Zen Planner

RATING:

4.3

(246)

About Zen Planner

Zen Planner is a member management software for gyms, affiliate gyms, martial arts schools, MMA schools and fitness studios. It includes integrated payment processing and automated billing, a self-service kiosk iPad app, both a member app and staff app for Android and iOS devices, scheduling, automations, workout tracking, belt and skill tracking, site templates and more. Zen Planner's pricing is based off the number of active members and includes payment processing, and there are no contracts or startup fees. New customers have access to one-on-one training sessions with an onboarding coach who will help train them and implement the software for their gym. An in-house customer success team is available by phone and email.

Awards and Recognition

FrontRunner 2022
Software Advice's FrontRunners report ranks top products based on user reviews, which helps businesses find the right software.

Zen Planner Pricing

Up to 45 members: $99/month-to-month 46-60 members: $129/month-to-month 61-75 members: $149/month-to-month 76-100 members: $176/month-to-month 101-150 members: $209/month-to-month 151-200 members: $227/month-to-month 201-250 members: $247/month-to-month 251+ members: $267/month-to-month

Starting price: 

$99.00 per month

Free trial: 

Not Available

Free version: 

Not Available

Dashboard

Zen Planner Reviews

Overall Rating

4.3

Ratings Breakdown

Secondary Ratings

Ease-of-use

4

Customer Support

4.5

Value for money

4.5

Functionality

4

Most Helpful Reviews for Zen Planner

1 - 5 of 241 Reviews

Todd

Religious Institutions, 11 - 50 employees

Used less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

4

Reviewed August 2021

Great Features - Not Intuitive

Mike

Verified reviewer

Health, Wellness and Fitness, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed May 2019

Cheaper, better, friendlier

I love their service and how much they've helped me. I would like the ACH only option for memberships though!

PROS

The customer service and ease of use, especially that everything you would essentially need is included with ZenPlanner, unlike MindBody or Triib. It's also cheaper because of PaySimple's merchant integration and I don't think most fitness businesses need the add ons that MindBody has and that you would pay for. I think being a good business owner, setting clearly defined roles and tasks for employees, and making sure they do them will lead to more sales than a email/text bot from MindBody.

CONS

I think the client facing side of signing up for memberships could be a little easier, for instance: you can't have a ACH only membership option, you do need an iPad or computer of which to then use ZenPlanner's Front Desk for, but I do know ZenPlanner is teaming up with PaySimple to possibly release a device to use instead of an iPad or computer.

Vendor Response

Thanks Paul! We appreciate your feedback and kind words.

Replied May 2019

Brian

Higher Education, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed November 2019

Great Fitness Specific Software

Love it. Never going to leave them.

PROS

Cost for sure, ease of use, the user experience for client is also very simple.

CONS

I can't say there are any other "cons" - If i'm being nit picky they could give a bit more time towards automatic PDF invoices. Some of their invoicing procedures don't have a simple suer experience.

Reasons for switching to Zen Planner

Overpriced, they have change anything about the software in 10 years. Retail experience SUCKS.

Vendor Response

Thank you so much for the review Brian, we really appreciate it!

Replied November 2019

Liz

Sports, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

3

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed December 2020

Used it for three years - feature rich but hard to use

We switched from Mindbody to Zenplanner and used it for three years. Zenplanner is chock full of features (other than membership discounts, as mentioned above), but it's so full of features that it becomes clunky and hard to use. I could do just about anything from my admin account, but my fellow coaches who spent less time in it had a harder time working with it. Customers also struggled a lot. We have now switched to Upper Hand, and while it has fewer features and the reports aren't as good, our customers are actually booking their own classes instead of making me do it.

PROS

I was the primary account administrator, and I could fix just about anything retroactively. Once you really know your way around, it's got almost everything you could think to want. There are a lot of customization options for emails you can send your customers, and it was easy to check which emails an individual had opened. The reports were great. Best reporting I've seen, and it's pretty much the only thing I'll miss. Support was good - very responsive, with multiple ways to contact them. I also appreciated the discounts they gave businesses at the start of the COVID shutdowns.

CONS

The software was very difficult for customers to use, so much that about half of our parents (and a couple of our coaches) just wanted me to do everything for them. Doing so on my end was time-consuming. Zenplanner offers some options to integrate with our existing website, but it didn't work in every circumstance. What customers could do from our primary domain was pretty limited, and it wasn't easy to switch back and forth between our site and the ZP site. Zenplanner does not offer automatically-applied membership discounts, so we had to have customers use offer codes. Membership discounts (such as on retail or private lessons) are pretty standard in fitness businesses and not having that option was a major pain. There was no way to easily see which coaches had availability at which times.

Reasons for switching to Zen Planner

Mindbody raised rates while reducing features. Mindbody was even harder for our customers to use.

Jayne

Health, Wellness and Fitness, 2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed May 2019

Great Software, Even Better Customer Support!

If I ever have an issue with the software, or a question on how to do something (like create a custom report) the customer support is always outstanding.

PROS

I have been using Zen for 10 years. The program is so easy to use & I am always finding new things to do with it.

CONS

When creating reports for attendance or payment history for a client, I would love to have our business name show at the header.

Reason for choosing Zen Planner

Zen integrated with our payment processing seamlessly.

Vendor Response

Thank you Jayne, we appreciate the kind words!

Replied June 2019