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If you’re looking for a Mindbody alternative, see why gyms, fitness businesses, and fitness professionals upgrade to the fully-customizable Exercise.com fitness business management software platform to attract more clients, increase revenue, and grow their fitness businesses. In the match-up of Exercise.com vs Mindbody, the winner is Exercise.com.
There are many Mindbody competitors and apps similar to Mindbody, but if you’re ready to get started with an easy-to-navigate, all-in-one fitness software platform, designed to fuel your business, then out of all the different Mindbody Online alternatives, take a load off your mind and see why we’re the best. Let us show you why scores of gyms and fitness businesses (like APEC Sports Performance in Tyler, TX) made the switch to Exercise.com from Mindbody.
See how easy it is to switch from Mindbody. Just request a demo with Exercise.com today.
And, if you want to see how Mindbody’s additional features stack up to Exercise.com software features, check out our in-depth guide below.
But, in case you are wondering, yes, we offer full white-glove concierge done-for-you migrations from Mindbody to Exercise.com. We admire Mindbody as a company, and all that they’ve accomplished in their 20+ years as a legacy software provider, but let’s just say that we work with them a lot to migration customers to the next generation fitness business management platform: Exercise.com.
Is Mindbody worth it? Read the following Mindbody reviews and see for yourself how Mindbody compares to Exercise.com.
See how reviews of Mindbody compare to reviews of Exercise.com. (Click here to read even more Exercise.com reviews).
Capterra, G2, SoftwareAdvice, GetApp, etc. The verdict is the same. Exercise.com beats Mindbody.
Read MoreAnd if the above Mindbody reviews are not enough to convince you, prepare yourself for the many Mindbody complaints online. When the phrase “I hate Mindbody” is a suggested search online, it would give anyone pause.
To be fair, Mindbody has been around for long time, and no company is perfect, so it’s only natural that with a long history working with many different Mindbody customers that not every customer will be happy. We get it. But with a history of Mindbody price increases, the volume and velocity of Mindbody complaints seems to increase every year, and we will leave it at that.
Tempting as it may be to reprint the many Mindbody complaints on Reddit, Google, and other places online, we simply ask you to do your own research, and make your own decision. After all, we are not perfect, your gym is not perfect, and sometimes—let’s face it—some customers are just almost impossible to please (are you thinking of someone in your gym right now?). So, take all the Mindbody complaints with a grain of salt. Then, give Exercise.com a chance to help you take your gym to the next level.
Mindbody Inc. is a software fitness app whose primary directive is connecting its business clients and individual customers with local consumers in their general area. Software like Mindbody is a cloud-based fitness business software that operates on a fee-based platform. It can be used anywhere in the world from NYC to London and beyond.
Mindbody fitness software was originally introduced as HardBody Software by Rick Stollmeyer and Blake Beltran in 2000, and incorporated as Mindbody Software in 2001. Mindbody reviews on Glassdoor by employees state that it’s a good company to work for.
The types of businesses serviced by this software are studios, gyms, and individual fitness professionals seeking to maximize and retain their current clients while marketing through various automated systems in the Mindbody database to bring in potential new consumers for the user’s business.
Yoga and Pilates studios, indoor cycling facilities, group and personal training gyms/studios, salons, spas, and other health and wellness-based integrative businesses are all able to utilize the Mindbody Inc. software platform.
This broad scope of service means that many fitness businesses may pay for way more features than they actually use for their individual business.
When your software caters to such a broad base, it’s hard to avoid these kinds of issues as packages and features are reorganized. That’s why Exercise.com is laser-focused on creating software features that make managing your business easy.
We have an advisory board that serves as a sounding board and focus group that we regularly interact with about future features to make sure we’re not just adding bloatware but building features fitness professionals will actually use.
Unless otherwise stated, all images and reviews below are of/about the Exercise.com All-In-One Fitness Business Management software platform.
One of the great things about Exercise.com gym management software is that you can manage your fitness business from one place. Many times, a fitness business will use one software company to address the needs of one area and then requires additional software to address the others. Exercise.com is capable of handling membership, personal training, and everything in between.
The software is easy to use for your employees and your customers. There are areas to schedule, track workouts, make payments, generate reports, and integrate with other programs. Let’s take a more in-depth look.
Scheduling is certainly where Mindbody shines. Clients are able to book classes, view your schedule, and pay for booked classes directly through a gym’s website. These scheduling options are also integrated with Facebook and can be accessed on the Mindbody app.
Exercise.com also provides calendars for whatever platform your fitness business needs. The software accommodates multiple trainers, multiple class studios, and can be easily sorted for customers to view. They can make appointments and pay for services they’ve booked, all within the software.
Both Mindbody and Exercise.com have reports and functions that help keep your staff roles, inventory, memberships, and business details organized, but only Exercise.com goes a step further with member management and staff management that allows you to customize your facility management to best fit your business.
When owning a fitness business, you want to make sure the services you offer and the associated price tags are making your business profitable. Mindbody and Exercise.com both provide fitness business reporting dashboards.
With Exercise.com software, you can generate reports to see anything from total purchases to gross revenue. Having this information at your fingertips can help you decide whether your business is on the right track, or if you need to make changes going forward.
For example, you might want to analyze your small group training schedule. After generating a report, you notice more revenue coming from morning and evening classes than lunchtime. Using this information, you could experiment with adding training to the more profitable times of the day and save costs by eliminating the midday offerings.
Mindbody and Exercise.com both offer an array of automation features, but only the Exercise.com automations offer you a seamless all-in-one recipe builder to trigger actions based on workouts logged, habits tracked, and all of the other workout software built right into the Exercise.com platform (with Mindbody, this would need to be accomplished with an integration into yet another 3rd-party software platform—just one more expense you would need to pay).
In order to maintain a smooth operation, you want your business to operate as easily as possible. Exercise.com offers automated features to keep your clients engaged with their workouts and your facility in general. Here are a few of the offerings:
At Exercise.com, we provide our clients with a plethora of integrations—but, sometimes, you want a bit of a boost. Our Zapier Exercise.com integration allows you to, “Integrate (link your web apps with a few clicks, so they can share data), Automate (pass info between your apps with workflows called Zaps), and Innovate (build processes faster and get more done – no code required).”
Part of this partnership includes dedicated Zapier support to help you through every step of the process. With over 2,000 apps to choose from, you can rest assured that your company’s website is as efficient and user-friendly as possible. This is a feature you can only get with Exercise.com because Mindbody does not integrate with Zapier.
At Exercise.com, we take customer service very seriously; which is why we provide our clients with a dedicated account manager to help them through every step of the process—indefinitely.
If you want to redesign your fitness landing page with new assets, your account manager will get it done. If you want to set up an ecommerce store, your account manager won’t blink twice. Whatever you need, our world-class dev team will come through. From the mundane to the complex, we have you covered.
Mindbody offers custom apps for an additional fee and includes your company’s colors and logo on the app. Exercise.com, however, provides custom branded fitness apps built for gyms for no additional charge. When you sign up to use our software, custom apps and websites are included—no additional costs, no headaches. And if you need additional custom software development for fitness, then we offer that too!
As stated above, Mindbody’s software does have the capability to create custom-branded apps and websites for an additional fee ($249/month); however, “Mindbody, Incorporated” will still be displayed. Exercise.com software is fully customized so that your company is front and center.
Exercise.com’s app and the Mindbody app can be used on iOS and Android. With that being said, only Exercise.com provides custom branded fitness apps on both iOS and Android at no additional cost.
Mindbody’s virtual thumbprint is small and does not build custom websites for its customers. Instead, it offers an integration through the website creation service, Weebly. Mindbody users will still need a Mindbody login to access their websites.
While Exercise.com does not offer websites, you can create a fitness landing page for your business.
Mindbody and Exercise.com both provide users with added security features so that their business and client information remains safe and secure.
Exercise.com security features include:
Learn more about Exercise.com security.
The Mindbody website has a Partner Marketplace that allows the business owner access to “premier partner” add-on apps like Frederick, a client retention tool. There are currently 60 partner apps in the Mindbody Partner Marketplace.
Exercise.com has built-in integrations but the possibilities are endless with our focus on custom-branded solutions for retention, client and lead follow-ups, marketing, advertising, along with other features intended for faster, easier, and more automated business growth. Some of our more popular integrations include:
It is becoming more important to potential clients to make the health journey a long-term marathon, as people grow weary of yo-yo dieting and losing motivation, and that is why being able to easily create, update, send, and track workouts and client progression is so important.
Does Mindbody rise to the challenge? Let’s find out.
Mindbody integrates with FitMetrix for workout creation. However, there are a few limitations to FitMetrix that don’t exist with Exercise.com.
First, the FitMetrix workout creator’s primary function is for group workouts. Using videos from Wellbeats, trainers can create circuits or intervals for their group classes. While this may be a nice feature for group workouts, FitMetrix has no 1-1 workout creation. This means personal trainers are unable to create or send custom workouts to in-person or online clients, significantly reducing your client engagement.
With FitMetrix, clients can start, pause, and stop a logged workout. Once the workout is complete, clients select the activities they performed during their workout, such as crunches or push-ups. However, these workouts are unable to be shared with trainers, making collaboration, accountability, and success much more difficult.
FitMetrix starts at $99/month but Mindbody is vague about how this price is incorporated into their packages.
Finally, many reviews from Capterra show that FitMetrix is unreliable during group classes. The workouts and videos are prone to glitches and trainers spend additional time getting their workouts to cast on the TV. This is not only frustrating but unprofessional and takes away from class time.
The Exercise.com custom gym apps know that tracking progress is a major key to client retention and happiness, which we can quantify in business revenue. The more a client feels like their work is paying off, the longer they will stay and the happier they will be over the long term working with your fitness business.
We know that and that’s why our workout software for gyms is full-featured and allows for customizations for your brand.
Our workout creator/logger provides users with endless possibilities for delivering workouts, tips, and encouragement to clients in any scenario, including:
Few things are more “classic” than a one-on-one personal training session. By utilizing Exercise.com workout software, personal trainers can add a personal touch to their training sessions.
Our workout software also allows for seamless group training sessions and provides clients with the ability to have a “community” with like-minded, goal-oriented fitness enthusiasts.
Online training is becoming more and more popular as people transition to a more digital lifestyle. While Mindbody does offer online training, each online training option has a separate fee and/or add-on requirement. On the other hand, the Exercise.com workout software allows you to send workouts to anyone, at any time, anywhere, with no additional fees or add-ons!
As stated, at the time of writing this article, Mindbody does not provide users with a custom exercise library.
There are many fitness software companies that offer pre-built workout libraries to their users. The videos include people who are not a part of your business and, therefore, there is a lost opportunity to connect your business with users watching the video.
With Exercise.com, video libraries and exercises can be customized. Upload your own exercises or use the pre-built exercise video library.
Giving your clients a video featuring someone they have never seen or met does not showcase your business the same way it would if your fitness staff was featured. Your clients are unique and so is your business. Give them the best experience possible by using videos filmed at your business, featuring your staff members.
Trainers can only use the videos from Wellbeats when creating a custom group workout. This limits the creativity of your trainers since they can only add an exercise if Wellbeats has a video modeling the exercise. With Exercise.com, your trainers can have a full range of creativity by using your own custom exercise videos.
Aside from providing clients with the ability to watch demos of the exercises you’ve sent them within their workout plans, gyms can use the exercise library as well as a great way to cast exercise demos onto gym television screens during group classes or one-on-one training sessions.
This is a great way to provide that “personal touch” so many people look for when choosing a gym.
For Mindbody, the software allows for purchases to be made in two different ways: through a “walk-in” sale and also with a “client” sale. A walk-in sale is categorized as any sale made without it being attached to a “client.”
The client sale is just that: a sale with a product attached to a client; either through a membership sale or tracking the products that each specific client purchases.
When it comes to selling membership training packages, running workout challenges, delivery of individual training, and selling single workout plans, Mindbody without the additional use of a third-party app cannot sustain these tasks.
Mindbody has great payment processing capabilities and gives users the option to accept payments online, on mobile, or in-person via the Poynt Smart terminal. However, in order to provide their clients and customers with these payment processing options, gyms will have to pay a fee.
Poynt offers two tiers: Advanced and Premium. The Advanced tier costs $30/month, and Premium costs $50/month. There are further fees, such as for each additional Poynt location and additional charges for in-person, e-commerce, and keyed-in purchases.
Exercise.com gym ecommerce software also provides users with payment processing options and can accept payments for any product or service in a secure manner.
Using Stripe, our software can accept one-time payments for products or services, send recurring monthly membership invoices, sell packages for personal training or group classes, or combine all accrued payables into one monthly bill for customers. It can truly be customized to whatever will work most efficiently for your business
Mindbody has POS capabilities, but your product options are limited depending on your software subscription package. As to be expected, the more money you can spend on a subscription package, the greater product variety you can sell.
With Exercise.com gym ecommerce software, there’s no restrictions! You can sell your products on your app, website, and in-store. Exercise.com goes a step further and provides users with the ability to also sell training packages like the below examples:
Personal training or custom-designed workout plans offer many benefits, but they may not necessarily be for everyone. Some members might already have a good base of fitness knowledge and want a more generic plan that helps them generate ideas and gives them something to follow.
Exercise.com gives you the chance to sell pre-built workout plans for members who might fall into this scenario. They may not be comfortable paying for personal training or asking for a custom plan, but by having pre-built plans available, you are offering a tool that they can use to be successful while generating revenue for your business.
The great thing is that the same plan can be purchased by dozens of different people, meaning that it carries a high value for your business.
For the clients who do want a customized program, your business is able to charge a premium price, but that normally dictates a higher time commitment from the individual generating the program.
Exercise.com helps to save this time by providing automated programming delivery.
Rather than having to take the time to send a new workout at the end of each cycle, the workouts can all be created in advance and be set to be automatically delivered to the client when the right time comes up. Then, they are able to do these workouts in their own time at their location of choice.
Fitness businesses promote a sense of community, whether intentionally or unintentionally. People see the same faces several days per week, develop friendships, and share in the success of others. By running a workout challenge, you are providing an opportunity for members to engage with others as a team or in friendly competition.
The more your business feels like a community, the more members will want to tell their friends about it. This is an amazing marketing opportunity for your fitness business.
Another key to being a great fitness business owner and trainer is knowing that having a baseline for where you want to take your clients, along with constantly adjusting that baseline, optimizes your clients’ health goals tremendously.
Fitness assessment software should allow you to:
Once again, Mindbody must use its integration with FitMetrix for assessments. The assessments from FitMetrix are grouped into generic categories: tests, measurements, health, notes, photos, and weight. Mindbody remains vague about what assessment personalization is possible in these categories.
Exercise.com fitness assessment software however, is fully customizable from A-to-Z and allows you to onboard clients and deliver workouts automatically without needing a third-party app.
You can onboard leads into clients by gauging their fitness and health levels and re-engage clients at set intervals to show progress and increase retention. Most importantly, the data collected is customized to your business and clients. This smart data ensure you have the data that’s important for your client’s journey and your business’ growth.
Your business and your clients can both derive value from assessments. From a business standpoint, this is a service you can charge for, and the information you receive can be used to make recommendations regarding other services you offer. For the client, the information obtained in the assessment gives them a baseline to use when evaluating their progress.
No business ever wants to lose a client, and fitness businesses are no exception. You can keep your clients engaged with your business by automating your interactions with them. Reminding them of their goals and progress is a great way to keep them coming in and being able to automate this service saves you time.
Exercise.com performance health software allows you to deliver recurring assessments, progress photos, and measurements to promote client re-engagement and retention.
Health and fitness software should include the whole package. After all, for performance to be at its peak, your clients need to take stock of their daily dietary choices—that’s where Exercise.com nutrition tracking and logging comes into play.
Mindbody does not have nutrition tracking, which means your clients are missing a huge piece of the fitness puzzle. But with Exercise.com, your clients can track their daily intake and you can see what they’re eating and whether they prioritize pre and/or post-workout meals. This results in greater client success and satisfaction.
So, how much does Mindbody software cost per month and how much is the Mindbody app? Earlier we covered the basic features in Essential and went over the additional features offered in the Ultimate versions. The pricing changes dramatically from Essential to Ultimate but comes with a free trial so a business owner can find out if the application is for them or not.
| Package | Starter | Accelerate | Ultimate | Ultimate Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $139/mon | $279/mon | $499/mon | $699/mon |
| Features | Mindbody App Listing | Email templates | Automate email/text | Custom mobile app |
| Class, Appointment, Workshop, & Event Scheduling | Reporting | Client review prompts | ||
| Manage Clients, Staff | Mobile booking, purchases | Incentivize referrals | ||
| Run Reports (basic) | Self check-in | Custom mobile app (add-on) | ||
| Mobile booking, purchases (add-on) | Smart contact lists | |||
| Self check-in (add-on) | Custom mobile app (add-on) | |||
| Digital forms (add-on) | ||||
| Custom mobile app (add-on) |
With each tier for pricing comes upgrades.
If you do not think your business needs the investment of a system you will want to work and learn with over time, Mindbody may not be the fit, but it remains one of the top fitness club management systems for a reason.
And while not everyone needs a custom-designed mobile app especially in the franchise industry, the Mindbody price is still comparative across the market with its subscription competitors.
Below is a list of Mindbody Online alternatives and general price range. There were only a few Mindbody competitors that did not have their prices available to the public, and most did include live demos and or free trials with their products.
| Alternative | Min. Starting Price | Max Price |
|---|---|---|
| TheStudioDirector | $39/month | $149+/month |
| Trainerize | $5/month | $250/month |
| 10to8 | $9.6/month | $40/month then customized pricing |
| ClubExpress | $24/month | $.40/member up to 100 then discounts for groups |
| EZFacility | *n/a, contact | Free Trial then Subscription |
| Pike13 | $129/month | $179/month |
| TeamSnap | $9.99/month or $69.99/year | $17.99/month or $129.99/year |
| Zen Planner | $117 | $414-964(software, website, marketing) |
Choosing the right software to run your business can mean the difference between success and failure, but it doesn’t have to be a hard choice because Exercise.com is the best Mindbody alternative. There are many software companies like Mindbody, but Exercise.com is the best all-in-one choice if you want to scale your fitness business with software designed specifically for fitness businesses.
Many reviewers love the Mindbody app and their customer service team, but the overall consensus is that Mindbody, although having a lot of features, is hard to navigate, has a steep learning curve, and isn’t functioning up to par with expectations for the price.
Additionally, clunkiness (a result of software trying to cover too many niches) is a regular complaint among users.
If you’re looking for an all-in-one fitness business management software that will allow you to grow and manage your business with ease Exercise.com should be your choice.
Also, we build your web and smartphone apps with your brand in mind. It’s not just cookie-cutter software. It’s your app, your software, and your brand front and center. So, if you need a feature, integration, and more engaging performance health software let us know. Our world-class dev team has a proven track record of delivering software that just works.
Hopefully, you see the benefit of not waiting to have a system and software in place that allows you to manage and grow your business for years to come.
What features are most important for your business?
Relax, and let us do all the work to migrate from Mindbody. Start your Mindbody migration and see how fast we can add rocket fuel to your fitness business.
If you’re ready to grow and manage your business with a software that can be customized to your business, book a demo with Exercise.com now.
