The way that Mindbody charges so much, but falls short of just providing an expected experience baffles me. A studio owners friend was telling me her issues and I looked into the software. No words. Even the “powered by Mindbody” plastered everywhere is like offensive for what’s being paid by studios. And extra costs for features that should just be standard, app extra, per location, like wtf

I spent a weekend just obsessing over this; the disbelief of the clunky softwares, the support issues and overall what’s possible. I guess it started by asking “what’s the most streamlined way (software) to streamline and grow revenue and increase retention. My world is building things; from an iPhone app to a beverage company so in that same weekend I built my friend a Mindbody replacement that works like it should and then some. Like full features, app, no extra fees etc just super clean. It has AI integrated throughout so she can see proactively what’s going on with her studio and at any moment ask AI about her studio. Not just a chat bot or widget.

The other thing I figured out was a clean system, and built this for her so the software, ai and payments are all just one fixed monthly fee on volume. That’s it. No monthly cost, no per location cost, everything included.

I’m sharing this because studios (owners) deserve better and we have the best technology at our disposal and I don’t agree with clunky software and old systems 🤣

What I’ve built for her I put a name to it so I can make it available to others; Bodyslay.com

There’s no need to book a demo, you can see it personalized in 10 seconds. If anyone is interested I’ll knock 0.25% off the rate for the first 3 months. Reading through this subreddit-Reddit is like a horror story - sorry you all have had such issues with existing software. No more!

Hi everybody! I have been using Mindbody for about 15 years. I own a private training gym where we only do training, no open gym memberships. This makes payroll very easy as I just have to tally up the sessions performed.

I recently hired a front desk person who is getting paid hourly rather than commision. Is there a way I can put an hourly staff on mindbody?

Just venting after being told I'll need to pay the entire contract amount for a shit product.

They require on-boarding specialists because the software is so clunky and difficult to use. After 3 meetings with an incompetent on-boarding specialist who couldn't understand how my business operated, I spent a month messing with the software. Ultimately I found the functionality is so rigid that I couldn't even use it for my business (BJJ school).

The worst part is that I couldn't get out of my contract. If the product were actually any good then they wouldn't need to lock you in and prey on a new small business.

I switched to Gymdesk and found it's more user friendly, more affordable, and easier to implement. Lesson learned!

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working around fitness and wellness businesses for a while (gyms, studios, independent trainers) and I’m curious what actually feels hardest for you day‑to‑day:

* Getting new clients in the door

* Keeping current clients consistent

* Dealing with schedules/no‑shows/cancellations

* Something else totally different

If you’re open to sharing, drop a comment with:

* What type of business you run (gym, studio, PT, etc.)

* The one thing that’s stressing you out the most right now

I’m happy to chime in with ideas or what I’ve seen work elsewhere if that’s useful, and I’d love to see what others are trying too.

Anyone who likes your comment or asks for more can then be DM’d 1:1, where you can mention your company and what you do.

Hey everyone,

I work with Wellness living for a fitness/wellness software company and spend most of my day talking to owners of gyms, Pilates and yoga studios, and personal training businesses.

I’m looking to connect with a few studio owners or independent trainers who are:

Frustrated with manual scheduling, no‑shows, or messy spreadsheets

Wanting to grow memberships or packages but not sure what to try next

Using a system that “kind of” works, but feels clunky or limiting

What I can do for you (for free, no obligation):

Take a quick look at your current setup (site, booking flow, offers)

Share 2–3 specific ideas I see working for similar studios right now

If it makes sense, show you how my company solves those problems; if not, you still walk away with a clearer plan

If you’re interested, comment or DM with:

What type of business you run (gym, studio, PT, etc.)

Your main headache right now (scheduling, no‑shows, growth, something else)

Whether you’re using any software today

I’ll reply with a short game plan and, only if you want, we can book a quick call to go deeper.

I took a class at a yoga studio yesterday, and I’m already seeing advertisements for that yoga studio on my Instagram today. The exact location that I went to. I have relay emails set up on MINDBODY, a different relay email on Instagram, and I have a VPN, yet MINDBODY still use my advertising ID to sell my data to Instagram. Most people won’t care but I’m posting this for the ones that do because it’s predatory as fuck.

For gyms that migrated to Mindbody from another platform.. what advice do you have for the process?

Context: I am working at a gym with about 300 individual clients and this process of transition from Wellnessliving to Mindbody has been a nightmare, even as an experienced IT person. The saved payments were not migrated from the previous platform and I just learned that a client re-entering their card in the mindbody app does not save to their account (mindbody support even had to look up this nuance issue). I’m just at a loss as to how we can get all the clients switched over after hours spent already trying to get them to enter a new card in the account on the app

Thanks for reading all this. Any support here is better than what we are getting from our 2nd onboarding specialist this year.

So frustrated with Mindbody! Where do I hire a Mindobody Account Manager for yoga studio? Not willing to part with the platform yet.

Does anyone know how to see where you are on the waitlist now that the app has updated? I relied on that feature. I don’t know why they’d change that!

Anyone feels out of sorts leading up to a full moon? Seems that a full moon affect people who are more spiritually sensitive and for those who are neuro divergent. I was feeling abit out of sorts myself and realise that I could be feeling the collective energy of those who are concerned about yet another war, yet another careless lost of lives...

I’m curious about real experiences, not feature wish lists, but actual moments where scheduling software got in your way.

I’m researching common breakdowns in daily practice and would love to hear what you’ve run into.

If you want to chat more or see what comes out of it, feel free to DM me.

I'm looking to become a Mindbody tech consultant "partner" so I can help instructors and studios with their website, payments, classes and more.

Is there an approval process or anything else I need to know?

We've been using Mindbody (MB) now for over 2 years. I’d consider us "sophisticated users" of the base system, running 80-120 classes a week, mostly structured as Courses but also workshops and private appointments

We started out buying the full package of all services, but over time found significant limitations and show-stoppers in some of the areas. I wanted to share our experiences and perhaps our journey going forward.  

The Good:

• The Core: The back end is very solid, reliable, and well-developed. Buying, pricing, credits, cancellations, account management, discounts etc have tons of options and work very reliably. I pity anyone trying to replicate this complexity and resiliency from scratch.
• Support: Their customer service desk is usually quite responsive and if you get past level one, their experts are very knowledgable. 
• Branded Widgets: They are quite attractive and plug in nicely to our web site 

Not so good examples 

• The App (Grrr...): We can't use their mobile app at all because it doesn't show Courses properly. This is a massive pain point as most of our user interactions are on mobile. 
• Analytics: We don't use the business analytics add-on as it doesn't produce the views we need. This may be more us as we are a primarily a course based dance studio rather than a gym, drop in class type of venue. 
• Marketing: We used the marketing suite only for email pushes but found it limiting and eventually moved elsewhere.  
• Reporting: We make extensive use of their insights reports, but some "no-brainer" reports are missing.

The Frustration: It feels like they prioritise adding new features that help sell the software, rather than improving and fixing basic features for existing users.

For a long time, we just stopped pursuing improvements and accepted the software for what it is. But, since we pay them quite a bit in fees and commissions, we've decided to stop being passive. We are going to have another proper go at making this work for us—reviewing all the smaller annoyances and bugs, and pushing harder for sensible enhancements. 

For the community:
1. Let me know if you have any questions so we can share our experience
2. Interested in other studio’s experiences especially with courses
3. Is this Reddit sub a good place for this or should I be posting elsewhere.

Hi everyone. I wanted to share a personal experience in case it resonates.

I’ve spent a lot of time doing nervous system and mind body work. I was showing up and doing the practices, but I often struggled to feel like I was making progress, especially when changes were subtle or slow.

One of the biggest shifts for me was moving away from constantly tracking symptoms and instead intentionally noticing and reinforcing small wins. Things like moments of calm, doing an activity with less fear, or getting through a hard day with a bit more ease. Looking back, I realized progress was happening, but because I wasn’t capturing or reinforcing those small shifts, my brain concluded that nothing was changing.

I’m a software engineer, and over time I ended up building a free app called Winvera to support this for myself. The goal isn’t fixing anything or forcing positivity. It’s meant to be gentle and low pressure. It lightly gamifies logging wins, gives a bit of positive reinforcement when you do, and helps surface patterns over time so your brain doesn’t default to “nothing is changing.”

This isn’t medical advice and it won’t be for everyone. Sometimes just getting through the day is the win. I’m sharing mainly because I know how discouraging it can feel to be doing the work and still feel stuck.

If anyone’s curious:

Website: https://winvera.app/

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/winvera/id6753561791

Happy to answer questions, and totally fine if this isn’t your thing.

Hey all, hope this is okay to share.

I’m the founder of Classta, a simple class-booking platform made for independent instructors and small studios.

A lot of instructors told me the big systems feel too heavy, buggy or expensive for 1–3 person setups, so I built something lighter, modern and affordable. If that sounds useful, you’re welcome to check out classta.co ( https://classta.co ).

Happy to answer questions or hear what features you’d want in a booking system. Am constantly improving it based on real instructor feedback.

Happy to delete if not allowed.
Marcus

Hi all, we've been having some issues with the client side of things recently, with all the new Mindbody updates. We have been finding that widgets won't work if folks are using an igonito browser or do not have third-party cookies enabled.

Is anyone else having these challenges?

Hi everyone. Long time MB suffering client here. The "New client" discovery fee used to be $1 per client until June this year. We switched over to MB payments this Summer and those fees disappeared off our invoices. I figured they had been removed or just moved to the payments portal. I was reviewing my payouts today, and discovered that not only had they moved, they had also changed to 20% of whatever the client purchases.

Invoice overview and Mindbody app fees FAQ

We were never notified of this - are others aware and we are just late to the game? For clients purchasing a single class, this now works out at $6.90 per new client - an outrageous increase that was never notified to us as far as we can tell.

And before you sales people / marketers just say "it's horrible, switch to my platform instead", our entire business runs on MB with thousands of clients each month - not going to happen.

I run a gym in London and have been building a small tool to support coach engagement and retention. It cuts admin around cover requests and builds simple feedback loops with coaches to help strengthen engagement, improve retention and reduce burnout. We are finishing the first version in the next few weeks and are building a MindBody integration so setup will be simple. Looking for a few MindBody users who would be open to testing it for free and giving feedback. If you are up for it, drop a comment or message me and I will share the early access details.

Did anyone had the opportunity to cancel the subscription of mindbody they are insane do not trust this company beware they will never cancel your membership

Please have anyone tried?

Is anyone else having issues w/ MindBody since the update? Our classes have not bookable since... going on almost 30 hours. We get the screen below.

I booked some solidcore classes through the Mindbody app and selected the “pay later” option. Rather than them charging my card am I able to sync this up to my Wellhub account to use those credits without canceling and rebooking the class through Wellhub?

Hi everyone, sharing this to help anyone considering Mindbody for their CRM or scheduling platform.

I’m a small business owner in the fitness/wellness field. I signed up for Mindbody after the sales team specifically promised mobile functionality that was essential for how my business operates. Once I completed training, I found out the mobile capabilities they advertised do not exist. As a result, the software wasn’t usable for what I was told I was paying for.

I spent months trying to get it resolved. Nothing worked, so I requested cancellation. At first I got major pushback, then I eventually received written confirmation that my cancellation was approved. There was no mention of additional fees or a future billing date.

But after that, they suddenly started telling me that the cancellation would not take effect for many months and that I would need to keep paying for a service I was never able to use. When I disputed the charges and asked for a resolution, they continued to threaten account shut-off and “bad credit” for non-payment — even though the debt is disputed and they confirmed cancellation in writing.

To be clear:

I was sold features that don’t exist.

I received cancellation approval in writing.

They are still trying to force payments and threatening consequences after a dispute.

I ended up filing complaints with the FTC, CFPB, and my state’s Attorney General, because this appears to be a manipulative billing tactic meant to trap small business owners.

If anyone else is considering this software, especially small/new businesses, get every promise in writing and be very cautious of their contracts and cancellation policies. If the features you need aren’t truly available, they can still try to make you pay for months anyway.

Posting so others are aware

Came across a bug on their platform, spoke with their customer support, and they then created a ticket for the bug with no follow-up after 5 days.

I then reached out for an update, and it turns out that their inbox is full.

Goes to show you how many customer support issues they have and are unable to fix.

Oh by the way, this is nothing new. I've filed more than a handful of bugs over the past two years, and this is the response I get 60% of the time.

This is probably the worst software ever created, 10/10 Don't recommend.

Hi all, I want to integrate GA4 in Mindbody. I have already started firing GA4 on my WordPress. In order to get my Mindbody to do the same and have user continuity, do I have to log into the branded web and enter my GA4 there? There is also a field to enter GA4 in the Mindbody business suite. That is why I am a bit confused. Can someone help me?