WellnessLiving Versus Vagaro: How to Choose the Right Platform
Choosing the right all-in-one business management software is no easy task.
Once you start using a platform, it can be hard to switch because your entire business is woven into the software.
WellnessLiving and Vagaro both offer business and marketing tools for fitness studios, salons, and other wellness companies.
But with so much overlap, it’s tough to know which to choose.
In this guide, we compare WellnessLiving and Vagaro to help you decide which platform is the best for your business.
- How to choose between WellnessLiving and Vagaro
- WellnessLiving versus Vagaro: Pricing
- WellnessLiving versus Vagaro: Features
How to choose between WellnessLiving and Vagaro
WellnessLiving has 4.4 stars on G2, but Vagaro also has 4.4 stars—so how do you choose the right platform?
When customer ratings are similar, you can assume that both companies have modern UX and great customer support. And it’s true. Both platforms are known for having easy-to-use features and customer service that’s available 24/7 via phone. This means you have to dig a little deeper to determine which platform is right for you.
The decision then comes down to pricing and features.
It’s important to choose a solution that is reasonably priced and will give you the most bang for your buck.
But you also need to ensure that the platform has all of the features you need, so you don’t have to pay for additional subscriptions or fuss with software integrations.
WellnessLiving versus Vagaro: Pricing
WellnessLiving offers straightforward monthly plans with unlimited clients and appointment bookings, but Vagaro charges per calendar (referring to the number of instructors or clinicians). This could add up quickly.
WellnessLiving also offers more features on our core plans, while Vagaro tends to break things up into different add-ons. For example, a custom website and custom branded mobile app for clients are both included in WellnessLiving’s BusinessMax plan while Vagaro charges extra for these services.
WellnessLiving versus Vagaro: Features
With either platform, you’ll get the bulk of the features you need to run your business. Appointments, purchases, notifications, marketing, websites, forms, memberships, payroll, and time tracking are all included.
But Vagaro lacks some important features that fitness studios and wellness businesses need. While Vagaro is still playing catch up on some of these features, the WellnessLiving team is already developing AI-powered chat (to help you automate support), guest management, and other modern features.
Below, we show some of the features that Vagaro’s missing.
The more features you need to seek outside of your main platform, the more software subscriptions you’ll need to pay for and integrate.
10 key features Vagaro lacks
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to find these features inside Vagaro.
Let’s dive into each one and why it’s important.
1. Events management
Many types of businesses can benefit from hosting events. Fitness studios can offer special workshops, day-long retreats, and kids’ classes. Medical spas and beauty businesses can create self-care workshops, Botox parties, Mother’s Day events, and more.
With WellnessLiving, you can create events that are free or paid and then promote registration to your existing audience and the general public. Vagaro doesn’t offer this capability.
2. Spot and asset booking
Book-a-Spot allows clients to reserve the specific spot where they’ll stand during the fitness class or the specific equipment they will use. This feature can also be used for equipment and room rentals—allowing you to drive extra revenue.
While you can’t get this feature with Vagaro, you will find it in WellnessLiving.
3. Reserve with Google
Reserve with Google is just like it sounds. People can pay for services and reserve classes directly inside of Google Search or Maps. This provides a seamless customer experience and ensures that you don’t lose out to competitors already taking advantage of this functionality.
WellnessLiving integrates with Reserve with Google so you can offer the correct services and prices, while capturing all client info in your main system. However, Vagaro doesn’t provide this feature.
4. Video libraries
Video libraries are great for all sorts of purposes. You can provide onboarding information to your fitness studio members, offer post-care instructions to spa clients, or create paid courses to generate an additional revenue stream that’s 100% virtual.
With WellnessLiving, you can offer free or paid access to a variety of video libraries, giving you full strategic and creative control.
5. Product add-ons
Vagaro also doesn’t include product add-ons. These are extra add-ons during the online checkout process. For example, if you’re selling a pack of 10 passes for a class, you might offer a pack of three classes for a guest at a discounted rate. Or, if you’re selling a massage, you could offer a discounted 30-minute facial as an add-on.
With WellnessLiving, it’s easy to configure add-on options for your main services so you can boost your revenue.
6. Review requests
With Vagaro, you can only manage reviews passively. You can respond to customer reviews and flag issues for resolution. But you can’t proactively request new reviews from customers.
WellnessLiving offers a fully-featured review management solution, including automated review requests via email and text message. The two-step process ensures that clients are only prompted to leave a public review if they first give you an above-average star rating through our system.
7. Client leaderboard
Like WellnessLiving, Vagaro offers a rewards management feature so you can create a loyalty program and give clients points for things like booking classes, referring friends, and purchasing products.
But Vagaro’s platform doesn’t include a leaderboard. WellnessLiving’s rewards system offers a public leaderboard so clients and members can see the top players. This makes for some fun and friendly competition, especially for fitness studios. You can reward leaders in-person during classes to increase engagement.
(Also keep in mind that because Vagaro doesn’t offer review requests, this means you can’t award points to clients who leave you an online review.)
8. Important integrations
While Vagaro offers an integration with QuickBooks, it lacks some key integrations your business might need now or in the future.
Vagaro doesn’t integrate with ClassPass or Gympass—meaning you can’t pull in new client data from these systems. Vagaro also doesn’t integrate with Zapier, the world’s top platform-to-platform connector that enables integrations with 6,000+ other software.
WellnessLiving, on the other hand, integrates with QuickBooks, ClassPass, Gympass, and Zapier to streamline operations and unleash your business’s potential.
9. Payment collections
Do you have a list of clients who owe you money per their contract? If some of your clients’ payment methods have failed, WellnessLiving will go to bat for you and recover funds, for a fee of $10 per month plus a 40% recovery fee. For large or multi-location businesses, this could represent a sizable injection of cash at no risk to you.
Vagaro, however, doesn’t offer this service.
10. Donations and fundraising
And lastly, Vagaro doesn’t let you collect donations for your business or special services. If you offer youth programs with scholarships, you can use WellnessLiving to help you raise funds from the community to cover more fees. Or, use our donations and fundraising features for any mission you dream up.
Picking the right platform can have a major impact on your business. The more features you have in one place, the less time you need to spend constantly searching for and learning new platforms.
Learn how WellnessLiving can help you manage and grow your business. Book a demo.
* Vagaro is a trademark of Vagaro, Inc., and is not affiliated with WellnessLiving.
