Best Acuity Scheduling Alternative: Exercise.com vs. Acuity Scheduling

Exercise.com: Your Acuity Scheduling Alternative

Why Choose Exercise.com?

Here are five reasons why fitness professionals use Exercise.com vs. Acuity Scheduling.

 

 

If you’re ready to get started with an easy-to-navigate, all-in-one fitness software, designed to fuel your business, request a demo with Exercise.com today.

And, if you want to see how Acuity Scheduling’s additional features stack up to Exercise.com software features, check out our in-depth guide below.

What is Acuity Scheduling?

Acuity Scheduling is a business management software for businesses and professionals that schedule appointments, sessions, or classes. Its features are around scheduling, calendars, payment processing, selling memberships and packages, and automatic reminders. Acuity Scheduling is owned by Squarespace.

Acuity Scheduling is based in the United States. Acuity Scheduling has a 4.8 out of 5.0 rating on GetApp based on 2,840 reviews. The positive comments focus on the pricing, customer service, and integration options. The negative comments focus on the use of a third-party app to integrate, calendar options and customization, and difficulty with embedding on websites.

How does Acuity Scheduling work?

Acuity Scheduling has numerous features for scheduling and calendar management, such as booking and managing appointments, classes, or sessions. It also includes payment processing options like selling memberships, automatic reminders, and calendar syncing.

The features that Acuity Scheduling is missing are workout creation and delivery, performance health assessments, and the ability to sell workouts and products via the mobile app or online dashboard. Those are important features that fitness professionals would miss out on.

Exercise.com offers all of the features that Acuity Scheduling offers, but they add in the important missing features, like workout creation and delivery, performance health assessments, and the ability to generate additional revenue streams by selling products, workouts, and memberships online.

Unless otherwise stated, all images and reviews below are of/about the Exercise.com All-In-One Fitness Business Management software platform.

Fitness Business Management Software

All-in-one Fitness Business Management (FBM) software should have key features that provide all the features you need to successfully run and manage a business from your fingertips 24/7. Important FBM features include scheduling features, payment processing features, reporting, and alternate revenue streams.

Acuity Scheduling works by including options for scheduling, payment processing, and basic reporting but does not include options for alternate revenue streams. The main focus of Acuity Scheduling is appointment scheduling/management and payment processing. Additionally, Acuity Scheduling is HIPAA compliant.

With Exercise.com, you will find an all-in-one software option that can be used by managers, staff, employees, clients, and members. The features are endless to grow and manage your fitness business in a way that makes managing or running a successful business possible for anyone.

Client/Class Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling allows clients and members to book and manage appointments, sessions, and classes in real-time using their Acuity Scheduling login. Managers and professionals set availability for clients to easily book appointments, sessions, or classes from the mobile app or online dashboard. Acuity Scheduling also sends automatic reminders via text and email.

Exercise.com has similar options for calendars, scheduling, booking, and automatic reminders. These important features are vital for running a successful business.

Gym/Facility Management

Your fitness business management software should make managing your business efficient and easy. Managers should be able to set up different levels of access to the software for employees, managers, or fitness professionals. You should be able to generate numerous reports that will give you all the data you need about your business.

Acuity Scheduling doesn’t have facility management functions, but Exercise.com has you covered.

Business Dashboard Reports

Acuity Scheduling has limited generic reports: appointment types, revenue, user booking, add-ons, and tips. But fitness businesses need more specific and/or customizable reports, which is something Acuity Scheduling doesn’t offer.

With Exercise.com, all of your reports can be run in a single software. The Exercise.com Fitness Business Management (FBM) software platform makes reports easy — sales, business, appointments, class, and payroll reports all in one place. You can even create custom reports specifically for your business. Plus you can also sort reports by:

• Client
• Location
• Services

These reports empower you to have your finger on the pulse of your business and if you’re bringing on new trainers you’ll know how much to pay staff based on commissions.

Client Automation

Client automation makes your software work for you to send reminders and notifications via text, email, or through the mobile app. Acuity Scheduling includes options for email reminders with all of their paid subscriptions, but the lowest subscription level (Emerging Entrepreneur) does not include text message reminders.

Exercise.com includes email, text, and mobile app reminders, but also includes options to automate workout and assessment information. For example, Exercise.com allows trainers and fitness professionals to:

• Automate Workout Delivery
• Automate Resource Delivery
• Automate Assessment Delivery

Dedicated Zapier Support

Acuity Scheduling and Exercise.com both offer Zapier integrations, but Acuity Scheduling only integrates with 500 of Zapier’s apps. With Exercise.com, you get access to over 2,000 apps to choose from, so you can rest assured that your company’s website is as efficient and user-friendly as possible.

At Exercise.com, we provide our clients with a plethora of integrations – but, sometimes, you want a bit of a boost. Our partnership with Zapier allows you to, in Zapier’s words, “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).

Dedicated Account Manager

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. This way you have one point-of-contact for any questions or concerns with our software.

Your account manager works for you to address your mundane and complex needs. If you want to change color on your mobile app, your account manager will get it done. If you want to set up an ecommerce store, your account manager will make it happen.

Customized Software

Your fitness business management software should be customized to your preferences to showcase your business. Your website and mobile apps may be the first look that a potential client or customer has of your business, so you want it to stand out. Customization allows consistency among your software online dashboard, mobile apps, website, social media, and any marketing efforts.

Custom-Branded

Your software should match your branding, logo, colors, and verbiage. The consistency is what customers will recognize and enable you to build brand loyalty. Acuity Scheduling provides options only for displaying your logo, coloring, and the ability to edit app text so it matches your language.

Exercise.com takes it a step further and offers full customization, including the features above, but also full customization of mobile apps and websites. You will find the security features and marketing integrations to be helpful customizations to help you grow and manage your fitness business.

iOS & Android Apps

Acuity Scheduling has admin and client mobile apps for iOS and Android. The admin app for iOS has a 4.8 out of 5.0 rating based on 13,600 reviews. The admin Android app has a 4.7 out of 5.0 rating based on 2,668 reviews. The positive comments are about ease of use and available features, the negative comments mention that the app is slow and glitchy.

The client mobile apps don’t have the rave reviews of the admin app. The iOS app has a 3.7 out of 5.0 and the Android app has a 2.9 rating out of 5.0. Reviews report that the app is slow, basic, and difficult to navigate.

Exercise.com allows full customization and custom branding of your mobile apps. Your clients and members can search for your business name in the iOS or Google Play store, not the name of a third-party app. Our app has everything your staff, trainers, and clients need to succeed! From workout creation, delivery, and logging, to assessments, ecommerce, scheduling, and more, the Exercise.com app is the perfect compliment to your business software.

Websites

Acuity Scheduling does not offer a customized website, but the scheduler can be embedded into your website. You must already have a website established in order to do this and they do not offer support for website development or customization.

Exercise.com also allows full customization and custom branding of your website. The best features that are offered for websites include:

• Responsive
• Built to convert visitors to leads
• Google Certified Partner

Security Features

In the days where we hear about a data breach or cases of compromised data almost daily, it’s important to make sure your facility’s data and your clients’ data is safe and secure. Exercise.com ensures the safety of your data with these important features:

• SSL Secure
• Privacy Shield Framework
• Google Cloud

Marketing Integrations

Marketing is an important component of any successful business. Social media, email, text messages, and notifications are great ways to stay in touch with your members and clients.

Acuity Scheduling includes a number of integrations for email marketing, CRM, client engagement, and API. Exercise.com understands the important role of marketing and provides integrations that help amp up your marketing efforts. Some of our more popular integrations include:

• MailChimp
• ConstantContact
• ConvertKit
• Zapier
• Google Analytics
• Facebook Pixel

Workout Software

Acuity Scheduling does not have any workout software options because the focus is on calendars, booking, integrations, and payment processing.

Exercise.com has a ton of options for personal trainers and fitness professionals to develop, deliver, and sell workout plans and packages. This software makes it easy to stay in touch with clients, generate additional revenue streams, and help your clients meet their health and fitness goals. It’s easy to train clients near and far with the help of Exercise.com.

Workout Creator/Logger

Exercise.com includes a workout creator and workout logger in its software. No more pen and paper workouts and no need to use completely separate software to create and design workouts for clients and members. Our workout creator/logger provides users with endless possibilities for delivering workouts, tips, and encouragement to clients in any scenario, including 1-1 training, group training, and online training.

1-1 Training

Working one on one with a client is made easier with Exercise.com. You can create and modify workouts using the software and use this to guide the workout. Exercisers can pull up their workout via the mobile app and ask questions along the way.

Group Training

If group training is your focus, you can use any mobile device to create or view workouts with Exercise.com. You can follow along to stay on track if you are leading the class or exercisers can view the workout plan if you are dividing the group into smaller groups or allowing them to take the lead for certain parts of the workout. If you also have access to a tv, you can show the workout plan broadcasted on the television.

For example, if you are doing a circuit training workout, you can include the exercises in order by using the workout creator and then broadcast it on the tv or allow exercisers to use their mobile devices to follow along with the workout.

Online Training

Online training is a great way to grow your business for a number of reasons. For one, you can train your current face-to-face clients if they are out of town on business or traveling on a vacation. Second, you can add new clients to your client base no matter where they are located. Third, it gives you more flexibility for training clients in a hybrid format, partially online and partially face-to-face.

Exercise.com works for you to allow you to train clients one-on-one, in groups, online, or hybrid. All of these options give you a ton of flexibility to maximize your time and revenue.

Exercise Library

Exercise.com also includes an exercise library, which is an important component of any workout software. An exercise library includes instructions, descriptions, videos, photos, or tips that help exercisers understand how to complete an exercise or movement with good form and technique.

Personal trainers and fitness professionals can use exercise libraries to design workouts and help their clients fully understand how to do an exercise correctly, what muscles are being worked, and tips to make the most of the exercise or movement.

Custom Exercises

An exercise library may have tons of great exercises and movements, but there may be exercises that are not included in an exercise library. Or you might have variations on movements that you enjoy using with clients that are not part of the exercise library.

Exercise.com allows you to add custom exercises so you have everything you need at your fingertips to design and deliver the most effective workouts for your clients to help them meet their health and fitness goals.

TV Workouts

Aside from providing clients with the ability to watch demos of the exercises you’ve sent them within their workout plans, exercisers and gyms can use the exercise library, and gyms can cast exercise demos onto 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.

Ecommerce Software

Ecommerce is a necessary feature of any fitness business software. Acuity Scheduling offers payment processing options using integrations with popular payment processing tools, the ability to upsell clients with add-ons at checkout, and options to purchase gift cards, memberships, or packages.

Exercise.com provides fitness businesses with ecommerce options to enhance or add additional revenue streams. Safe and secure payment processing, the ability to sell retail or other products, and options to sell memberships, packages, or sessions. You can also sell workout challenges, membership plans, or workouts online.

Payment Processing

The ability to accept and process payments via credit card is vital for any fitness business. Clients and members need an easy option to book and pay for classes and appointments via mobile apps or online dashboard.

Acuity Scheduling’s payments, deposits, and billing go through PayPal, Square, or Stripe, and provides users with the option to save credit cards for charging clients later, an option to allow clients to tip you, and coupons and vouchers for discounts.

Exercise.com has similar features to allow clients to securely pay via the mobile app, dashboard, or in-person. Payment processing is safe and easy.

Sell Products

Acuity Scheduling has options to upsell clients with check-out add-ons. Clients and members can also purchase gift certificates, memberships, and packages.

Exercise.com allows for ecommerce and point-of-sale products, like retail items, online workout plans, online memberships, or online packages. Selling retail items is a great boost to your business that can also create brand loyalty.

Sell Workout Plans

Exercise.com allows you to sell workout plans online or in-person. You can either create new workout plans, like a strength and conditioning program for off-season baseball players or a resistance training program focused on older adults, or you can sell training plans that you have already created.

Let’s say you created a popular prenatal workout program and would like to sell that online to women who are pregnant who want an effective and safe exercise routine to do at home. You can sell the full workout plan online and share the program with anyone at any location. You could also sell the plan locally to women who are interested in doing the program at your fitness facility.

Offer Online Workout Memberships

Online workout memberships are a great way to grow your business. Exercise enthusiasts may have access to a gym in their home or may travel for business with access to a hotel gym. If you have a great reputation in the fitness industry, you may want to take that to the next level by marketing yourself, your skills, and your knowledge online outside of your local area.

Exercise.com gives you the ability to grow your online clientele by giving you the option to offer online workout memberships. Any personal trainer can and should take advantage of this feature to try something new and build your business.

Sell Workout Challenges

Workout challenges are an excellent way to motivate members, enhance loyalty, and generate additional revenue for your business. Workout challenges among exercise enthusiasts create an environment of healthy competition and motivate exercisers to meet their individual fitness goals. Exercise.com provides the option of creating workout challenges for participants near and far.

Personal trainers and fitness professionals can create regular workout challenges that can occur monthly, a few times a year, or any time you desire. You can also determine the duration of the workout challenges to be four weeks, six weeks, or any length you choose.

Let’s say you have a good online following on Instagram and Twitter. You could create a workout challenge in the spring to get everyone swimsuit ready. Or you could create a six-week healthy competition at the beginning of the fall and have members set goals before the busy holiday season.

Assessment Software

Acuity Scheduling does not have any features for assessments or nutrition tracking. Personal trainers and fitness professionals would need another software to use these features or would need to conduct assessments with pen and paper (the old-fashioned way). There are online tools to help you with conducting and using assessments, but who has time to use different websites and keep track of all of that information for your clients?

Exercise.com has robust assessment features. Assessments are a great way to get baseline data for a client and use that to plan an effective fitness program that helps them work toward their health and fitness goals. Clients and trainers can use assessments to compare to others of similar age and sex, to increase motivation, and to enhance loyalty.

Assessments

Assessments can be used for a variety of reasons to help determine a baseline, to increase motivation, as a comparison to fitness norms, and to enhance loyalty. Assessments are used to test various fitness aspects, like cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, balance, and body composition.

You can use the results of those assessments to get a baseline measurement of your client’s current level of fitness, which can be used to plan an appropriate exercise program that also uses progressive overload to see results from their hard work. The assessment results can be compared to normative values that represent different levels of fitness for a comparable age and sex.

Performance & Measurement Reports

Performance assessment reports are important to determine if there has been any progress over time toward goals. Exercise.com allows you to set up delivery of these reports to share information with your clients either manually or automatically.

For example, let’s say one of your female clients wants to improve their cardiorespiratory endurance and you have this client complete a 12-minute walk/run for distance assessment. This client gets 1.0 mile the first time, 1.07 miles after three months of training, and then 1.13 after another three months of training.

With performance and measurement reports, now you have solid data showing improvement in your client. Research shows that the 12-minute walk/run test is correlated to aerobic or cardiorespiratory endurance, so you and your client know they are working toward their goal.

Nutrition

Nutrition and healthy eating is a key component of any health and fitness program. If a client is working hard during their personal training sessions but does not have good eating habits, it will slow their progress. By using a diet tracker like MyFitnessPal, personal trainers using Exercise.com can view their client’s nutrition and can make basic recommendations for them to improve their eating habits.

Acuity Scheduling Pricing

Acuity Scheduling offers a free version with very limited features. There is also an Acuity Scheduling demo that potential clients can test out. Pricing for Acuity ranges from $15 to $50 a month and there is a free seven-day trial with no credit card needed. See the table below for pricing and features offered with each plan.

Acuity Scheduling also has an Enterprise package for users who expect especially high appointment quantity or who have additional legal or compliance needs. There is no other information available, so you must contact Acuity Scheduling directly for package details and pricing.

Acuity Scheduling Alternatives

The biggest alternatives to Acuity Scheduling, aside from Exercise.com, are Booksy, Mindbody, Pike13, Zen Planner, Bookeo, and Schedulicity. Some of the competitors focus more on the calendar, booking, and appointment features, while others include workout creation/delivery and performance health assessment features as well.

The Bottom Line: Pros and Cons

Acuity Scheduling has features that are useful to many professionals who only need scheduling, appointment management, payment processing options, and basic reporting.

Personal trainers, gym managers, and other fitness professionals would need another system to use workout creation and delivery features, performance health assessment features, customization of mobile apps and websites, and robust ecommerce options, like selling personal training online. This is where Exercise.com provides all the features you need to grow and manage your fitness business.

One software is all you need for calendars and booking, workout creation and delivery, customized websites and apps, member management, administrative functions, ecommerce, and health performance assessments. Exercise.com gives you all of this for one price and one package.

Acuity Scheduling Cons

Acuity Scheduling has calendars, scheduling, payment processing, and reminders options that all fitness businesses need and use. The major con is that Acuity Scheduling does not include workout creation/delivery or performance health assessment features. Fitness professionals need and use those features, so they would need another software option in order to access those features.

Additionally, Acuity Scheduling lacks customizable and standard business reports, websites, and ecommerce opportunities. These can only be found with Exercise.com!

Exercise.com Pros

Exercise.com truly is an all-in-one fitness business management software platform that will help you manage and grow every aspect of your business. Investing in a reputable and effective fitness business management software is an investment in your business.

You can build your client base locally, nationally, or even internationally with the ecommerce and workout creation/delivery features. You can enhance client loyalty with performance assessments, mobile apps, workout creation/delivery, and ecommerce features. Exercise.com makes your life and your client’s lives happier and healthier.

This comparison has described the all-in-one software features of Exercise.com. Which features would be most helpful to you?

Ready to schedule a demo to get a visual picture of all the features of Exercise.com? Click here to get started!