Why are pilates studio software prices going up

If you've run a pilates studio for more than three years, you've watched your studio software bill rise meaningfully. The pattern repeats: a renewal letter arrives sixty days before the term ends, the new price is fifteen to twenty-five percent higher than the previous year, the explanatory paragraph references "ongoing investment in product and support," and the cancellation window closes in thirty days. This post is the structural explanation for why this keeps happening, and what operators can do about it.

The short version is in the Short answer callout at the top of this page. The long version, with the worked numbers and the per-platform notes, is below.

The four reasons, in detail

1. Private equity ownership of the dominant platforms

The pilates studio software category in 2026 is almost entirely owned or controlled by private equity firms.

Mindbody was taken private by Vista Equity Partners in 2019 at a $1.9 billion valuation. Shareholders received $36.50 in cash per share, a 68 percent premium over the unaffected closing price. The Vista playbook for SaaS acquisitions is well-documented across the category: longer contract terms, expansion of premium tiers, tighter monetisation of marketplace and processing relationships, slower release cadence on operator-experience features.

Mariana Tek was acquired by Advent International in November 2019. The deal was supported by Transaction Services Group, Advent's portfolio company. The product now operates as Xplor Mariana Tek inside Advent's broader Xplor Technologies portfolio.

Glofox was acquired by ABC Fitness Solutions in August 2022 under a definitive agreement signed in July 2022. ABC Fitness Solutions is a Thoma Bravo portfolio company.

Momence was acquired by Clubessential Holdings on January 29, 2025. Clubessential is backed by Battery Ventures and Silver Lake. In September 2025, Clubessential and Xplor Technologies announced a merger expected to close by year end, putting Mariana Tek and Momence inside the same combined parent.

PE acquisition multiples assume recurring-revenue growth on the existing customer base. The acquiring fund pays a multiple of ARR at acquisition and needs to grow ARR by some annual rate over the holding period (typically five to seven years) to hit the target exit multiple. Customer-acquisition growth alone almost never hits the required rate, so the remainder comes from ARPU expansion on the existing customer book.

The easiest ARPU lever is renewal-time pricing. The annual contract structure is what makes this work: customers inside an annual term can't credibly threaten to leave, so the negotiating leverage at renewal shifts to the platform. The renewal letter that adds 15% YoY only works when the customer is structurally captive for the duration of the next term.

2. Broader SaaS inflation through 2024-2025

Independent of the PE pressure, B2B software prices rose meaningfully across categories through 2024 and 2025. Vendr's quarterly trends reports, SaaStr's coverage of what some commentators called the "great price surge," and procurement-side benchmarks from Tropic and others all flagged a clear pattern.

The drivers were mostly macroeconomic and structural rather than category-specific:

• End of the ZIRP discount. From roughly 2018 to 2022, near-zero interest rates kept SaaS prices artificially low — vendors competed on growth-at-any-cost and held prices to acquire customers. When rates rose in 2022-2023, the pressure flipped: vendors had to grow profitable revenue rather than just growth metrics, and the easiest path was raising prices on the existing book.

• Inflation passthrough. Cost-of-goods inflation (labour, infrastructure, support staffing) showed up in B2B software pricing with a 6-12 month lag. The category-wide increases through 2024-2025 reflected costs that vendors absorbed in 2022-2023.

• AI-feature tier expansion. Many vendors used the rise of AI features as a price-tier-justification mechanism — premium tiers added AI capabilities and were repriced upward. Customers paying for the existing feature surface effectively saw a price increase even if they didn't use the new AI features.

The category-wide signal: prices rose. Studio software moved with the trend but with variation by tier. The entry tiers moved less aggressively (to protect the inbound funnel). The premium tiers moved more.

3. Expansion of secondary revenue streams

PE-backed platforms typically have multiple revenue streams beyond subscription: marketplace commission, payment processing markup, per-client overage fees, data-export charges at cancellation.

These streams aren't priced as openly as subscription, which makes them easier to expand without provoking customer backlash. A few patterns:

Marketplace commission attribution window expansion. The headline commission rate (around 20% on Mindbody for app-discovered bookings) doesn't change much. What changes is the attribution-window logic — how long a client stays attributed to the marketplace after their first marketplace booking. If a 30-day attribution window quietly becomes 60 or 90 days, every returning client inside the window now generates commission. The studio sees the revenue impact in the monthly statement; the rate-on-each-transaction looks unchanged.

Processing markup application. Most PE-backed platforms add 20-40 basis points to Stripe's published processing rates as a platform markup. The visible markup doesn't change much; the application of it expands — to more transaction types, to recurring memberships that used to settle outside the markup, to international cards that used to settle at a different rate.

Per-client overage fees. Some platforms gate "active clients" at the entry tier (e.g., up to 100 active clients on the lowest plan, then $1 per additional active client per month). The overage rate itself doesn't typically increase, but the threshold tightens — a studio that signed at "up to 250 active clients" finds the new tier published at "up to 150" with overages applying above that.

The cumulative effect across the secondary revenue streams is significant. For a studio doing $200,000 a year in bookings, the secondary revenue streams typically run $3,000 to $20,000 a year going to the platform on top of subscription. The variability is mostly about marketplace exposure — studios with high marketplace attribution pay the most.

4. The opaque-pricing-plus-renewal-letter pattern

The fourth reason is structural rather than transactional: the way studio software pricing is negotiated.

Most studio software pricing isn't published transparently. Even when there's a published rate card, the actual rate any given customer pays depends on:

• Discounts negotiated during the initial sales process
• Annual-commitment discounts
• Multi-year-commitment discounts
• Migration credits applied to early months
• Beta-customer or early-adopter rates

At the renewal moment, those discounts can be renegotiated. The pattern operators describe: the renewal letter arrives, the new price is higher, the explanatory paragraph references "the new standard rate," and there's an implied invitation to negotiate. Studios that push back can often hold the price somewhat — but the negotiation itself is friction, and the new starting point for the next renewal is the new rate.

Public pricing structurally forecloses this lever. If the rate is published on the marketing page in both currencies and the customer can see it, the renewal-time negotiation doesn't have a private rate to anchor against. The vendor has to either raise the public rate (visible to all customers and prospects) or hold. The lever is much harder to use.

What the increase looks like in practice — a worked example

A UK pilates studio that signed Mindbody Accelerate in 2022 at the then-published rate of around £170/month would, on the standard renewal trajectory, see:

• 2023 renewal: new rate around £180/month (6% increase). Cumulative cost increase: £120/year.
• 2024 renewal: new rate around £195/month (8% increase). Cumulative: £300/year increase over 2022.
• 2025 renewal: new rate around £205/month (5% increase). Cumulative: £420/year increase over 2022.
• 2026 renewal: new published rate around £205-220/month, depending on tier mix changes.

Cumulative increase over four years: roughly 21-29% on the same tier. The studio is paying about £600/year more than they were in 2022 for the same feature surface.

Plus the secondary revenue streams. If the studio's marketplace-attributed bookings grew (because the Mindbody marketplace attribution window quietly expanded), the marketplace commission stream may have grown from £4,000/year in 2022 to £6,500/year in 2026 on the same bookings volume.

Total annual cost trajectory: from roughly £8,000/year in 2022 to roughly £10,500/year in 2026 — a 30% increase over four years, on the same studio with similar bookings volume.

What operators can do

Three structural responses.

1. Treat every renewal as a re-evaluation

The renewal moment is the highest-leverage moment of the customer-vendor relationship for the customer side: the cost of switching is concentrated, the comparison to alternatives is current, and the contract reset is a natural decision point.

The defensive pattern:

• Set a calendar reminder 120 days before the contract end date.
• Use the 60 days before the renewal window opens to evaluate alternatives.
• Run a 14-day trial on at least one alternative during the renewal window. Most operator-friendly platforms offer this with no card.
• Compare the all-in cost, not just the sticker price: subscription + marketplace commission + processing markup + per-client overage.
• Make a go-or-stay decision before the renewal window closes.

Studios that run this pattern at every renewal capture meaningfully more value than studios that default-renew. The exercise itself is signal to the vendor that renewal pricing is being scrutinised, which tends to produce better renewal terms even if the studio ultimately stays.

2. Prefer month-to-month pricing structurally

The annual contract is what makes the renewal-time price-hike lever work. Month-to-month removes the lever entirely — there's no annual renewal letter, just a steady monthly subscription, and the customer can leave at any time if the price moves.

Most operator-friendly platforms (Junocal, OfferingTree, Arketa) ship month-to-month as the default tier. The annual option exists as an opt-in for studios that want a multi-month discount, but it's not the structure that locks customers in.

The trade-off is small: a small annual-commitment discount on the platforms that offer it. Worth less than the structural flexibility of being able to leave at any time.

3. Prefer transparent pricing over negotiated discounts

A negotiated discount is a private rate that has to be re-negotiated each renewal cycle. A public rate is published on the marketing page in both currencies and is the rate every customer pays.

The structural difference: a private discount can be raised silently at renewal (the negotiation is private, the new rate just shows up in the letter). A public price can only be raised by changing the public price, which is visible to all customers and prospects and creates a constraint on the vendor.

Junocal's pricing is on the page. So is Arketa's. So is OfferingTree's. The PE-backed platforms generally aren't — Mindbody publishes a starting price but the rate any individual studio pays depends on the negotiation. The structural difference matters in the long run.

The category outlook through 2027

The trajectory of the next eighteen months is likely to continue the patterns of the last twenty-four:

• PE-backed platforms will continue consolidating. The Clubessential-Xplor merger closes in 2026. More acquisitions are likely in the smaller-platform tier.
• Renewal pricing on the dominant platforms will continue to rise. The 5-10% YoY increases that have characterised 2023-2025 are likely to continue, with the rate sensitive to broader macro conditions.
• Marketplace commission attribution windows will continue to expand quietly. The published rates won't change much; the application will.
• Contract terms will continue to lengthen on the premium tiers. Annual contracts will remain the standard at the tiers where most studios end up.
• Operator-friendly platforms will continue growing on the wedge. Junocal, OfferingTree, Arketa will continue to win market share among small studios that have decided the structural commitments matter.

For a studio thinking about its next eighteen months, the practical recommendation is the same as it's been for the last twelve: keep using whatever you're using until your next renewal. At renewal, look at the all-in cost, look at the alternatives, and run a 14-day trial in parallel on the one that scores best on the structural questions (contract length, marketplace, payment processing, data export, pricing transparency).

Related reading: the state of pilates studio software in 2026, the annual contract trap in studio software, the 20% marketplace commission problem, and Junocal vs Mindbody for pilates studios in the UK. If you'd like to walk through your specific renewal numbers, hello@junocal.com gets a real reply.