Elara is a Zipper alternative built for studios whose week is a timetable of sessions, including sauna, contrast therapy and bathhouse studios. It sells shared places and a private booking of the same session without overselling, keeps every waiver version each customer signs and asks everyone to accept a changed one, sells memberships, packs and gift cards, and takes payments through the Stripe or Square account the studio already owns. Zipper bundles a branded customer app, a website builder and booking widgets, and email and SMS tools with studio management.1
Side by side
| Elara | Zipper | |
|---|---|---|
| Payment processors | Stripe or Square, connected from the studio's own account.2 | Stripe, through a separate Stripe Connect account set up from Zipper; the studio's existing Stripe account stays where it is.3,4 |
| Shared places | Each session has a capacity, a drop-in price and a credit cost.5 | Sessions with a configurable capacity, and timed reservations for individual sauna bays or plunge pods.6 |
| Private booking of the room | 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 private booking is offered only while the session has no other bookings; once booked privately, nobody else can book a place.7,8 | The sauna page says booking prevents double-booking for each space. The help center describes duets and semi-private appointments, where each client books and pays a per-person price unless the studio sets a group price. The cited pages do not describe one group booking a whole session that is also open for individual places.6,9 |
| Rooms | No room record. Overlapping sessions in the same location or with the same instructor raise a warning rather than a block.10 | Rooms with their own spot layouts, set separately from a class's capacity.11 |
| Waivers | Versioned, and you can run more than one at once. Online booking asks the booker for any active waiver they have not signed, and changing a waiver's text or file asks everyone who signed it to accept the new version before their next online booking or check-in. Friends booked into shared places sign before they can be checked in. Guests on a private booking do not sign, and the staff roster shows how many are coming.12,13,14 | Each attendee answers their own forms, required at every registration or once and reused. To have clients sign a changed waiver, staff create a new form and attach it to each service; Zipper notes that changing the wording alone does not guarantee a fresh response.15,16 |
| Memberships and packs | Monthly, yearly and fixed-term plans, and credit packs with an optional expiry.17 | Unlimited monthly memberships and ones with a fixed number of sessions a month, and session packs that can renew themselves when the last session is used.6,3 |
| Gift cards and front desk | Gift cards, redeemed online and at the front desk. A connected Stripe or Square card reader takes product, membership and pack sales; a membership is added once the reader payment is approved, and a monthly or yearly plan sold at the desk does not renew itself.18,19,20 | Gift cards for memberships, packs, drop-ins, appointments and retail, and staff can apply a customer's gift card balance at the point of sale. Card payments at the desk can use a Stripe Terminal reader.21,22,23 |
| Customer booking | Customers book, buy plans and packs, and manage their bookings through widgets on the studio's own website, on a phone or a computer, with nothing to install.24,25 | A branded customer app that installs to the home screen from the browser, with native store apps for some studios, plus a website builder and booking widgets for an existing site.1,26 |
| Customer messages | Email automations and email campaigns, built in. No text messages.27 | Email and SMS automation.1 |
| Moving in | Kenko exports are imported self-serve; a Mindbody capture is arranged with support. Either is reviewed before anything is written. Elara has no Zipper importer.28 | Zipper's team transfers members, packs and upcoming bookings from templates the studio fills in; class schedules and the product catalog are set up again. Whether saved cards move depends on the old payment processor.29,30 |
Where Elara is ahead for sauna studios
- Shared and private on one session. A session is offered both ways, individual places or the whole session to one group, until the first booking decides. Once it is booked privately, shared places close, and once a place is sold, the private option closes. Ask Zipper to show one group booking a whole sauna session that is also on sale by the place.
- Waivers that follow every change. When you change a waiver's text, Elara asks everyone who signed it to accept the new version, with no new form to attach. Each friend booked into shared places signs before check-in.
- The payment account you already have. Elara connects the Stripe account you already use, or Square, so the account, and the customers and saved cards in it, stay with the studio. Zipper sets up a separate Stripe Connect account.
What Elara leaves out
Some things Zipper offers are not in Elara:
- No customer app in the app stores and no website builder. Customers book through the widget on your existing site, which needs a page that accepts custom HTML.
- No text messages. Confirmations, reminders and campaigns go by email.
- No room records. Overlapping sessions raise a warning rather than a block.
- No partial refunds on card payments: a connected card payment is refunded in full, and a pack, pass or gift card only before any of it is used.31 Zipper offers partial refunds and refunds as store credit.3
- No Zipper importer, so a move from Zipper is a manual setup.
Test one week in both
Ask each vendor to run the same week. Offer an eight-place session both ways, sell two places, and check that no group can now book it privately; then book a second session privately and check that no single place can be sold. Book three friends into a session, have each sign the waiver, change the waiver's wording, and then try to check them in. Then sell a pack on a card reader and redeem a gift card at the desk.
See it with your own timetable
Ask for a quote and bring your real schedule. The sauna studios page explains how shared and private sessions work together. For other alternatives, read Elara vs Zettlor, Elara vs Session and Elara vs Mindbody.
Zipper is a trademark of its owner. Elara is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Zipper.