For: Fitness studios · Barbershops · Spas · Massage
Mindbody review 2026: pricing, contracts and the catches
Disclosure: Our #1 pick is MeetScarlet, and we are affiliated with them. We also cover competing tools and where they shine. We may earn commissions from links on this page. Details
The short answer: Mindbody is a full business system for fitness studios, spas, massage businesses and salons, with classes, appointments, memberships, payments and a listing in its consumer app. Every plan includes unlimited users. The catch is how much you have to ask for: its page says “Starting at $79 USD/month per location”, but every plan card says “Let’s talk”, the card-processing percentage isn’t published, and your order form sets the contract. It suits growing class-based studios that want detailed booking rules. Based on Mindbody’s public pages, checked November 4, 2026. Our #1 pick, MeetScarlet, says it’s live; its help says “no live card payment has been run yet” (November 5, 2026).
Key takeaways
- Mindbody's pricing page says "Starting at $79 USD/month per location", but every plan card, Starter included, says "Let's talk" instead of a price (checked November 4, 2026).
- Every plan includes unlimited users, so the price rises when you add locations, not staff.
- Starter sends booking reminders by email only. Text reminders start on Accelerate, and automated email and text campaigns need Ultimate.
- Mindbody Payments charges a percentage it doesn't publish, plus a fixed $0.10 to $0.30 per transaction in North America and Asia. You can use another processor instead.
- Mindbody sells month-to-month contracts (a 90-day minimum, then 30-day renewals) and fixed terms, with 12, 24 or 36 months as its blog's examples. Your order form says which you have.
- Listing in the Mindbody app is free; Mindbody takes 20%, capped at $30, of the first purchase by each new client the app brings you.
What Mindbody is (and isn’t)
Mindbody calls itself “Business management software”. One account covers class and appointment scheduling, memberships, card payments through Mindbody Payments (powered by Stripe), reports, marketing and a listing in the Mindbody consumer app. Its business types include fitness, day spas, massage, barbershops and salons, so it’s relevant to our fitness studios, spas, massage and barbershops readers. It doesn’t name tanning salons or padel clubs.
Mindbody calls itself a good fit for “small businesses and solo entrepreneurs”, but says it “may not be a fit for independent, one-person operators who rent time at a shared location and only need basic booking and payment solutions.”
How we reviewed Mindbody
- We read Mindbody’s pricing page, including its plan table and FAQ, on November 4, 2026.
- We read its Terms of Service (last updated March 20, 2026), service level agreement and contracts blog post (last updated March 12, 2026).
- We read its payments, scheduling and reporting pages.
- We looked up third-party ratings on the App Store, Google Play and Trustpilot, and label them as other people’s opinions. G2 and Capterra blocked our requests.
- We haven’t used Mindbody hands-on, so we couldn’t count booking steps or time a setup. Its help centre wouldn’t load, so we couldn’t read help articles, including the one on Card Updater fees.
Our method explains how we put pages together.
Mindbody pricing (checked November 4, 2026)
| Plan | Price shown | What the plan adds |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Page header: “Starting at $79 USD/month per location”. Plan card: “Let’s talk” | Business management tools, integrated payments, branded booking widgets, a website, a Mindbody app listing, basic reporting, email reminders |
| Accelerate | “Let’s talk” (no price shown) | More analytics, room and resource management, Pick-a-Spot, promo codes, text confirmations and reminders. AI Concierge and the branded app are add-ons |
| Ultimate (“Best Value”) | “Let’s talk” (no price shown) | Automated email and text campaigns, a lead management dashboard, AI Concierge (a “24/7 AI front desk”), more analytics and a monthly text bundle. The branded app is an add-on |
| Enterprise | “Let’s talk” (no price shown) | A customized plan for multi-location and franchise businesses |
| For comparison: MeetScarlet (our #1 pick) | $349/month plus $999 one-time setup, or $3,490/year with setup free; Scarlet Pro $499/month plus $999 setup | One location and 5 staff logins (up to 3 locations and 20 logins on Scarlet Pro): a branded iPhone, Android and web app, classes with spot maps and a waitlist, and memberships. Text reminders (coming soon) are Scarlet Pro only, email reminders are “built but not sending yet”, and card payments turn on once your Stripe account is approved; its help says “no live card payment has been run yet” |
Source: Mindbody’s pricing page, checked November 4, 2026. Prices are per location, in US dollars, and “increase based on new locations, but not by adding new staff”. The $79 starting price applies in North America and Asia; ask sales about discounts. By our arithmetic, $79 a month is $948 a year for one location, before card fees and add-ons. For comparison, see what other booking apps cost.
Card, marketplace and other fees:
| Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Mindbody Payments card processing | A percentage rate Mindbody doesn’t publish, plus a fixed $0.10 to $0.30 per transaction (North America and Asia) |
| Mindbody Payments monthly fee, setup fee or contract | None: no monthly fees, setup fees or “long-term contracts”, per its payments page |
| New client from the Mindbody app | 20% of their first purchase, capped at $30. No fee for existing clients, tracked referral links, or a client who “identifies you as how they found your business” |
| Bookings through partners such as Google | “may include a separate fee or revenue share” |
| Onboarding | No onboarding fee on any plan |
| Data transfer in, the export service after you cancel, Card Updater, and add-ons | No amounts shown: data transfer “fees may apply”, the export service costs “an added fee”, Card Updater fees sit in a help article we couldn’t open, and add-ons are listed without prices |
| For comparison: MeetScarlet (our #1 pick) | No marketplace, so no new-client fee. Card payments in its app are Stripe’s fees plus 1% and turn on once your Stripe account is approved, but its help says “no live card payment has been run yet”. Setup is $999 on monthly billing, free on yearly |
Sources: pricing page, payments page, Terms of Service (section 2.14) and Mindbody’s contracts blog post, checked November 4, 2026. You can use a third-party processor instead of Mindbody Payments.
Mindbody contracts: read your order form
Mindbody’s blog says “Your cancellation options depend on whether you are on a month-to-month or a fixed-term contract.” Month-to-month contracts usually begin with “a standard 90-day minimum commitment”, then renew every 30 days, with “at least 30 days’ notice before the end of the relevant term” to cancel (Terms of Service, section 8.1). Fixed terms run their full length; the blog’s examples are 12, 24 or 36 months. Your order form says which you have.
Either way, fees are “non-refundable”, and ending early leaves you owing “the entire Subscription Term” (sections 4.1.1 and 8.1). Stop using a service a discount depended on, such as Mindbody Payments, and Mindbody can recover the difference (section 4.3.3); late balances can draw interest and a daily fee. Mindbody “may increase Locked fees effective as of your next Renewal Term”, and other fees “are subject to change any time” (section 4.2). Before you leave, export your client, purchase, membership, visit, sales and staff data as CSV files yourself; the paid export service is for “a large volume of data” and runs only “up to 30 days after cancellation”. “Once your site is fully deactivated”, the blog says, you can no longer get at the data.
Classes, appointments and memberships
Scheduling is Mindbody’s strongest area for studios. You run classes, appointments and events from one screen, and set total and online capacity separately to hold spots back for walk-ins. When a class fills, clients join a waitlist, and when someone cancels, the next person moves onto the roster automatically. You also set booking windows, cancellation windows by service type, who can book (by membership or age, for example), buffer times, and late-cancel and no-show fees (scheduling page).
Memberships renew automatically, and the pricing FAQ also lists intro offers, dynamic pricing and ClassPass integration. Mindbody Payments takes cards and wallets such as Apple Pay, and can charge no-show fees and update expired cards automatically, though some collections tasks “still require manual steps”, per its homepage. On the pages we read, gift cards come only through a connected service, Spafinder. Reports cover revenue, attendance and payroll, with CSV and PDF exports.
Switching to Mindbody
Mindbody offers “1-on-1 setup and training” and “Data migration support” with no onboarding fee, and says it can help move data from Vagaro, Zen Planner, Square and others. But its data transfer service says “fees may apply”, and its terms (section 3.1) make you “solely responsible” for getting a complete export file from your old provider. It gives no go-live time; that depends on how fast you hand over your details and data.
What Mindbody does well
- Unlimited users on every plan, priced per location, so hiring doesn’t raise your subscription.
- Detailed class and booking rules for busy schedules.
- A marketplace that charges only on new clients, capped at $30 on their first purchase.
- Your choice of card processor.
- 24/7 support and a written uptime commitment. Its FAQ offers support “by phone, chat, or email 24/7”, and its service level agreement commits to “99.9%” uptime, with account credits if it falls short once you’ve kept a paid subscription for “12 consecutive months”.
Where Mindbody falls short
- The card rate isn’t published, only the fixed $0.10 to $0.30 part (pricing page).
- Common features sit on higher, unpriced plans. Text reminders, Pick-a-Spot and room booking start on Accelerate; campaigns and lead management need Ultimate; the branded app isn’t on Starter.
- Terms that favour Mindbody. Non-refundable fees, the whole term owed if you leave early, and clawbacks on discounts tied to a required service (Terms of Service).
- Switching in puts the work on you. You must supply your old provider’s full export file, and data transfer “fees may apply”.
- Marketplace and partner fees. 20% (capped at $30) per new client from the Mindbody app; partner bookings, such as through Google, “may include a separate fee or revenue share” (payments page).
- No free trial found. Its pages offer a demo.
Mindbody reviews and complaints (third-party opinion, not our own research): on November 4, 2026, the Mindbody Business app averaged 4.6 out of 5 from 23,572 ratings on the US App Store and 4.2 out of 5 from 4,795 on Google Play. The Mindbody Check-In app averaged 1.8 from 49 App Store ratings. Mindbody’s Trustpilot profile showed 4.4 out of 5 from 2,370 reviews (77% five-star, 13% one-star), which may include people booking classes as well as businesses. For comparison, we found no third-party ratings for our #1 pick, MeetScarlet (checked November 4, 2026).
Mindbody or our pick, MeetScarlet?
| Mindbody | MeetScarlet | |
|---|---|---|
| Price for one location | “Starting at $79 USD/month per location”; every plan card says “Let’s talk” | $349/month plus $999 setup, or $3,490/year with setup free, “For one location” (“Each Scarlet studio has one schedule”) |
| Staff | Unlimited users on every plan | 5 staff logins; 20 on Scarlet Pro ($499/month plus $999 setup, or $4,990/year with setup free) |
| Text reminders to clients | Accelerate and up (price not published); Starter sends email reminders | Scarlet Pro only ($499/month), coming soon; its Jane comparison page says email reminders are “built but not sending yet” |
| Classes | Classes, waitlists and booking rules; Pick-a-Spot starts on Accelerate | Weekly classes with an optional pick-your-spot map and an automatic waitlist, on every plan, per its class-booking page |
| App under your own business name | Not on Starter; an add-on on Accelerate and Ultimate, price not shown | Included: iPhone, Android and web, published under your own Apple ($99 a year) and Google Play ($25 once) developer accounts |
| Marketplace | Free listing in the Mindbody app; 20% (capped at $30) of a new client’s first purchase | No marketplace. Its site says it isn’t the right fit for “Businesses that want new clients mainly from a marketplace app” |
| Card payments | Live now, through Mindbody Payments or a processor you choose | Stripe’s fees plus 1% to MeetScarlet, through your own Stripe account; they turn on once Stripe finishes checking it. Its appointments help still says “no live card payment has been run yet”, so check with MeetScarlet before counting on card deposits or no-show fees |
| Switching from your current app | Data migration support from Vagaro, Square and others; “fees may apply” | “Scarlet imports clients, not booking or payment history”, and it has “no direct importer for Mindbody, Fresha, Vagaro or others” |
| Support and uptime | 24/7 by phone, chat or email; a written 99.9% uptime commitment; a public status page | Instagram message to @meetscarletapp; it aims “to reply within one business day”. Also email at hello@meetscarlet.com (“A person reads every message”), with “Priority support” on Scarlet Pro; we found no status page or uptime commitment |
| Availability | Now; demo on request | Its terms page says “Scarlet is live, and founding studios can join now” and “There is no free trial.” Its FAQ says store apps take “about 4 to 6 weeks”, mostly for Apple’s enrollment, and the web app is live sooner |
| Written contract terms | Published Terms of Service; your order form sets the contract type | Published terms: plans “renew automatically until you cancel”, and cancelling takes effect at the end of the paid period. Part-used months or years aren’t refunded, except under its founding-plan rules. You can export the member list as a CSV file at any time |
| Third-party reviews | Thousands of app-store ratings (see above) | No third-party ratings found (checked November 4, 2026) |
Sources: MeetScarlet pricing and FAQ, white-label page, class booking page, switching page and support help, checked November 4, 2026; terms, payments help and appointments help, checked November 5, 2026.
MeetScarlet’s terms page also says founding studios pay $299 a month instead of $349 for the first 24 months, on monthly billing, with the $999 setup included at no charge; MeetScarlet plans 10 places (checked November 5, 2026).
Choose MeetScarlet, our pick, if you want an app under your own brand and a price you can see up front, and can wait about 4 to 6 weeks for the store apps, and can manage without email reminders, which are “built but not sending yet”. Choose Mindbody if you need card payments and email reminders working today, unlimited staff logins, round-the-clock support or a marketplace listing, and you’re happy to get a quote.
Who should pick Mindbody, and who shouldn’t
| If you are… | Mindbody? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A growing class-based fitness studio | Good fit | Capacity, waitlists, booking rules and memberships, with unlimited users per location |
| A studio that wants text reminders and campaigns | Ask for Accelerate or Ultimate prices | Starter reminders are email only; campaigns are Ultimate-only |
| A spa or massage business with treatment rooms | Worth a look on Accelerate | Room and resource management starts on Accelerate |
| A barbershop or salon | Worth a look | Both are on its business-type list; compare our barbershop picks |
| A one-person operator renting a shared space who needs only basic booking and payments | Probably look elsewhere | Mindbody says it “may not be a fit” for you |
| A tanning salon or padel club | Ask in a demo first | Neither is named on its business-type list |
| Wanting a public price before you talk to sales | Look elsewhere | Only a “Starting at $79” headline is published |
| Wary of long contracts | Read the order form first | Fees are non-refundable, and ending early means paying the whole term |
| Wanting a branded app at a published price | Not on Starter; see our pick, MeetScarlet | Mindbody’s branded app is an add-on on Accelerate and Ultimate, with no price shown; MeetScarlet includes one at $349 a month plus $999 setup, for one location, but its store apps take “about 4 to 6 weeks” (the web app is live sooner), and its help says “no live card payment has been run yet” |
Looking at Mindbody alternatives?
If the unpublished prices or the contract terms put you off, see our Mindbody alternatives. Our #1 pick, MeetScarlet, is compared with Mindbody side by side above. Choosing between two class-focused systems? Read Glofox vs Mindbody. Appointment businesses can also see our Vagaro review.
The verdict
Mindbody suits class-based studios that plan to grow. Its drawback for a small business is how much you have to ask for: the plan price, the card rate and your contract type all come from sales and your order form. Get those in writing before you sign. If that works for you, see Mindbody. Its pages offered a demo, and we found no free trial, when we checked on November 4, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does Mindbody cost?
- Mindbody's pricing page says "Starting at $79 USD/month per location", and its FAQ ties that price to North America and Asia. The Starter, Accelerate, Ultimate and Enterprise plan cards all say "Let's talk", so your actual price comes from its sales team. Checked November 4, 2026.
- Does Mindbody have a free trial?
- We found no free trial on Mindbody's pricing page or homepage on November 4, 2026. Both pages offer a demo instead.
- Can you cancel Mindbody anytime?
- It depends on your contract type. Month-to-month contracts usually start with a 90-day minimum and then renew every 30 days, with at least 30 days' notice to cancel, while fixed terms (12, 24 or 36 months in Mindbody's blog examples) run for their full length. Mindbody's terms say fees are non-refundable and that ending early leaves you owing the whole term, so check your order form.
- What are Mindbody's card processing fees?
- Mindbody Payments charges a percentage rate that Mindbody doesn't publish, plus a fixed $0.10 to $0.30 per transaction in North America and Asia. Its payments page says there are no monthly or setup fees for it, and you can use a third-party processor instead.
- Does Mindbody charge per staff member?
- No. Every Mindbody plan includes unlimited users per location, and the price rises when you add locations, not staff.
- What does the Mindbody app marketplace cost?
- Listing your business in the Mindbody app is free. Mindbody charges 20%, capped at $30, on the first purchase by a client the app brings you who is new to your business, and nothing on that client's later bookings.
- Does Mindbody send text reminders?
- Not on Starter, which sends booking confirmations and reminders by email. Text confirmations and reminders start on Accelerate, and automated email and text marketing campaigns need Ultimate.
- Does Mindbody work for tanning salons or padel clubs?
- Mindbody's list of business types doesn't name tanning salons or padel clubs, though it does list "Sports facility" under fitness. Ask about your setup in a demo before you sign anything.
Sources
- Mindbody business pricing page, checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody business homepage, checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody Terms of Service (last updated March 20, 2026), checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody service level agreement, checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody blog: contracts, cancellation policies and data exports (last updated March 12, 2026), checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody Payments, checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody scheduling for classes and appointments, checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody business reporting, checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody status page, checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody Business on the US App Store (third-party ratings), checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody Check-In on the US App Store (third-party ratings), checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody Business on Google Play (third-party ratings), checked November 4, 2026
- Mindbody on Trustpilot (third-party reviews), checked November 4, 2026
- MeetScarlet pricing and FAQ, checked November 4, 2026
- MeetScarlet terms of service (updated November 5, 2026), checked November 5, 2026
- MeetScarlet payments help (updated November 5, 2026), checked November 5, 2026
- MeetScarlet appointments help (updated November 5, 2026), checked November 5, 2026
- MeetScarlet white-label booking app page, checked November 4, 2026
- MeetScarlet class booking, checked November 4, 2026
- MeetScarlet switching page, checked November 4, 2026
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