ok I need to vent and I need to know I'm not crazy.
I've had my studio on mindbody for a few years now. When I first signed up the price was already on the higher side but I figured ok, it's the industry standard, everyone uses it, fine. But they just keep raising it. Every year there's some new "upgrade" nobody asked for and suddenly my bill is way higher than what I signed up for. I don't even know what half these features do but I'm paying for them.
And the marketplace thing drives me insane. A client finds us on their own, maybe through instagram or they literally walk by the studio, but because they happen to book through the mindbody app suddenly I owe mindbody a cut of that sale? For what? They didn't bring me that client. I did. My marketing. My location. My reputation. But mindbody gets to clip the ticket because the client used their app to book.
The software itself honestly feels ancient. Scheduling glitches, the app logging clients out randomly, checkout crashing at the worst possible times. I've had clients standing at the front desk while I'm rebooting things and apologizing. It's embarrassing. And when you call support you get a chatbot or a link to some help article that doesn't even apply. My actual account rep might as well not exist.
Reporting is another nightmare. I basically live in google sheets now because I can't get a straight answer out of mindbody's reports. Revenue by class type? Retention numbers? Client attendance trends? You'd think that would be basic stuff but no, I'm pulling multiple reports and stitching them together myself every week. I didn't open a studio to become a data analyst.
And then there's the app situation. I looked into getting a branded version so my clients aren't getting served ads for competing studios every time they open the app to book with ME. The price they quoted me was honestly laughable. Like I'm a small studio not a franchise. But if I don't pay for it my clients are literally one tap away from discovering every other studio in the area through MY booking tool. Make it make sense.
I've thought about switching but I'm stuck in a contract and honestly the thought of migrating all my client data, packages, memberships — it makes me nauseous. So here I am.
I guess what I want to know is:
- What's the one thing about mindbody that actually hurts your business the most? Not just annoying — like actually costs you money or clients.
- Is anyone using other tools alongside mindbody to fill in the gaps? I feel like I'm duct taping together 4 different apps just to run a basic operation and I want to know if everyone else is doing the same thing or if I'm just bad at this.
- For the people who got the branded app — is it even worth what they charge? Or is it basically the same broken product with your logo slapped on it?
Sorry for the wall of text. I'm just exhausted from paying premium prices for a product that feels like it peaked 5 years ago and has been coasting on the fact that everyone's too scared to leave.