A manifesto
Some platforms were built to send clients to studios. Any studio. Whichever one fits the algorithm that day. We think that's a problem worth naming.
It's worth understanding the difference, because it changes everything about who the software is actually built to serve.
Camp one — The marketplaces
Camp two — Direct-to-studio
We're firmly in the second camp. But we have a view on what the second camp sometimes gets wrong too — which we'll come to.
Let's be precise about what happens when a studio joins a marketplace platform. The client — your client, who found you through a friend's recommendation, through your Instagram, through years of your reputation — opens the platform's consumer app to book their next class.
That app shows them you. It also shows them the studios near you with an offer running. It surfaces whoever fits the platform's recommendations that week — based on availability, ratings, proximity, factors you can't control and can't see. The platform's job is not to fill your classes. Its job is to fill classes.
These are not the same thing. And the commission — up to a quarter of every booking made through the marketplace — comes regardless of which studio it flows to.
"The platform has a financial incentive to route each booking to the studio that maximises their outcome. That might be you. It might not be."
This isn't a conspiracy. That's just how the incentives work. A marketplace platform is structurally incapable of being fully loyal to any individual studio, because its revenue doesn't depend on any individual studio succeeding. It depends on the network staying busy.
The moment your client is inside the platform's app, they are the platform's client.
New clients delivered per studio per month through the Mindbody marketplace — calculated from their own published figures: 22,000 first purchases per month across 40,000+ businesses.
Source: Mindbody.com — their own marketing claims, their own arithmetic.
Elisabeth had been a Bobclass customer for years. She knew the product. She liked it. Then she made a switch that, in hindsight, she describes simply: "Everybody here in Austria is using Eversports." Social pressure is a real thing, even for studio owners who know better. She moved over and gave it a proper run — eighteen months, not a hasty trial.
What she found wasn't a better product. It was worse support and a noticeably higher bill. The marketplace didn't transform her client base. The software didn't make her life easier. And when something went wrong, help was slow and impersonal in a way that Bobclass never had been.
"I already knew Bobclass was better. I just had to go and find that out again the expensive way."
Elisabeth — Pilates Rosen, ViennaShe's back on Bobclass now. The switch back wasn't complicated. What struck her, she says, is how quickly she remembered why she'd been a customer for so long in the first place.
The Eversports marketplace itself? A Barre studio owner we spoke with put it plainly after a full year on the platform:
"In one year on Eversports, the marketplace sent me exactly one new client. One."
Barre studio owner, SwitzerlandEven in the most generous scenario — where the marketplace delivers meaningful new clients — the economics deserve a hard look. Here's a realistic picture for a small Pilates studio.
How much those 6 clients are actually worth depends heavily on how long they stay. Retention varies widely by studio, instructor, and location — and marketplace clients, who often arrive through a promotional intro offer, tend to retain at lower rates than clients who found you through a personal recommendation. Two honest scenarios:
The marketplace promise was never really about delivering clients at scale to every studio. It's a network effect that works brilliantly for the platform and unevenly for studios. The ones that benefit most are those in dense markets with high general demand. For a Pilates studio in a mid-sized European city, building a loyal, returning client base through your own relationships will outperform marketplace discovery by any honest measure.
This isn't just our view. It's what Pilates studio owners say, consistently, when they're being honest.
Pilates — real Pilates — requires continuity. A client who drops in once, through a promotional intro offer on a marketplace app, is not a Pilates client. They are a visitor. They arrived looking for a deal, not a practice. They come in late, they're not sure what reformer work involves, and they often don't come back. Worse, they occupy a spot that a committed client might have taken.
"A person who pops in for one session, often late, with an idea of Pilates but not actually Pilates — it takes away from the clients who commit to our studio for the continuity of the learning process."
Pilates studio owner — Capterra review, verified userThe clients who stay, who become the foundation of a healthy studio, almost never arrive through a marketplace. They arrive through a friend. Through an instructor they followed from another studio. Through a Google search that led them to your website, your story, your voice.
A platform built to optimise marketplace traffic is optimising for the wrong thing if you run a serious Pilates studio.
In the direct-to-studio camp, there are two ways clients book with you on mobile. The first is through the platform's own app — a single app that your studio lives inside, with your name, your schedule, your branding front and centre when your clients open it. This is included in the software cost. It's what Bobclass offers.
The second option is the white-label app: your own standalone app in the App Store, under your studio's name, with your logo on the icon. The promise is that clients will feel more loyalty, more connection to your brand, when they download something called "Pilates Rosen" rather than "Bobclass." It costs €150–200 per month on top of your existing subscription.
We're not convinced the premium is justified. And at €1,800–2,400 per year, it's an expensive thing to be unconvinced about.
Ask yourself honestly: when did you last open an app and think, "what a beautiful icon"? Your clients don't feel loyalty to an app. They feel loyalty to you. To the instructor who remembers their knee history. To the teacher who greets them at the door. The brand lives in the room, not in the App Store listing.
Bobclass Go — the client booking app. Click to explore.
Through Bobclass, clients see your studio — your name, your schedule, your identity — the moment they open the app. What they don't see is a €200/month line item quietly eroding your margin for the privilege of a custom icon.
For larger studios and franchises with genuine brand recognition, a white-label app may make sense. For the boutique Pilates studio — which is who we're talking about — it's a luxury dressed up as a necessity.
— Court Four Ltd. · July 2026
Download the app and get started free — no card required, no trial that expires. Because we'd rather earn your confidence than lock you in.
Commission figures sourced from publicly available Eversports and Mindbody documentation. Mindbody marketplace statistics from mindbodyonline.com. All comparative claims are independently verifiable.