Elements vs Mindbody
Mindbody is business management software for fitness, wellness and beauty businesses. A studio uses it to run its schedule, sell class packs and memberships, take payments in person and online, embed booking on its website and report on sales and visits. Mindbody also runs a consumer app, a marketplace where it says studios reach "3M+ consumers searching for fitness, beauty, and wellness services". Mindbody sells three plans, Starter, Accelerate and Ultimate, priced per location rather than per user. Its pricing page lists a starting price per location for Starter and asks you to talk to sales for the rest; Accelerate and Ultimate are priced by quote. Listing on the app is free, and when the app brings a client who is new to your business, Mindbody charges a capped share of that client's opening purchase (pricing).
Elements is not studio management software. It is an integrated app environment for building web apps with an AI agent, and it includes the parts a booking app is made of: a Postgres database for classes, members and credits, sign-in, Stripe payments for packs and memberships, scheduled background jobs for reminders, email sent through an SMTP provider such as Postmark, and live updates for spots left and rosters. Describe the studio's schedule, packs and policies to an agent, and it can build the booking app and deploy it to a server you rent.
On Mindbody, the software, the consumer app and its audience belong to Mindbody, and the price is a plan fee, a quote for the larger plans, and a share of each new client's purchase from the app. Your own booking app costs the same each month however many instructors you add, and your email list, intake forms and shop can sit in its database too. What you give up is the marketplace, the branded mobile app and the front desk hardware. On Mindbody's starting plan the studio pays less than running its own app, so the case for building rests on the plan you actually need.
What Mindbody Gives You That Is Hard to Build
Mindbody is more than a schedule with a checkout, and a few of its pieces are out of reach for a studio's own app.
- The consumer app. Mindbody lists your studio in an app with "Access to 3M+ monthly shoppers." A site of your own starts with the members you bring to it.
- A branded mobile app. Mindbody offers a personalized mobile app where your clients book, buy and manage their accounts. Your app is a website, opened in the phone's browser.
- The front desk. Point of sale, in-person card payments and hardware come with Mindbody Payments. An app you build takes cards online through Stripe; a counter terminal is a separate project.
- Marketing at volume. Ultimate includes "Automated email and text campaigns and templates" and an AI front desk that answers missed calls. Text messaging and phone answering are their own infrastructure.
- Setup and support. Mindbody says there is "no setup fee on any Mindbody plan" and offers a data transfer service and one-on-one onboarding. With your own app, the moving and the upkeep are yours, though an agent can do most of both.
What Building It Looks Like
A studio's booking app is a small set of parts: classes, members, credits, payments, email and a schedule. Each Mindbody feature, and its counterpart in a studio's own app:
| Mindbody feature | In an app you build with Elements |
|---|---|
| Weekly class schedule with instructors and capacity | Pages in Elements HTML, rendered on the server, with classes stored in your Postgres database (html, database) |
| Class packs sold by card | Stripe Checkout for one-time payments, with credits added in your database when the webhook confirms payment (payments) |
| Monthly memberships | Stripe Checkout in subscription mode, with each membership's status kept in your database (subscriptions) |
| Spots left, rosters and check-in | Rows that update in every open browser as members book and cancel, using a LiveTable (livetable) |
| Waitlists that book the next member | A cancel that books the next person on the waitlist in the same transaction and emails them (transactions, email) |
| Booking confirmations and class reminders | A background job scheduled two hours before class, sending an email template through an SMTP provider such as Postmark (jobs, email) |
| Member accounts and a staff side | Sign-in and sessions, with an admin role for staff (authentication recipe, admin roles recipe) |
| Sales and visit reporting | A dashboard that updates as people buy and book (live dashboard recipe) |
| Update a card or cancel a membership | Cancel from your app (subscriptions), and Stripe's customer portal for cards |
| Sales tax | Stripe Tax on packs and memberships, wherever the studio is registered |
| Fraud screening | Stripe Radar |
| The consumer app, branded mobile app and front desk hardware | No equivalent. The marketplace stays with Mindbody, and a native app and card terminals are separate projects. |
See stripe.com/pricing for Stripe's fees on each of these. Because the schedule, the memberships and the email list can all be tables in the same database, a member who buys a pack, a lead from your intro offer and a newsletter subscriber are the same kind of row, in one list of people.
The Demo: PackPass
PackPass is a class booking app for a yoga and Pilates studio, built with Elements by an AI agent from one prompt. Members sign up and buy a 5 or 10 class pack or a monthly unlimited membership by card, see the weekly schedule with each class's instructor, time and spots left, and book a class with a credit. Cancelling up to 12 hours before returns the credit. When a class is full, members join a waitlist, and when someone cancels, the next person is booked and emailed. A reminder email goes out two hours before class. Staff manage classes, instructors and capacity, see each roster and check members in, and spots left, waitlists and rosters update live.
PackPass's demo page publishes its prompt, so your agent can build the same studio app on your computer and you can change the packs and policies to match yours. For the studio's email list, Letterhearth shows subscribers, scheduled posts and emails, and the two can be one app.
Adding It Up
Every studio is different, so this section shows how to make the comparison for your own rather than making it for you.
This is an example, not a customer. A yoga studio with one location runs its schedule on Mindbody and emails its members and leads through Mailchimp. It pays for:
| Subscription | What it charges by |
|---|---|
| Mindbody | By plan, per location, with upper plans by quote, plus a share of each new client's opening purchase from its app |
| Mailchimp | By plan, priced by the number of contacts |
To compare, add up what the studio pays for these each month and set it beside $100 a month for an Elements license, plus a server from DigitalOcean and an email provider such as Postmark for reminders. Card fees apply either way.
Mindbody's pricing page lists booking confirmations and reminders by email and text "on the Accelerate plan and above", and resource management, Pick-a-Spot and advanced reporting start at Accelerate too. If the studio needs those, ask for a quote and use that figure.
Where it usually turns:
- A share of each new client's purchase grows with the clients the app sends. It is also the cost of finding them, and your own app has no answer to that, since it brings no one.
- Several subscriptions add up. Add your email tool and anything else the app would replace, such as an intake form tool or a CRM for leads. Your app's members and staff need no licenses of their own, so adding instructors or a second room does not change Elements' cost.
- A single cheap tool is usually cheaper to keep. A studio on Starter with one email tool beside it pays less with Mindbody than it would to run its own app.
The subscriptions overview works through other cases.
When to Keep Mindbody
- You are on Starter and it does what you need. Mindbody's starting plan costs less than running your own app.
- The Mindbody app brings you new clients. If many new clients find you in the marketplace, leaving gives that up.
- You sell at a front desk. Point of sale, card terminals and hardware take real work to replace.
- Your members expect a branded mobile app. An app you build is a website.
- You run several locations with staff who know Mindbody. Training and data transfer are part of what the plan buys.
- You would rather not run software. Mindbody does the upkeep.
Questions
How much does Mindbody cost?
Mindbody prices Starter per location a month, and Accelerate and Ultimate by quote through its sales team. Listing on the Mindbody app is free, and Mindbody charges a capped share of the opening purchase of a client the app brings who is new to your business. The current figures are at mindbodyonline.com/business/pricing.
Is my own booking app cheaper than Mindbody?
Not against Starter. Your own Elements app costs $100 a month for Elements, plus a server and an email provider such as Postmark, which is more than Mindbody's starting plan. The comparison turns on your quote for Accelerate or Ultimate plus the other tools a single app would replace.
Can an app I build sell class packs and memberships?
Yes. Elements apps take one-time payments through Stripe Checkout, which suits class packs, and recurring payments in subscription mode, which suits memberships. Stripe's customer portal lets members update their card, and Stripe Tax and Radar cover sales tax and fraud screening.
Can I move my members from Mindbody to my own app?
An agent can import members, packs and schedules into your app's database from an export. Recurring memberships billed through Mindbody Payments need to be set up again in Stripe, so confirm with Mindbody what you can export before you switch.
Does an Elements booking app have a mobile app?
No. An Elements app is a website that members open in a phone's browser or reach from your emails. Mindbody's consumer app and branded apps have no equivalent in an app you build. See the subscriptions overview at /vs/subscriptions for how to weigh that against cost.