Pilates Studio FAQ
Which platforms do most Pilates studios use to manage their business?
Most Pilates studios use Mindbody. It has been in the market since 2001, longer than anything else. For years it was close to the only option. That is why so many studios are on it. It is also why the most used platform is not automatically the best fit for yours.
Mindbody got there first
Mindbody was founded in 2001. It grew out of software one of its founders started writing in 1998, for a single Pilates client.
At that point almost nothing existed. Studios ran on paper diaries and spreadsheets. If you wanted one system that handled classes, memberships and payments, there was one company selling it.
Studios that went digital in those years did not choose Mindbody over anything. They chose software over paper, and Mindbody was what software meant.
Nothing comparable arrived for over a decade. WellnessLiving launched in 2013, twelve years later. Everything else came after that.
So Mindbody did not become the most used platform by winning a crowded market. It became the most used platform because for more than ten years there was barely a market to win.
Being around the longest does count
Twenty five years builds a deep product. Most instructors have used Mindbody at some studio, so training staff on it is easier than training them on something new.
That is worth something real. It is a different thing from being built for how your studio runs.
A product built in 2001 for the whole wellness market was designed around what studios did then. Boutique Pilates as it exists now, with reformer classes filling weeks ahead and privates running alongside them, came later. The software had to be widened to reach it rather than built for it.
The market filled up
Software is not what it was in 2001. Building it got faster and cheaper, and hundreds of platforms now sell to studios like yours.
They are not all the same kind of product. Some are general fitness or gym tools with a Pilates page added to the website. Some were built for one format and stretched to cover others. A small number were built for boutique studios from the start.
| Where a platform came from | What that usually means for a Pilates studio |
|---|---|
| Built in the early 2000s for the whole wellness market | Deep and broad, built before boutique studios ran the way they do now |
| Gym or general fitness software | Strong on memberships and check-in, weaker on privates, duets and instructor conflicts |
| Appointment or booking tools | Good at one booking type, missing class packs, memberships or a timetable |
| Built for boutique studios | Handles group classes and appointments together, and the pricing models studios actually sell |
The question stopped being what exists. It became which one handles your week without a workaround.
That is a harder question than it was in 2001. It also has a different answer for a reformer studio than it does for a gym.
Where StudioGrowth fits
We built StudioGrowth for boutique studios, with Pilates at the centre of it. That shows up in specific places rather than in a longer feature list.
- Classes and appointments check against each other. An instructor teaching a class cannot be booked for a private in that hour.
- Duets are a real session type. A duet is a private session with a capacity of two, not a workaround.
- Standing appointments. A client holds the same slot week after week for as long as they want it.
- Four waitlist modes. You decide who gets a cancelled spot rather than accepting one fixed rule.
- A client app and a staff app. Clients book in one tap, and instructors manage their own day.
- Packages you control at the client level. Change one person's membership without touching anyone else's.
None of that is a longer feature list. It is the same short list of things a Pilates studio does every day, handled without a workaround.
Support comes from the people who built the product, and there is no ticket queue. The founder runs every demo. StudioGrowth holds 4.9 out of 5 on Capterra.
Does most used mean best for you?
Popularity is a useful signal about a market. It is a weak signal about your studio.
It tells you a platform is established and will still exist next year. It tells you people can be hired who already know it. Those are real things. None of them tell you whether it books a duet the way you sell one.
The platform with the most customers collected them over twenty five years. Those customers are gyms, salons, spas and yoga studios as well as Pilates studios. Your shortlist is not the industry's shortlist.
Ask a different question on your next demo. Not how many studios use this, but how many studios like mine use it. Then ask what those studios run that you also run.
Where this leaves you
Mindbody is the platform most Pilates studios use. That is a fact about the market, not a recommendation for your studio.
If you are weighing it up specifically, our Mindbody alternative page goes through the detail. Whether Mindbody is worth it for a small studio narrows it further.
What actually decides value covers how to compare properly. The top platforms for Pilates studios is the shortlist, and our full ranking goes through the whole category.
Our Pilates studio management software was built for studios like yours. Come and see it running.