PATO vs Mindbody
They’ll help you find members. We’ll help you keep them. Here’s the honest version of that trade.
Figures last checked Their published pricing is AUD, per location · ours is NZDRe-verified quarterly (14d)
Three lines, then the detail
Mindbody has a consumer marketplace that puts you in front of people who’ve never heard of you. We don’t, and that’s a real gap.
We take no percentage of your members’ payments. They take one, and they don’t publish what it is.
If discovery is your problem, they fit better. If retention is your problem, we do.
But price it honestly
It’s usually described as included. It isn’t.
Mindbody takes 20% of a new client’s first purchase, capped at $30 — once per client, not on repeat business. With processing on top, a marketplace booking costs meaningfully more than a percentage point or two.
That’s a legitimate model. It’s a paid acquisition channel priced as a commission, and for a studio that struggles to be found it can pay for itself.
Just don’t file it under “free.”
What a percentage costs
Mindbody’s subscription is published — A$89–369/mo per locationmindbodyonline.com(opens their pricing page in a new tab) — and their processing rate isn’t. So we won’t invent one.
Here’s what any rate costs at this volume instead. Get the rate they quote you in writing, find the row that matches, and add their subscription on top.
| Platform | Rate on member payments | What that takes | Total / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| At 2.50% | 2.50% + $0.30 per payment | plus their per-location subscription | $1,400 |
| At 3.00% | 3.00% + $0.30 per payment | plus their per-location subscription | $1,650 |
| At 3.50% | 3.50% + $0.30 per payment | plus their per-location subscription | $1,900 |
| PATO Lifter | No commission | $499 subscription + ~$700 processing paid to your provider | $1,199 |
Their rows show the commission alone — their subscription is on top of it, and it’s charged per location. Ours is the whole bill. At a middling 3.00%, the commission by itself is $1,650 a month, or $19,800 a year, before any subscription.
Assumes 500 members at around $100 a month on direct debit. A gym whose members pay by card narrows the gap, because card processing costs more than direct debit — so run your own numbers rather than ours. Our own line assumes 1% + $0.40 paid to your provider, not to us.
Where PATO is stronger
| Capability |  Mindbody |  PATO |
|---|---|---|
| What your members get | ||
| AI companion for members | No | Yes |
| AI assistant for staff | No | Yes |
| Nutrition tracking | No | Yes |
| Exercise library with coaching data | No | Yes |
| Performance benchmarking | No | Yes |
| Gamification and real rewards | No | Yes |
| What it costs you | ||
| Cut of member payments | Takes one, rate not published | None |
| Marketplace commission on new clients | 20%, capped at $30 | None — no marketplace |
| Pricing model | Per location | Per gym, by member count |
| Branded member app | $249–299/mo, or top tier | Included on every plan |
| Where they win | ||
| Consumer marketplace | Yes | No |
| Multi-location depth | Yes | Supported, less mature |
Finding members, or keeping them
Are you paying to find members, or to keep the ones you already have? Those are different jobs. Mindbody does the first one and charges for it. We only do the second — properly.
There’s a structural point worth sitting with: a marketplace rents you your own members. Everyone browsing it is one search away from a cheaper studio down the road. The discovery is real; so is the shopping.
Who should choose which
Choose Mindbody if
Choose PATO if
What switching actually involves
The honest blocker isn’t whether we’re better. It’s that you’ve been on Mindbody for years and moving sounds like a fortnight of your life.
Your members come across
Mindbody lets you export your member list, and that file imports straight into PATO — you match the columns, duplicates get caught automatically, and you see a full preview before anything commits. A bad export doesn’t become a bad database.
Your classes and timetable get rebuilt
Using class types and templates, which is faster than it sounds: define each class once, then generate the week from it.
Payment mandates need setting up fresh
This is the real work, and we won’t pretend otherwise. Members need to authorise the new payment arrangement — direct debit mandates don’t transfer between providers. Most gyms run both systems for one billing cycle and move members across as they re-authorise.
Tell your members before you switch, not after
The new app is a better experience, but an unannounced login prompt reads as a problem. A week of notice turns a migration into an upgrade. And do it in a quiet month — not January.
We do the import with you
Rather than sending a help article. You’ll be talking to someone who built the thing, and if your data is messy, that’s normal and we’ve seen worse. No setup fee, no implementation project, no consultant.
Where Mindbody is genuinely better
Four things, and the first is one we can’t answer at all.
The consumer app is real demand
~3M consumer app users, generating first-time bookings across the businesses on it. If people who’ve never heard of you finding you is your main problem, that’s a real answer. We have no equivalent.
Twenty-five years of feature depth
They have built things we haven’t.
Multi-location maturity we don’t match yet
If you’re running several sites with complex cross-site management, they’re ahead.
Reviews that are honest about the trade
4.0/5 overall, 3.6/5 on value — strong on capability, weaker on value, which is roughly what this page argues too.
Questions gym owners ask
Yes. Mindbody lets you export your member list, and that file imports straight into PATO — you match the columns, duplicates are caught automatically, and you see a full preview before anything commits. We do it with you.
No. It’s the one thing they have that we don’t, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. If people who have never heard of you finding you is your main problem, they fit better.
They don’t publish it. Ask for the rate in writing before you sign — at $50,000 a month, each whole percentage point is $6,000 a year, so it decides the comparison more than the subscription does.
It depends on the rate they quote you, which is why we won't invent one. Our own side is fixed: $499 a month for up to 750 members, no commission, branded app included. Their subscription is priced per location on top of whatever percentage they take.
Marketplace discovery, and some multi-location depth. Everything else you gain.
Keep the members you already have
Fourteen days, everything switched on, no card. The part a marketplace can't do for you.
14 days · No card · Cancel any time
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