PushPress sells gym software to CrossFit, martial arts, strength and conditioning, personal training, yoga and Pilates businesses.1 Elara is built for gyms and studios whose week is a timetable of classes and sessions. One session can sell shared places and, while nobody has booked it, the whole session to one group. Several waivers can run at once, and a changed waiver asks everyone to accept the new text. Payments go through a Stripe or Square account the studio owns, and one account runs several locations, each on its own clock. Elara is not built for gyms that need workout programming or appointments, and door access stays with the gym's own system.
Side by side
| Elara | PushPress | |
|---|---|---|
| Shared places and private booking | Each class or session has a capacity, a credit cost and a drop-in price. With private booking turned on for the studio and the session, and one whole-session price set, in money or credits, a customer can book the whole session while it has no other bookings or waitlist, and a private-only session takes no public bookings online.2,3 | Classes with a capacity and an automatic waitlist, and appointments for one-on-one and group intro sessions.4,5,6 The cited pages do not describe booking a whole class privately. |
| Plans and packs | Monthly and yearly plans and fixed-term unlimited passes; credit packs with optional expiry; a credit cost on each class, so a reformer class can cost two credits and a mat class one; and each session can be limited to the plans you choose.7,8 | Plans billed monthly, weekly, every set number of days or once, punch cards and trials, each set to the class types it covers.9,10 Members with contractual obligations cannot cancel unless an admin overrides.11 |
| Waivers | Several active waivers at once, and every customer signs each one. Each keeps its versions, and new text asks everyone who signed an older version to accept again. Online booking asks the booker for any active waiver they have not signed, and check-in waits for a signature. Guests on a private booking are names only and do not sign.12,13 | Unlimited documents on every plan,14 attached to a person, plan, discount or appointment type. Editing a document leaves signatures on earlier versions in place. Staff can re-request unsigned documents as a bulk action. For plans an admin assigns, signing is not enforced automatically.15 Kiosk check-in requires signed documents.16 |
| Check-in and door access | Staff check customers in from the session roster. No self check-in and no door access, so keep your access system for entry.17 | Staff check in from the Control Panel or Staff App, and members check themselves in on a kiosk tablet or the member app.18 Door access through Kisi and HybridAF.19 |
| Payment account | Your own Stripe or Square account.20 | Stripe only, through the gym's own Stripe account, with one Stripe account for each PushPress account.21,22 |
| Front desk card payments | Stripe WisePOS E, S700 and Verifone P400 readers, or Square Terminal.23 | Tap to Pay on iPhone and NFC Android phones in the Staff App, or a connected Stripe reader, such as the M2, on other devices or by choice.24 |
| Failed renewals | Elara schedules no retries of its own: any retry is the payment provider's. By default, the member is emailed that the payment failed, and each failed attempt is a row in the Failed Payments report.25,26 | A nightly retry for members with a valid payment method.27 |
| Customer messages | Email automations and email campaigns, built in. No text messages.28 | Automatic emails, and texts for waitlist changes in the US and Canada and for appointments.5 Text, email and WhatsApp follow-up and sales pipelines in the Grow add-on.29 |
| Customer booking | Customers book, buy plans and gift cards, and sign waivers through widgets on the studio's own website. Elara has no customer app in the app stores.30,31 | The PushPress Members app,32 a branded app as an add-on,33,14 and a class schedule that embeds in a website in an iframe.34 |
| Several locations | Each session belongs to one location and runs in that location's time zone. Plans, waivers, customers and the payment account are shared, and every location charges in the studio's one currency. Reports filter by location, and staff roles can be limited to their locations for sessions, bookings, reports and shifts, while customers, sales and the POS stay studio-wide.35,25,36 | One PushPress account and one Stripe account per location.21 For gyms growing across countries or franchising, PushPress's comparison with Glofox lists roll-up reporting across locations among the things it says "We don't match that, and we're not trying to."22 |
| Staff | A time clock, shifts with open shifts and cover requests, and payroll that turns hours into regular, overtime and double time for export. Pay is hourly, not per class.37,38,39 | Coach pay per class, session or head, calculated from attendance, with no clock-in for hourly staff.40 |
| Workout programming | None. | Train Lite on every Core plan,14 and a Train add-on with scores, benchmarks and leaderboards.41,42 |
| In Canada | A studio charges in one currency, set from its payment account, so a studio whose account settles in CAD charges in CAD.43 | Canadian ACSS direct debit once PushPress Support enables it.44 The cited pages do not say whether a Canadian gym bills its members in CAD, so ask PushPress. |
| Moving in | The Migration Center imports from Kenko and Mindbody only, so there is no import from PushPress.45 | PushPress's onboarding imports members, plans and billing from Mindbody, Wodify, Zen Planner, Glofox and other platforms.1 |
PushPress puts some features on its Pro and Max plans or in add-ons,14 so ask which plan carries the ones you need.
Where Elara is ahead for gyms that run classes
- Shared and private on one session. A session sells individual places and, while it has no other bookings, the whole session to one group, so the two never oversell each other. The cited PushPress pages do not say how a group would book out a class, so ask PushPress.
- Waivers that follow their text. Run a general waiver and a cold plunge waiver side by side; every customer signs each active one. When you change the wording, everyone who signed the old version is asked to accept the new one before their next check-in, with no bulk request to send. PushPress's help says an edit leaves earlier signatures in place and does not say an edit asks anyone to sign again, so ask PushPress whether an edit can require everyone to sign again.
- Stripe or Square. Connect whichever of the two your studio already owns.
- Several locations on one account. Customers, plans and waivers are shared, each location keeps its own clock, reports filter by location, and managers can be limited to their own sites' sessions, bookings, reports and shifts.
- Credits priced per class. A reformer class can cost two credits and a mat class one from the same pack. The cited PushPress pages do not say whether one class can use more than one punch, so ask PushPress.
Pilates and yoga studios
A reformer class has a fixed number of machines and often counts for more than a mat class. In Elara, each class sets its own capacity and credit cost, so an eight-reformer class sells eight places at two credits each beside a twenty-place mat class at one. A client books a place, not a particular reformer: neither Elara nor PushPress offers a choice of spot.22 A yoga studio sells weekly classes from the same plans and packs, and a workshop is a one-off session with its own price. The Pilates studios, yoga studios and gyms pages show how Elara runs each.
Sauna and contrast therapy studios
The cited PushPress pages do not mention sauna, cold plunge or bathhouse businesses. A sauna hour is usually sold two ways: individual places in a shared session, and the whole room for a private group. In Elara, both come from the same session, and once it is booked privately, shared places close. Each friend booked into shared places signs their own waivers before they can be checked in; guests on a private booking are names only and do not sign, so collect their waivers another way. The sauna studios page follows one weekend at a ten-place sauna.
What Elara leaves out
Elara keeps to classes and sessions, so some things a gym may want are not in it:
- No appointments. A one-to-one session is a session with one place.
- No workout programming, score logging or leaderboards.
- No self check-in, member QR codes or door access.
- No text messages. Booking confirmations, campaigns and reminders about expiring memberships or unsigned waivers go by email. Elara sends no reminder before a booked session.
- No customer app in the app stores. Customers use the booking widget on your website.
- No family accounts, and no plans with a minimum term.
- No passing card fees on to members.
Questions owners ask
Can I bring my PushPress data to Elara? Not by import: Elara's Migration Center reads Kenko and Mindbody only. Tell us how many members, plans and locations you run when you ask for a quote, and we will say what moving involves before you commit.
What happens to my members' saved cards? PushPress says the Stripe account and the saved cards in it stay with the gym if it leaves.22 Whether those cards keep billing in Elara depends on how PushPress charges them, which the cited pages do not say. Ask PushPress, and ask us before you plan the move.
See it with your own timetable
Ask for a quote and tell us how your week runs: the classes you sell, your plans and packs, your waivers and how many locations you have. To weigh another option, read Elara vs Mindbody.
PushPress is a trademark of its owner. Elara is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by PushPress.