Gym Growth
Growth content for gym and studio owners—acquiring members, marketing and sales, retention, and scaling without burning out.
Mindbody advertises pricing "starting at $79 a month per location." That number does one job well, and it isn't telling you what you'll actually pay in Mindbody fees.
The real cost is a base plan you mostly can't see, processing rates you have to email for, and a 20% cut on anything a member buys through Mindbody's marketing tools. None of that shows up next to the $79.
So before you sign, do the thing Mindbody makes surprisingly hard: crunch the actual numbers. Weigh them against what other gym platforms cost, and if you want the wider verdict, read the full Mindbody review.
Key Takeaways
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Mindbody advertises "starting at $79/month per location," but tier pricing is quote-only. Owners report roughly $99–$159 for Starter, $259–$279 for Accelerate, and $499+ for Ultimate.
A branded mobile app isn't a tier. It's a paid add-on, billed on top of whatever plan you land on.
US credit card processing rates aren't published at all. You have to email Mindbody to get them, and recurring dues bill at the higher card-not-present rate.
Anything a member buys through Mindbody's marketing tools carries a 20% marketplace fee, before regular card processing takes its cut.
Gymdesk publishes every price: $75 to $200 a month with Gymdesk Payments, on the pricing page, before you talk to anyone.
What Mindbody Actually Charges Gym Owners
Mindbody lists three plans: Starter, Accelerate, and Ultimate. The site says pricing starts at $79 a month per location. That's where the published numbers stop.
Everything above $79 comes by quote. Mindbody doesn't post tier pricing, so the only figures anyone can share are what current owners say they pay:
- Starter: booking, payments, a branded booking widget, a listing in the Mindbody app, and basic reporting. Owners report $99 to $159 a month per location.
- Accelerate: Starter plus analytics, room and resource management, client Pick-a-Spot, and promo codes. Owners report $259 to $279 a month per location.
- Ultimate: Accelerate plus automated email and text campaigns, a sales pipeline, and deeper analytics. Owners report $499 and up per location.
One more line item people miss: a branded mobile app is a paid add-on, not part of any tier. Mindbody's own feature matrix marks it as an add-on, bundled into some plans and charged separately on others. Budget for it on top.
A quote has a built-in problem. A price you negotiate today is a price that can move tomorrow, and you have no published number to hold it to. That's great for the vendor.
It's a lousy foundation for a cash-flow forecast.
And the sticker isn't even the real risk. The risk is paying at least $79 a month and still not having the tools you need, because the ones you need live a tier or an add-on away. You find that out after you've signed.
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What Mindbody Charges for Credit Card Processing
Ask what Mindbody charges to process a card and the honest answer is: it depends.
It depends on your region and on how the card is run. And if you're in the US, it depends on a table you're not allowed to see. Mindbody's published rate sheet lists every other country and, for the United States, a single line: email Mindbody for the US rate.
The US is the largest gym market on the platform, and the number is behind a contact form. You can't plan around a rate you have to request.
There's a second wrinkle that quietly costs more. Straight from Mindbody's knowledge base:
Read that twice. Recurring dues are the backbone of a healthy gym, the thing you're supposed to want more of, and they bill at the higher card-not-present rate. The billing model that keeps members longer is the one that costs you more per swipe.
So your effective processing rate comes down to three things: your region, whether the card is present or not, and whether the charge is automatic. Every one of those pushes recurring revenue toward the higher end, and the US number stays off the page until you ask for it.
Try building a twelve-month forecast on that. You can't, really.
The 20% Cut You Feel on Every Marketing Sale
Base plans and processing are the fees you expect. This is the one that surprises people.
When a member buys through Mindbody's marketing tools (a promoted intro offer, dynamic pricing, the affiliate network, or a new client who found you in the Mindbody app), Mindbody takes 20% of the purchase price, excluding tax. On new-client commissions that cut is capped at $30 per transaction. On the rest, it's a flat fifth of the sale.
Put a $65 intro offer through the marketplace and $13 goes to Mindbody. Sell a $320 package that way and it's $64. And that 20% comes off the top before regular card processing takes its own slice, so the true haircut on a marketplace sale is bigger than the headline fee.
It isn't automatically a bad trade. If those tools bring you members who stick, paying to acquire them is just marketing spend with a different name. The trouble is you're renting the reach and paying a percentage every time it works, forever, on customers you might have earned on your own.
Run that math before you lean on it. A busy sign-up month can quietly route a real chunk of new revenue to Mindbody, money that never appears next to the $79.
The Fees Underneath the Fees
There's a longer tail, mostly aimed at bigger or more technical operations.
Per Mindbody's developer pricing, its API has a free tier under 5,000 calls a billing cycle, then $0.002 per call for site access. Consumer bookings run $15 a month per location per integration, plus $1.30 a class booking and $2.50 an appointment booking. Virtual bookings are free, and there's no bulk API pricing.
To be fair to Mindbody: standard onboarding, training, and support come with every plan, and there's no setup fee. What costs extra is the premium stuff: custom data conversion, dedicated account management, franchise training, and add-ons like the marketing suite and the branded app.
For a large, established multi-location business, that menu is fine. You have the volume and the staff to absorb it. For a new, boutique, or specialty gym, it's a slow accumulation of line items that each look small and together decide whether you're profitable.
Fees Are One Leak. Failed Payments Are the Other.
Even on a perfect pricing plan, money slips out somewhere else: payments that fail, dues that show up late, and the hours you spend chasing both.
Most owners never put a number on it, so it stays invisible. Here's a quick way to see yours. Failed payments a week, times four, times your average dues:
If you're losing one to three hours a week reconciling failed payments and sending follow-ups, that time carries a real monthly cost too. Automated retries and dunning exist precisely to stop that leak.
Why Gyms Are Switching to Gymdesk
Owners leave for a plainer reason than any single fee. They want pricing they can plan around and software they don't have to fight, without giving up the freedom to walk out with their data. Gymdesk lines up on each.
Mindbody has been around more than twenty years, and for a long time it was one of the only serious options. It was built for the yoga-and-wellness world (salons, spas, studios), and gyms have been adapting to its assumptions ever since.
Pricing you can see before you sign. Gymdesk publishes all four numbers on the pricing page: $75, $100, $150, and $200 a month with Gymdesk Payments, and you get 30 days to try it before you commit. No quote wall, no "starting at," no 20% cut on members you bring in through the platform.
Failed payments stop leaking quietly. Gymdesk retries a declined card automatically and pings members whose cards are about to expire, so an overdue balance triggers follow-up without you chasing it. Owners typically recover a meaningful share of the payments that would otherwise slip away.
Built for gyms. Gymdesk is made for fitness studios, health clubs, martial arts schools, dance, Pilates, gymnastics, and yoga. The interface is meant to get you off the computer and onto the floor, and it connects to the apps you already run.
Your data stays yours. Cancellation is fast, and there's no hostage situation. Export your member data to CSV before or after you leave, whenever you want.
Support people actually reach. Gymdesk holds 4.8 out of 5 on Capterra across 148 reviews, against Mindbody's 4.0 over 2,995. Owners point to fast responses and documentation that answers the question they actually asked.
Gymdesk isn't the right pick for everyone. If you want a legacy platform with a giant marketplace attached, Mindbody may fit you better. But if you want to know your costs on the way in and keep your options open on the way out, Gymdesk was built for you.
What a Gymdesk Owner Says
One owner runs a small personal-training gym and wanted software without the bloat, with sales, scheduled payments, missed payments, and attendance visible at a glance:
They switched from Mindbody, where, in their words, "costs continued to rise with less and less customer support," and the software "was weighed down with things we never used."
Put Gymdesk to the Test
If a big legacy marketplace is what you're after, Mindbody may be your platform. If you'd rather see every price on the way in and keep your data on the way out, take Gymdesk for a spin.
Creating an account is free. No contract, no credit card. Try it free for 30 days and see why so many owners made the switch.
You can also read the full Gymdesk vs Mindbody comparison, dig into other Mindbody alternatives, or size up gym payment processing fees more broadly.
Flat, published pricing
No quote wall, no US rate you have to email for, and no 20% cut on members you bring in yourself. Gymdesk publishes $75 to $200 a month with Gymdesk Payments, and gives you 30 days to try it before you commit.
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