Mindbody is one of the largest providers of cloud-based online scheduling and other business management software for the wellness services industry.
Fitness business owners are often drawn to the brand because of its ubiquitous presence in the market.
But how much does Mindbody software cost?
What features do you get for the price?
And is Mindbody software worth it for your business?
In this article we’ll explore these questions and more as we review Mindbody’s latest software packages for fitness studios.
Mindbody Pricing:
One of the benefits of Mindbody is that the company has continuously evolved it’s business management software to include an increasing array of features. The downside is that both the learning curve and price tag have grown with those features.
Here’s a quick overview of Mindbody’s plans:
- Essential Plan: $129 per month. Includes scheduling, point-of-sale, and basic reporting.
- Accelerate Plan: $279 per month. Includes comprehensive reports, email templates, smart contact lists, and mobile-friendly booking.
- Ultimate Plan: $499 per month. Includes 2-way SMS messaging, automated text and email marketing, customer review prompts, and customer referral program.
- Ultimate Plus: $699 per month. Includes mobile, branded app and real-time metrics dashboards.
The Mindbody Learning Curve
There is no doubt that Mindbody is an innovator in the fitness business management space.
The value for large, enterprise-level gyms with multiple locations and large staff and facilities to manage – is clear.
However, Mindbody has increasingly gotten complaints from smaller fitness business owners who have grown frustrated with paying for features that they rarely use or can’t figure out — and for consistently increasing prices coupled with poor customer service.
For example, Mindbody Reports is one of the software provider’s most robust offerings, with few competitors stacking up. The reports feature allows fitness and other wellness businesses to sort and organize data to get a clearer picture of business operations.
Mindbody offers more than 100 different types of reports (!) to research trends in sales, track popular pricing options, attendance by class type, time of day and instructor, identify big spenders, process payroll, and more.
It’s great to have access to all these reports and the list can be overwhelming. Some reports are fairly complicated to run and require switching between screens and importing data from one report to another, which can get tricky.
Here are a couple of representative Mindbody user reviews from software compare site GetApp:
“Excellent support at deployment stage; good customer service response times; very friendly staff; used to be market leaders; possibly good functionality but only available at premium packages,” according to Edward S. “I have used MindBody for nearly 15 years, both as an administrator and staff/user, and I used to work in software. I used to love them and, early on, I would frequently recommend them to colleagues – the deployment phase was exceptional. However, they are not the company they once were – nor is their software as attractive, simple to use, or innovative as it used to be. The user-interface is very tired-looking, they are focused on up-selling to bigger clients who can afford and ignoring the smaller clients of which I am one.”
“Awful company and system. I have been a customer of Mindbody for 4 years now and their level of customer service has got worse and worse and their prices have only increased…From our experience, they do not look after their customers…Another issue today means that we have now decided to bite the bullet to move to another company that respects their customers. Staying with MindBody has affected our business in many way therefore I DO NOT recommend this company,” said Rachel P. “Honestly, we’ve had nothing but problems E.G- clients not being able to book on, clients being added to classes without being asked for payment, classes not appearing, people jumping the waitlist, I could go on…”
Check out these and more customer reviews here and here.
Mindbody’s Merger with ClassPass
In 2021 Mindbody acquired ClassPass in a deal reportedly backed by a $500 million strategic investment from global asset manager Sixth Street.
The merger promised to wed ClassPass’s discount fitness membership plans with Mindbody’s fitness studio clients, a somewhat controversial move.
ClassPass claims that its customers see an average 10 to 20 percent revenue increase from signing up to sell off-peak classes to its members at a discounted rate. The company says 50 percent of its participants are brand new to working out, and therefore are an untapped market fitness studios would otherwise not have had access to. But many fitness studio owners tell a different story.
Some of the biggest complaints about ClassPass, are decreasing margins when a new customer signs up and the “offering” actually opens studios up to greater competition.
How?
- New customers find a gym through ClassPass and a specific (usually discounted) rate. Mindbody takes a percentage of that new membership fee from studio and gym owners.
- Potential customers can browse fitness class options on ClassPass. This means, for businesses that use Mindbody, you as well as all of your competitors show up in the app.
According to a recent article in Vice, ClassPass’s business model, now amplified and automatically embedded into tens-of-thousands of fitness studios worldwide through the Mindbody merger, is squeezing fitness studios to death financially. Time will tell if the deal ultimately benefits or undermines Mindbody’s clientele.
Mindbody Software Add-On Features
How else is Mindbody leading the fitness industry to better profitability? Let’s take a look at some of Mindbody’s new add-on features.
Automated Ai Messaging
Mindbody touts this new add-on feature as a way for gym and salon owners to turn missed calls into bookings, drive sales, reach members—and stay focused on the clients you and your team are with.
Mindbody’s Messenger[ai] for Fitness program uses artificial intelligence (you know, a customer service bot) to create a virtual front desk experience, enabled through the freedom auto-responses to missed calls and inquiries. The bot chats with clients by text or Facebook and provides assistance for answers to stock questions, booking classes and appointments. The features also allows fitness business owners to mass text clients.
This can be a great way to stay in communication with your customers. The downside is that they’ll likely know they’re being handled by a bot and not a real human being. Plus, this feature is only available on Mindbody’s most expensive plans.
Mindbody Consumer App
One of MINDBODY’s most popular features is its own mobile app for both Android and iOS, which has over 3.5 million users. The Mindbody app allows fitness-minded consumers nationwide to log on and search and register for local fitness classes. This is a powerful marketing tool for boutique fitness studios that are looking to grow their customer base and attract new business.
On the other hand, keep in mind that users searching for your business through the app will also be able to discover competing businesses and Mindbody collects a percentage (10 percent) of the revenue generated from app referrals.
Fitmetrix Performance Tracking
This premium feature available through Mindbody’s Ultimate Plus ($699/mo) plan allows gym members to access and track fitness metrics from from heart rate and calories burned to watts and RPMs. Customers can log in through your fitness studio’s branded app to see and track their stats, potentially increasing motivation and results.
The feature also includes the ability to create live-time leaderboards that can be displayed during class, adding a gamification element to make classes fun and add challenge.
Insights
Mindbody’s new Insights feature takes the data that used to only be accessible by manually setting up favorite reports or manually searching and puts it all in a live-time, at-a-glance dashboard. Users can create and share configurable dashboards with staff, which can be a good way to motivate performance towards goals.
The intention is to illuminate problem areas and wins on a daily basis, not just at the end of the month when the admin pulls the reports.
Insights allows fitness business owners to create sales contests and leaderboards for staff to track and rank team members by membership or product sales.
What You Need to Know About Other Mindbody Features
Transaction Processing
Mindbody offers an integrated point-of-sale system where fitness businesses can acquire all the equipment and credit card processing systems needed to accept multiple forms of payment from cash and checks to major credit cards.
No matter what, as a fitness business owner, if you’re going to accept credit cards you’ll need to use a third-party vender to enable processing and those venders will charge a fee, typically a percentage of sales. Users of Mindbody’s credit card processing system pay 2.75 percent, which is in line with what most business credit card processing services like PayPal and Stripe charge.
Mindbody Software Onboarding
Here’s what Mindbody says about the onboarding process: An Onboarding Conversion is beneficial for businesses switching to MINDBODY from another software or tracking tool that wish to bring over large volumes of business-critical data.
Additional information
- Data Converted: Client Contact Information, Billing Information, Account Balances, Gift Cards, Past Visit History, Formula Notes, Retail Products, Relationships, Martial Arts Belts.
- Not Converted: Future Appointments, Remaining Sessions, Auto-pay Contracts.
- Involvement Needed: Client submits a single data set and answers any questions we have about it prior to import.
- Timeline: 1-2 Weeks
For larger fitness businesses and those with auto-pay memberships, Mindbody recommends a Premium Conversion. This “is beneficial for businesses switching to Mindbody from another software who wish to bring over large volumes of business-critical data, including complex data types such as future appointments or remaining sessions and wish to minimize their manual data entry.”
Additional information:
- What is included in the conversion: Client Contact Information, Billing Information, Account Balances, Gift Cards, Past Visit History, Formula Notes, Retail Products, Relationships, Martial Arts Belts, Future Booked Appointments, Remaining Sessions.
- Available with Premium Services: Auto-pay Contracts
- Commitment Needed: Business Owner submits two data sets, completes a mapping file, and answers any questions we have about it prior to import.
- Timeline: 1-2 Weeks
More Mindbody Premium Services – Project Management
Mindbody provides 1-on-1 dedicated account management to fitness businesses at an additional fee. You have to contact Mindbody for an appointment to get Mindbody’s pricing information.
Essentially, you’re paired with an account manager who gives you access to Mindbody experts—whenever you want, whatever your business needs. Again, you pay for this access.
The Mindbody project manager gives you:
- Premium onboarding
- Franchising assistance
- Personalized support
- Staff training
The project management package also includes helping fitness business owners maximize the potential of their software, tackle complex business model issues, expand to new locations or franchises and manage staff across multiple locations.
Does Mindbody Offer a Free Trial?
All Mindbody packages include a free demo and a walk through with a Mindbody representative.
Mindbody Reviews
There’s no better way to find out about Mindbody, how much Mindbody costs and how well it works than to hear from current customers. Here’s an example of a five-star, three-star and one-star Mindbody reviews from software-compare site G2.com.
Five-Star Review:
You can find a link the the review here: “Easy mindbody”
What do you like best?
I like how easy it is to use and the accessibility it allows. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What do you dislike?
It does sometimes glitch occasionally and you have to double back.
Recommendations to others considering the product:
It is great!
What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?
It allows for faster processing time and easier accessibility when it’s comes to contact clients and seeing history
Three-Star Review:
You can find a link the the review here: “Improvements Needed, Not Optimal for Fitness Businesses”
What do you like best?
Easy use of interface. Highly detailed client profiles. Scheduling flexibility.
What do you dislike?
Not helpful as a CRM system. Click through paths lengthy and tedious. Ability to view scheduled clients or new clients at a glance not available. Often faced hiccups or delays in service.
What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?
MindBody was utilized as a booking and CRM system prior to further software developments.
One-Star Review:
You can find a link the the review here: “Not My Favorite Software”
What do you like best?
We started using it, because we needed a new membership software at our club. It was cheaper then our current system, or so we thought, until all the added fees started piling up.
What do you dislike?
I want this to be constructive, so hopefully, it will help other people looking at club management software. In all honesty, it was just an overly high-powered machine, that was a little too much for our smaller club. We didn’t need all that horsepower, for just a few things. It was not all that easy to maneuver through either. I thought that the initial training would help us learn more about the system, but we were left to do a lot of trial and error to figure things out. Unfortunately, when there is a situation or an issue you can’t figure out, trying to get in touch with someone in support is no easy task. They always refer you to the help articles, which you can do on your own. Obviously, I wasn’t able to find what I was looking for in the thousands of articles, which is why I was reaching out for additional support. Maybe this software might be better for a bigger club, but it wasn’t our cup of tea.
