WellnessLiving sells business software to fitness, wellness and beauty businesses, from gyms and yoga and Pilates studios to spas, salons and med spas.1 Elara is a WellnessLiving alternative built for studios whose week is a timetable of classes and sessions: Pilates and yoga studios, gyms that run classes, and sauna, contrast therapy and bathhouse studios. 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 check-in waits for every signature. Payments go through a Stripe or Square account the studio owns, and a Canadian studio charges in CAD and takes Interac on Stripe readers. Elara is not built for appointments, spot booking or door access, and there is no import from WellnessLiving.
Side by side
| Elara | WellnessLiving | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 either a private price or a private credit cost set for the whole session, a customer can book the whole session privately while it has no other bookings, and once it is booked privately nobody else can book a place.2,3 | Classes with a capacity and wait lists, promoted by hand or automatically,4,5 and appointments for one client or a small group of up to 15.6 The cited pages do not describe a client booking a whole class privately while it is open for individual places. |
| Spots, rooms and equipment | Capacity is set on each session, with no room record and no choice of spot.7 | Book-a-Spot assets: rooms, equipment or spots, reserved per client or for a whole class.8,4 Its feature page says clients can reserve their favorite equipment, or a favorite mat, online.9 |
| Plans and packs | Monthly, yearly and fixed-term plans; credit packs with optional expiry, which can be limited to the session categories you choose; a credit cost set on each class.10,11 | Memberships with autopay, optional contracts and cancellation rules;12 session passes by count, unlimited or by duration, which can be limited to particular classes;13 and passes and memberships shared between linked family profiles.14 |
| Waivers | Versioned, and you can run more than one at once. Online booking asks the booker for any active waiver they have not signed. Friends booked into shared places sign before they can be checked in; guests on a private booking do not sign. A staff booking still goes through when the customer owes a signature: the roster flags it and check-in waits for it.15,16,17 | An online waiver required at registration or at booking. Updating it asks everyone who accepted it to accept the new version, and clients can sign for linked minors.18 Contracts attach to memberships, passes and events.19 Its pricing page says a business can restrict access until clients sign the correct forms.20 The cited pages do not say whether staff check-in waits for a signature. |
| 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.21 | Self check-in on a kiosk or the Achieve app, barcode check-in, and staff check-in;22 door access through Brivo or Passport.23 |
| Payment account | Your own Stripe or Square account, connected from Payment settings.24 | A merchant processor connected through a gateway, chosen by country: Paragon, Paysafe, Nuvei or PayArc in the US, and Paysafe or Nuvei in Canada.25 Its terms also describe Payments By WellnessLiving, its own payment facilitation service.26 The cited pages do not say whether a business can connect a Stripe or Square account it already owns. |
| Front desk card payments | Stripe WisePOS E, S700 and Verifone P400 readers, or Square Terminal, with the sale completed once the provider confirms the payment.27 | Paragon's Verifone V400m terminal, for US businesses on Paragon,28 used from the Staff Back Office rather than the Elevate staff app. With other chip and PIN readers, staff record each payment in WellnessLiving by hand.29,30 |
| In Canada | A studio charges in one currency, set to match its payment account, so a studio whose account settles in CAD charges in CAD. Plans, packs and gift cards keep the currency they were created in if that setting changes later. Stripe readers take Interac debit cards when the studio charges in CAD, and Elara cannot refund an Interac payment yet.31,32 | Paysafe and Nuvei for processing, and a currency set from the business's country, with Quebec's GST and QST shown separately.25,33 The cited pages do not mention Interac. |
| Customer messages | Email automations and email campaigns, built in, including a review request after a visit that links to your Google or Yelp page. No text messages.34 | Email and text notifications, email, text and push campaigns, and lead management.20 Client reviews collected through its own review platform.35 |
| 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.36,37 | The Achieve client app in both stores,38,39 a white-label version, included on BusinessPro and Enterprise, and website widgets for the schedule, appointments, events and store.20 |
| Marketplaces | No marketplace listing or marketplace connection, and no third-party marketing sync.40 | A listing in its Explorer directory,20 and connections to booking channels such as Reserve with Google.41 |
| Several locations | Each session belongs to one location and runs in that location's own time zone. Plans, waivers, customers and the payment account are shared across the studio; reports filter by location, and staff roles can be limited to their locations for sessions, reservations, reports and shifts, while customers, sales and the POS stay studio-wide.42,43,44 | Each location has its own time zone, and staff are assigned to locations.45,46 A new location is added through WellnessLiving's sales team.47 Multi-location reporting and visits across locations come with the Enterprise plan.20 |
| API | A read-only API key reads customers, locations, plans, memberships, classes, reservations and payments. No webhooks.48 | An API with staging access and a production subscription, and webhooks for appointment bookings, class schedules, clients, purchases and other events.49,50 |
| Moving in | The Migration Center imports from Kenko and Mindbody only, so there is no import from WellnessLiving.51 | Its standard migration brings clients, memberships and passes, attendance, the upcoming schedule and products, and billing details move from one processor to the other. The same article says sales history and memberships with signed contracts cannot be imported,52 while its pricing page lists payment history in migration,20 so ask which applies. |
| Leaving | Payments, and the customers and saved cards behind them, stay in your own Stripe or Square account. Staff can export selected customers (name, contact details, membership and remaining credits) and reports to CSV, and a read-only API key reads customers, locations, plans, memberships, classes, reservations and payments.24,53,48 | The client list exports to CSV, Excel or PDF.54 Its terms say the business owns its data. When Payments By WellnessLiving is among the services ending, WellnessLiving also provides the data a replacing provider reasonably needs, if asked within 30 days, once amounts due are paid and for a data extraction and transfer fee.26 |
WellnessLiving puts some features on higher plans or sells them as add-ons,20 so ask which plan carries the ones you need.
Where Elara is ahead for class and session studios
- Shared and private on one session. A session sells individual places and, while it has no other bookings, the whole session to one group. Once it is booked privately, nobody else can book a place, so the two never oversell each other. Ask WellnessLiving how a group would book out a class that is already on the timetable.
- A payment account that stays yours. Elara connects the Stripe or Square account your studio owns, so the account, and the customers and saved cards in it, stay with the studio. Ask WellnessLiving which processor you would use, and what happens to saved cards if you leave.
- Interac at the front desk in Canada. A studio charging in CAD takes Interac debit cards on its Stripe reader. Elara cannot refund an Interac payment yet. Ask WellnessLiving which of its terminals take Interac.
Pilates and yoga studios and gyms
A reformer class has a fixed number of machines and often counts for more than a mat class. Both products handle the second part: in WellnessLiving a class can count as more than one visit from a pass,4 and in Elara each class sets its own 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: Elara has no numbered spots, while WellnessLiving's Book-a-Spot lets clients reserve their favorite equipment online.9 A yoga workshop is a one-off session with its own price, and a gym that runs classes uses the same model, with entry left to its own access system. The Pilates studios, yoga studios and gyms pages show how Elara runs each.
Sauna, contrast therapy and bathhouse studios
The cited WellnessLiving pages do not say how a sauna, cold plunge or bathhouse studio would sell shared places and a private hire of the room from one session, so ask it. 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. Elara can ask for several waivers, such as a general waiver and a cold plunge waiver, and each friend booked into shared places signs their own before they can be checked in. Guests on a private booking do not sign in Elara, 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 WellnessLiving offers are not in it:
- No appointments. A one-to-one session is a session with one place.
- No spot, room or equipment booking.
- No self check-in or door access.
- No text messages. Confirmations, reminders and campaigns go by email.
- No customer app in the app stores. Customers use the booking widget on your website.
- No family accounts, and no marketplace listing or connection.
- No webhooks, and no marketing, marketplace or automation integrations; the API reads data only.
Questions owners ask
Can I bring my WellnessLiving data to Elara? Not by import: Elara's Migration Center reads Kenko and Mindbody only. Tell us how many clients, 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 clients' saved cards? WellnessLiving says billing details cannot be exported to the business and move from one processor to another.52 In Elara they would have to reach your own Stripe or Square account. Ask WellnessLiving and your processor how a transfer works, and ask us before you plan the move. The guide to moving saved cards explains what decides whether renewals keep running.
See it with your own timetable
Ask for a quote and tell us how your week runs: the classes or sessions you sell, your plans and packs, your waivers and how many locations you have. To weigh another option, read Elara vs Mindbody.
WellnessLiving is a trademark of its owner. Elara is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by WellnessLiving.