Mindbody is a popular app in the fitness and wellness industry. It gives customers and potential clients the ability to find, book, and review the services they want.Â
It’s essentially a huge online marketplace and booking app, giving businesses an easy way to attract customers, manage scheduling, classes, and appointments.
This makes it great for in-person fitness classes, brick-and-mortar studios and wellness businesses that operate face-to-face.
However, for online fitness and wellness brands that are video-driven, or influencers looking to grow and expand into a video membership model, Mindbody isn’t the right platform.Â
We’ve rounded up the benefits, drawbacks, features, and primary use cases for Mindbody to help you evaluate whether it’s the right software for your business.
Let’s dive in…
Mindbody at a glance
Mindbody pros and cons
Pros
âś…Comprehensive online marketplace: businesses have access to a large number of potential customers (2.4M+ active users to be exact)
âś… Well-known brand: Mindbody is well-established in the fitness and wellness industry, making it recognizable for clients and partners
âś…AI assist messenger to help manage clients: helps you respond to clients faster when they contact you after hours
âś…Sales and marketing tools: Built-in tools to effectively capture leads and automate campaigns and communications
âś…Team and staff management features: Oversee schedules, and payroll and gain key insights into performance
âś…Handle payments: The app supports multiple payment providers for a more seamless user experience when booking
âś…Option to create a branded app: create a more personalized experience for your customers
Cons
❌Pricing: You need to contact Mindbody’s sales team for accurate information on pricing tiers. Reviews suggest that the platform is pricey if you want access to all features (approximately $549-699 a month) and there’s no free trial available to test it out before committing
❌User experience: in recent years, there has been a larger volume of poor reviews and 1-2-star ratings
❌ Old-fashioned user interface: reviews indicate that the interface isn’t as intuitive and professional-looking as other software platforms on the market
❌Limited features with branded app: the branded app acts as an add-on/extension of the desktop booking experience and doesn’t offer additional value
❌Limited video capability: Live streaming and video-on-demand features cost extra and are more suited for complementing an in-person class
❌Basic marketing tools: The marketing tools are designed to capture leads coming through the Mindbody marketplace and don’t offer more advanced features like a membership website builder.
Rating
On G2, the review site for software, Mindbody has a rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars.
These reviews and ratings are made up of verified users and businesses who have used the software and share their experiences as business owners.
On Trustpilot, they fare slightly better with a 4.2 rating:
However the reviews are very mixed on both of these sites, so let’s have a look at what their customers and end-users are saying about their experience of the software.
What creators say about Mindbody
What end-users say about Mindbody
Why Mindbody works for fitness studios
Mindbody is well-known in the fitness and wellness industry. It’s a viable option for businesses that want booking software that enables their clients to find, book, and pay for their services online.
The benefits include:
Having access to a large marketplace of fitness and wellness customers
The Mindbody marketplace is made up of 2.4M active users and customers are actively searching for new businesses to book using the software.
Obviously, you’d need to take into account that these are the total number of users on the app worldwide. If you’re looking to attract consumers in your local area or region, then your pool of potential users is going to be significantly smaller than that.
Still, the presence of a large number of engaged users that use the Mindbody app is particularly valuable for small businesses to increase their discoverability and make it easy for people to see what you have to offer.
Access inbuilt marketing tools
Mindbody comes with a range of tools to help you market your business on the app. The stand-out features here are the lead management dashboard which gives you the tools to capture leads (i.e. interested people who are looking at your company and service in the app) and the automated communications and campaigns.
This saves busy studios the time and effort into managing these important marketing efforts – as you just need to set them up and they take care of themselves, freeing up your time to focus on what you do best.
Manage your team
The staff management feature is a useful tool for making the day-to-day running of your business simpler. It allows you to review and manage your employee’s schedules, hours, and overall performance, helping you to maintain a professional environment and service.
It also helps to empower your team to promote their own classes and offerings to build up a connection with their audience online and bring in clients – creating another marketing avenue for your overall business.
The drawbacks of Mindbody: where it stops working for fitness creators
While there are lots of useful benefits of Mindbody for on-site fitness and wellness businesses, for fitness creators who want to grow their offering online, the Mindbody app just doesn’t cut it due to the limited capability for video content and hosting.
It is possible to live stream classes and host videos on demand through the Mindbody software but the functionality is limited and you have to pay extra for these features as additional add-ons to your existing software package.
Here are the key points you should know:
- Live-streamed classes are limited to 250 participants
- The video on-demand feature costs an additional $99 per month and you’ll be charged extra if your views go above 4,000
- Clients and users can’t purchase passes for your online content through the branded app, they have to do it through their browser
- Individual instructors don’t have ownership over their video content
Overall, it’s a hefty price tag to pay if you want to access all of the features the platform has to offer (according to reviews, this could range up to $599 a month – plus the additional fees for the video service add-ons) for a fairly limited user experience.
Mindbody’s video features are designed to complement your on-site offering, rather than enable you to grow a video-centric business. And your competitors are likely to be offering more with all-in-one platforms that are specifically designed for video.
Finding a solution that’s a good fit for your goals is essential if you want to achieve successful growth and compete in this popular market.
The other potential drawbacks include:
❌Inflexible monetization methods – like offering a choice between subscriptions or pay-per-view
❌Limited features for audience engagement
❌Lack of robust support (based on the user reviews)
❌Difficult to scale your offering with the focus on in-person classes or training sessions
The value of video memberships for scaling your fitness brand
If you’re a fitness creator looking to build your own business online to earn stable recurring revenue, going beyond what you’re able to offer with one-to-one coaching or on-site classes, then a video membership platform could be the answer.
They offer a stronger alternative to having a Mindbody business because you can create and share on-demand video content at scale and monetize it flexibly to suit the kind of service you offer without limitations. Just like Uscreen…
Uscreen is an industry-leading membership platform with features designed to help online fitness and yoga instructors motivate and retain paid members, build a strong brand, and become a 6-figure business.
It empowers you to:
- Create premium workouts and experiences that keep your members motivated and coming back for more
- Build an engaging brand that your members can easily access through mobile and TV apps
- Train and reach more people while generating higher recurring revenue
- Access support whenever you need it 24/7 through our dedicated customer service team
Take Studio Bloom for example. Founder Brooke Cates took her specialized personal training for new and expecting mothers to Uscreen, turning it into a unique fitness program for pregnant women and new mothers.
Since migrating to Uscreen, Brooke has reached $1M+ in annual revenue, launching 6 branded TV and mobile apps that drive 76% of viewership.
👉Read the full story to find out how she did it
Community is a crucial element to the success of the video membership model. It gives you a dedicated, exclusive space to build a real connection with your members. You can post updates, start discussions, and respond to questions all from your membership site or app.
The community aspect of Uscreen is central to Fittest Core, a family-run fitness membership that brings in 6-figures in annual revenue.
With Uscreen, I love using the app. It’s easy to navigate, and I always see new notifications and interactions from members. I check the community several times a day and personally answer questions, making sure I’m not missing anything my members need.
With Uscreen, fitness creators have complete ownership and control over their brands. It’s a sustainable way to scale their business by making their fitness content available to stream on-demand, giving their members access to an exclusive community space, and creating a high-quality experience that boosts member retention and engagement.
Wrapping things up: Is Mindbody worth it?
In short, Mindbody might be worth it for brick-and-mortar gyms, fitness, and yoga studios that want to take advantage of the business management features to reduce their admin and reach a wider audience on the Mindbody marketplace.
For fitness creators looking to scale their business beyond what they can offer with in-person training and classes, there are stronger alternatives that are tailored for building a video-based membership and offer an all-in-one solution.
Why not try Uscreen out for yourself and unlock the endless possibilities you could achieve as a fitness creator?
Build, launch and manage your membership, all in one place.
