program for Sweat, designed to help new mothers regain strength safely.
She has spoken publicly about the shift in her fitness philosophy that came with motherhood, moving from intense HIIT-focused training toward a more balanced approach.
Kayla Itsines Net Worth
Kayla Itsines’s estimated net worth is $171 million as of 2026, as listed on the Australian Financial Review Young Rich List in 2024.
Her wealth comes primarily from the Sweat app and the original sale of the business to iFIT, alongside real estate, book royalties, and brand partnerships.
Business Revenue
The Sweat app generated close to $100 million in annual revenue in 2020, before the iFIT sale.
The reported sale price to iFIT in 2021 ranged between $228 million (per iFIT’s own financial filings) and $403 million (per initial reports).
After the 2023 buyback, Itsines regained full ownership and editorial control of the platform.
Itsines has stated publicly that she became a millionaire at 22, driven by early Bikini Body Guide ebook sales.
She has also disclosed that one of her earliest cash-flowing investments was a gas station, which she described in a January 2026 Fortune interview as the investment that paid her rent.
Real Estate
In March 2026, Itsines and Woodroffe purchased a $13 million waterfront property in Mermaid Waters on the Gold Coast.
The home, completed in 2023 by DB Build and designed by Hicks and Holmsted Architects, won the President’s Award at the 2024 Gold Coast Housing and Construction Awards.
The couple also sold an Adelaide property for $7.375 million prior to the Gold Coast purchase.
Kayla Itsines Social Media
Kayla Itsines is active on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and her podcast. Her Instagram handle is @kayla_itsines, where she posts workout content, family updates, and program promotions.
Her YouTube channel, launched in November 2012 under her own name, features workout tutorials and fitness content.
She launched the “Sweat Daily with Kayla Itsines” podcast in April 2024 as a further extension of her wellness content offering.
Conclusion
Kayla Itsines built a personal training business in her parents’ backyard in Adelaide into one of the world’s most-downloaded fitness apps, sold it for hundreds of millions of dollars, and then bought it back.
Her work through Sweat, her books, and her social media platforms has reached tens of millions of women across more than 150 countries.