The wellness software giants. But do you need a giant?
$79/mo
Studios with group classes and complex scheduling needs
$50/mo
Salons and spas who want lower pricing than Mindbody
$279 once
Personal trainers, massage therapists, and 1-on-1 wellness providers
Mindbody ($79/mo) and Vagaro ($50/mo) are both established tools with real user bases, and for most people the honest answer is that either will do the job — the difference shows up in fit, not quality. Over three years the running totals are roughly $3,185 for Mindbody and $2,016 for Vagaro, because subscription pricing compounds. Read the section below on which one suits your work; the cost table further down shows where the bill actually differs.
Nexa is $279 once, about $23 a month over its first year. Its Drain Guard reads your expenses (from a linked bank, an imported statement, or ones you type in), finds the charges that repeat, and adds them up by the month. Keep or Cut then walks you through them one at a time. Cancel $23 a month of charges you'd forgotten about and Nexa has paid for itself inside the first year.
It depends on what you find and what you cancel, so we don't promise a number. In our demo data, Drain Guard finds 5 subscriptions adding up to $110.13 a month. That is sample data, not a customer's.
| Feature | Mindbody | Vagaro | Nexa |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $79–$499/mo (typically $79) | $30–$90/mo (typically $50) | $279 once |
| Class scheduling | Excellent — built for it | Good | Basic — designed for 1-on-1 |
| App marketplace | Yes — client discovery | Yes — smaller than Mindbody | No — your clients book direct |
| Membership billing | Built-in | Built-in | Manual or Stripe subscriptions |
If you are choosing between these two, this is the part that matters. Both are established products and neither is a mistake — the question is which fits how you actually work. We have left ourselves out of this section entirely.
Headline prices rarely survive contact with a real invoice. These are the parts of the bill that move: where the ladder starts and ends, what an extra seat adds, and what comes off the top of money you take through the tool. A dash means we do not have that figure recorded — not that the fee is zero.
| Mindbody | Vagaro | |
|---|---|---|
| How it is priced | Monthly subscription | Monthly subscription |
| Entry price | $79/mo | $30/mo |
| Top published tier | $499/mo | $90/mo |
| Plan people typically land on | $79/mo | $50/mo |
| Per extra user | $0 — all plans include unlimited users; price is per location | $10/mo per additional bookable calendar (staff) license per location; no extra charge once the license cap is reached |
| Payment processing | Not published by Mindbody (rates depend on plan). Third-party (FitBudd, updated 2026-05-25): about 2.99% + $0.30 card-present, 3.60% + $0.30 card-not-present | 2.75% + $0.15 card-present; 3.5% + $0.15 keyed (per Vagaro support article, via 2026 reviews — vendor support page returned 403) |
| Free tier | No | No |
| Three-year total | $2,844 | $1,800 |
| Five-year total, with increases | $4,740 | $3,000 |
Starter — Mindbody says it covers booking, payments, reporting and the marketplace listing, which is the core job of a 1–5 person studio. It is also the only tier with a price Mindbody publishes
Standard with 3 calendars ($30 + 2 x $10) — a typical 1-5 chair salon/spa; base plan is priced by bookable staff calendars
Pricing checked . Vendors change prices without notice — check the vendor before deciding.
Both of these are real products that a lot of businesses run on happily. If a comparison page only tells you what is wrong with the tools it is comparing, it is selling you something. Here is the honest case for each.
Mindbody charges more ($79/mo against $50/mo) and tends to offer more depth for its target market. Vagaro at $50/mo is the accessible option, though it still reaches $600/year. Recurring pricing compounds, so the multi-year figure is the one that decides it.
There is a third shape to consider, and we should say plainly that it is ours: Nexa is a one-time purchase at $279 covering scheduling, invoicing, CRM, time tracking and job management. It suits people who want to stop paying monthly and can do without staffed support and a large integration ecosystem. If those matter to you, one of the two tools above is the better answer, and we would rather you bought the right thing.
If you run 30-person yoga classes, you need Mindbody or Vagaro. If you do 1-on-1 sessions, you're paying for features you don't use. Nexa is built for 1-on-1 service providers.
For reference, since we are one of the three options named on this page: Nexa is $279 once, with no monthly fee and no per-seat charge. Whether that beats a subscription depends entirely on how long you would keep paying one.
This section is deliberately one-sided: it collects what operators complain about, which is only useful once you have read what each tool does well above. These are opinions from our own research notes — 39 assessments across 6 business categories — not audited findings or review-site ratings. We show the trade beside each one because most of these are conditional: a complaint about progress billing is decisive for an iron worker and irrelevant to a hair stylist. Where a complaint cites a price, it is the price that operator was quoted at the time.
$139/month designed for yoga studios with class schedules. Solo massage therapists get bloated class-management features at enterprise prices.
$139/month base and it's built for yoga studios and big gyms. Solo trainers get the same bloated software at almost the same price.
$139/month for studio management software. Solo yoga instructors don't have studios, staff, or front desks. We have a mat and a speaker.
Built for nail tech. The intake doesn't know vata from kapha.
Built for nail tech. Useless for mountain operations.
Built for nail tech, not dance. No music library, no studio rental tracking, no partner role on the booking form.
Built for beauty and wellness appointments, not pet service routes with daily recurring schedules.
Built for nail tech. Has nothing to do with parrots.
Built for beauty appointments. A dog training session with behavioral notes and homework assignments doesn't fit Vagaro's model.
$25/month plus booking fees. For a barber doing $35 cuts, every dollar matters.
Built for studios with chairs and products. Not pools.
Built for nail tech. Doesn't model class-pack visits.
Assessments are recorded per trade, so the same tool reads differently depending on the work — a complaint about progress billing matters to an iron worker and not to a hair stylist. 12 trades are represented above; we add more as we record them.
Comparing "$X per month forever" against "$279 once" is not a fair fight unless we say what the monthly fee is buying. It buys real things:
Where we think the trade goes the other way: those benefits are priced as rent, they compound every year you keep paying, and you stop having them the month you stop. Which side of that is worth more depends on your business, not on our opinion — run the numbers below on your own tool list rather than taking ours.
30-day money-back guarantee. Replaces both subscriptions.
Pricing verified March 2026.