Manage and Grow Your Fitness Business Better with Exercise.com. Learn more below.
Choose Exercise.com’s All-in-One Fitness Business Management Software. Review our head-to-head Gymcatch software comparison and see for yourself. Get a custom web and smartphone app designed for your brand with additional customization available throughout your custom-built software. Grow your business, turn leads into clients, and increase revenue.
If you’ve ever tried to find a management platform for your business, then you can relate to feeling lost and overwhelmed in the sea of options. Most platforms offer similar features, but how do you know if an essential feature is missing? Which features are crucial or optional? Are you paying for services you won’t use? At the end of the day, you might feel like throwing up your hands in frustration or flipping a coin.
We’re here to help you find the right business management software by taking an in-depth, easy-to-understand analysis of the management program Gymcatch and comparing it to Exercise.com. While Gymcatch has some commendable scheduling features, it’s Exercise.com’s software that will actually help your business grow. Book a demo today and keep reading to learn more!
Fitness Pros Who Trust Exercise.com
Gymcatch Software Review
Founded in 2015, Gymcatch is a software program designed for freestanding fitness businesses. Its primary focus is booking and customer management services for classes and appointments, making it ideal for group instructors at boutique studios and gyms.
Gymcatch offers a number of features that managers and customers alike have come to expect from management software, such as scheduling private sessions and classes, payment processing, waitlist management, personalized discount codes, website integrations, and a mobile app.
While Gymcatch might pique your interest with their positive reviews and promises of outstanding customer service, let’s take a closer look at how the features compare with Exercise.com’s comprehensive and personalized platform.
All information about Gymcatch in this review was compiled via the Gymcatch website.
Gymcatch vs Exercise.com
Gymcatch covers all the basics of booking and scheduling services. It offers most types of scheduling features, secure payment processing, and website and mobile access points under its brand. However, Gymcatch quickly and openly admits that it is only a booking and management software.
Because Gymcatch only covers one aspect of business management, gaping holes must be filled with other apps, programs, or personnel on all other areas of business management, such as:
- Reporting
- Marketing integrations
- Website design and moderating
- Workout creation and delivery
- E-commerce opportunities
- Performance assessments
Piecing together various programs or delegating responsibilities to other employees can be a headache, and in the end, may not even save you money.
Additionally, Gymcatch doesn’t adhere to the personalization and customization of your fitness brand: it is a one-size-fits-all standard package with a handful of add-ons for an additional charge each. Managers must defer to Gymcatch’s website and app in order to book clients and send reminders instead of keeping their customers engaged on their own website or app.
This may not initially seem like a big deal, but personalization through customized services wins customer loyalty and increases revenue. So while Gymcatch may deliver an excellent scheduling system, it doesn’t deliver the personalized features that convert visitors to customers or grow your business.
However, Exercise.com’s software solves these problems! Our comprehensive platform is completely customized to your needs, preferences, and style. It helps efficiently manage every aspect of your business so you save time and money! We work with you to personalize a website and app that keeps your customers engaged in your brand as they access their fitness plans and make payments.
Not to mention, our software also provides booking and scheduling services that trainers, staff, and customers can access any time, anywhere!
Let’s examine each of these categories more thoroughly.
– Fitness Business Management (FBM)
Gymcatch offers the following booking and scheduling management features:
Included Features – $20/month | Add-Ons – $4 each/month |
---|---|
Web, iOS and Android client apps | Auto refunds in line with cancellation policy |
Unlimited class, event, and appointment scheduling | Customized waivers and personal information requirements |
Payment processing with Stripe (excludes Stripe standard fees) | Website integration code |
Customer management portal | Courses |
Online support | Coming Soon: Memberships |
Automated wait lists, reminders | |
Customer and admin auto and push email notifications | |
Facebook integration for client community and social booking | |
Unlimited team members | |
Marketing materials |
One key area to note is that Gymcatch does not currently offer membership package payment processing. This means that membership payments must be paid separately–and not through Gymcatch’s payment processor. This splitting of payments could be confusing and frustrating for employees, trainers, and customers.
However, Exercise.com’s comprehensive platform allows you to stay in one place for all managerial duties and payments. Seamlessly transition between inputting new member information and taking payments all on the same system, making it easy on your staff and giving a professional, hassle-free experience that impresses your new customers.
– Calendars and Booking
Gymcatch includes standard calendar and booking features that are compatible with other scheduling platforms’ layout and features. However, there is one major obstacle: users must manually add people to classes and delete bookings on a computer. This creates a huge inconvenience for employees, where almost everything is available on a mobile device!
Due to the on-the-go nature of their jobs, trainers are most productive when they can access their schedule and communicate with their clients on a mobile device versus a computer. Gymcatch is a hindrance to productivity and communication in this area.
This is not the case with Exercise.com’s software! Every member of the team can view, edit, and add to the schedule in real-time–and on any device! This saves time, boosts productivity, and allows trainers and employees to stay engaged with customers for greater customer satisfaction.
– Accepting Payments Securely and Easily
Both Gymcatch and Exercise.com use Stripe to accept payments both on web and mobile devices. Stripe is a popular and reliable third-party payment processor. The only difference is that with Exercise.com, you keep customers engaged with your brand by paying through your personalized website and app; whereas, with Gymcatch, customer engagement is reduced as they must pay through Gymcatch’s website and app.
– Increase Business Efficiency with Easy Report Access
Gymcatch doesn’t include any reporting features. But in order to successfully run a business, every manager knows they must keep a close eye on inventory, sales, and membership reports! This leaves you to either manually create, track, and analyze reports, invest in another reporting software, or delegate this crucial task to another staff member.
But with Exercise.com’s easy report access, you can increase the efficiency of your business by having all your business data securely and accurately documented and analyzed. This saves you time and money, with the potential to make even more profit!
– Increase Revenue with Key Business Marketing Integrations
Gymcatch doesn’t offer any marketing integration features. This means you must find another program, professional, or time in your own schedule to analyze the efficacy of marketing integrations to make smart adjustments.
There’s a better way than piecing together various management tactics! Exercise.com’s software handles all of your marketing integrations so that you can make wise decisions to grow your business! We effectively integrate:
- MailChimp
- ConstantContact
- ConvertKit
- Zapier
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Pixel
- And more!
Exercise.com prioritizes your brand’s personalization. Set up as many integrations as you need and don’t worry about paying for features you don’t use! Painlessly adjust your marketing integrations as needed; plus, Exercise.com’s online support is always ready to assist you!
It helps to be able to learn and put a system in place to say ‘We have this issue with the shoulder or this elbow pain, this hip internal rotation issue’ and we’ve gone through it with 25 other guys. We’ve had good success with 24 of them so we have a game plan in place.
The flip side is if you get stuck in a rut and your systems don’t work and are not scalable you’re just like why isn’t this working. You can’t see outside the box at all. Systems help eliminate problems.
– Custom-Branded Websites, Web, and Smartphone Apps
Another major difference between Gymcatch and Exercise.com is the emphasis on personalization. While Gymcatch’s customers must use Gymcatch’s website and app in order to access the booking and scheduling services, Exercise.com celebrates your fitness center’s brand! Only with Exercise.com can you get a fully customized website and mobile device app that keeps your customers engaged with your brand!
– Fully Customized to Your Brand
Gymcatch doesn’t provide any brand customization; it’s a generic booking and customer management platform that doesn’t highlight your unique fitness center or help it stand out in a highly competitive market. Members of your fitness center will always go to Gymcatch’s website or app and must use the features provided by Gymcatch. The bottom line: your fitness center’s brand is second to Gymcatch.
This is not the case with Exercise.com. We work with you to completely personalize your business platform, highlighting your business to keep it front and center. Instead of downloading Gymcatch’s app, members will download an app with your gym’s name and logo and will have access to all of your resources and policies. Because your platform is customized for your business, you get to decide what gets featured!
– Automation from Your Own Custom Apps
Gymcatch and Exercise.com both deliver automated scheduling. However, Exercise.com offers additional automations that Gymcatch does not, like:
- Automatically send clients workout plans, videos, and more
- Automatically send resources and files for easy client access
- Automatically send clients their fitness assessments
- Automatically charge and receive payments securely and easily
- Automatically send reminders and alerts for appointments or classes via app, text, and email
The automation services of Exercise.com’s platform will save you time and money rather than performing these tasks manually. If you have another program that automatically sends out notifications, consider the streamlined efficiency of all automatic notifications to be managed and sent from one program! Best yet, these notifications come directly from your custom brand so members stay engaged with your business.
– Custom-Designed Website
Because Gymcatch is a booking and management software, it does nothing to support your brand’s website. In fact, using Gymcatch may detract from your website, since members must use Gymcatch’s website in order to access their scheduling and payments. Instead, you must pay another source (or use your valuable time!) to develop and manage your gym’s website.
With Exercise.com’s software, we help you build a secure, SEO-optimized website that converts visitors to leads and keeps members engaged with your brand instead of bouncing to another website. Enjoy creating and personalizing your website with unlimited theme changes, custom graphic work, colors, features, custom dev, and more. We’re also a Google Certified Partner!
– Security Features
Gymcatch doesn’t explicitly advertise any security features, but one can hope that scheduling and client information is kept private. Payments are processed through Stripe, which is generally a reliable and secure third-party payment processor.
However, Exercise.com emphasizes providing the highest standard of security for payment processing and storing clients’ health information. Our websites and apps are SSL Secure, client information is protected with the internationally-secure Privacy Shield Framework, and we utilize Google Cloud for storing and transferring data.
– Integrations and Add-ons
Gymcatch has a minimal list of add-ons for $4 each:
- Auto-refunds that align with the cancellation policy
- Customized waivers and personal information
- Website integration code
- Courses
Users of Gymcatch note that auto-refunds come with an extra fee, which is more money out of your pocket. Several other reviews commented that the messaging system is word-limited and made communication with clients difficult.
There is no additional fee for refunds with Exercise.com’s software. Our messaging service isn’t limited by word count so you can stay in unlimited contact with your clients. This boosts customer engagement and client satisfaction.
Gymcatch’s website states that the only integration that is included in its software is Facebook. For additional integrations, users must pay an added fee. Exercise.com’s software allows for an array of integrations at no added cost, because everything is customized to your unique needs!
Grow and manage your fitness business better with Exercise.com
– Workout Creation and Delivery
Another major difference between Gymcatch and Exercise.com’s platforms is that Gymcatch doesn’t offer any workout or nutritional plan capabilities. This means trainers and clients must use more than one app (or go old-school with paper hand-outs) to create workout and nutrition plans, track progress, and offer support.
Why not streamline your business and avoid any confusion or frustration of switching between apps by using the All-In-One Platform from Exercise.com? Keep reading to see the versatility and interactive nature of Exercise.com’s software — because our user-friendly software makes every aspect of your business easier, your trainers and clients won’t want to use anything else!
– Deliver Workouts for Any Scenario
Every fitness center is comprised of members with varying degrees of time, money, and physical commitment. Exercise.com’s software allows trainers to fully engage each client so they can reach their maximum potential. With the versatility of our software, traveling athletes, in-person clients, hybrid clients (in-person/online), and busy professionals all receive the highest standard of personalized care.
Easily send workout and nutrition plans and updates, videos, resources, and more! Stay in contact with clients (this is especially helpful for traveling clients or busy professionals) to answer their questions, maintain accountability, and boost motivation.
– Customized Workout Design and Library
Exercise.com’s software will set you apart from competitors through our customized workout designs and extensive exercise video and instructional libraries. Trainers use the workout plan creator to customize their clients’ next set of workouts with various features, including videos, pictures, intervals, alternates, blocks, descriptions, instructions, and notes.
These are not only easy for trainers to create, but they’re also easy for clients to follow. Progress is easily tracked, allowing trainers to fully support and engage their clients on their fitness journeys.
Again, this customized workout design and library is not supported by Gymcatch. It’s a feature you only get with Exercise.com.
– Automated Delivery PDFs, Nutrition Plans, and More to Your Clients
As if it could get any better, Exercise.com’s software allows trainers to automatically send PDFs, resources, nutrition plans, and more to their clients! Everything is kept in one place so customers can easily access all their information. This improves client program adherence by reducing the frustration of switching between apps to find different information or forms. In turn, customers will be highly satisfied as they see more results through better program adherence.
E-Commerce/Point of Sale
While Gymcatch may adequately manage your scheduling and booking, it won’t grow your business like Exercise.com’s platform. A huge reason for this is because Gymcatch doesn’t offer any e-commerce or point of sale options. These missed opportunities are the difference between surviving and thriving businesses.
Exercise.com has dozens of features that will grow your revenue and your customer base.
– Sell Pre-Built, Single Workout Plans (Mike Boyle)
Everyone experiences a life season when they’re too busy to make it to the gym, so they try a trendy home-based workout program. This is normal, but membership attrition often results after members lose the rhythm of attending the gym.
Prevent attrition and keep your members engaged in your brand by building and selling your own customized workout programs and plans. Offer programs like cardio, core recovery, flexibility, high-intensity training, kickboxing, or countless other courses. The more options you provide, the more opportunities you have to increase customer engagement and lower your rate of attrition. Not to mention, it boosts your business revenue.
Additionally, our messaging features let trainers stay in communication with clients during the workout program. This allows trainers to encourage and motivate clients to achieve their fitness goals, even though they’re not stepping foot in the gym. And when participants are able to attend the gym more regularly, they will still feel like a part of your gym family.
These programs are also an excellent alternative for members who need extra guidance, accountability, or motivation without the cost of hiring a personal trainer. They keep your members engaged by providing exciting options for meeting their fitness goals, which ultimately brings you more profit.
– Deliver Automated Custom Programming (Dean Sommerset, AMPD)
As previously mentioned, Exercise.com’s software allows you to design custom programming that fits the preferences, style, and needs of each individual client. These workout or nutritional plans can be delivered automatically to clients on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis, which takes another managerial load off of your back.
– Deliver Workout of the Day Memberships (Madeline Moves)
Members who desire that extra push to meet their fitness goals can receive an automatic “Workout of the Day” delivered right to their inbox! These memberships provide high levels of accountability, workout creativity, and fitness engagement. Take customer engagement one step further by utilizing Exercise.com’s exclusive groups where members enrolled in the same fitness program can motivate and encourage one another.
– Run Workout Challenges (Madeline Moves)
Profitable fitness centers are those with high levels of member retention. How do fitness centers retain members? By creating a positive gym culture.
One of the best (and most popular) ways to build a positive gym culture, community, and loyalty is to run frequent workout challenges. These are a fun way to both encourage a competitive spirit and cheer other members on. The more buy-in and commitment members have to your fitness center’s brand, the more your business will grow.
Workout challenges are easily customized and automated in Exercise.com’s software, so all you have to do is award the winner!
– Performance Assessments
– The Value of Assessments
Performance assessments are critical to membership retention and are a huge part of a personal trainer’s job to ensure safety, create effective workout strategies, and track progress.
At the beginning of a fitness journey, performance assessments help clients see their strengths and weaknesses in black and white. They can see what changes need to take place in order to accomplish their goals. As time goes on, periodic performance assessments allow clients to see when their goals are achieved and to take stock of areas that need improvement. They help clients get back on track, adjust their exercise strategy, or renew their motivation. Simply put: performance assessments help your business thrive.
While Gymcatch does store members’ personal data in their system for the purpose of processing payments and scheduling appointments, it doesn’t have features to save or track performance assessments. Exercise.com’s platform provides a simple layout for trainers and clients to both easily record and access performance assessments from anywhere, on any device.
– Complete Assessments for Clients
Choose to use standard fitness and performance assessments or customize your own! Either way, Exercise.com’s software makes gathering client data easy so trainers spend less time inputting data and more time with their clients.
Once completed, trainers can use these performance assessments to adjust their clients’ workout and nutritional plans for increased effectiveness. Better yet, trainers can further engage and motivate their clients by automatically sending performance assessment results to their inboxes!
Software Gymcatch Pricing
Gymcatch offers a 3-month free trial of its complete software package. After the 3-month trial, the software is $20 a month with a $4 charge for each additional add-on. At maximum, the whole package costs $36 a month.
This might seem like a steal, but keep in mind that Gymcatch only manages scheduling and booking. There’s a lot more to effectively managing a business than scheduling and booking! This means additional time and money must be invested in website design and management, workout creation and delivery, performance assessments, e-commerce and point of sale, advertising and marketing, and all the nitty-gritty details.
However, Exercise.com’s software is comprehensive, so you don’t need a conglomeration of different programs to manage your business. With dozens of automated features and the convenience of having all your data in one place, you have more time to do what you love!
Gymcatch Software Competitors
Competitor | Focus | Price |
---|---|---|
TSheets | Automated/group scheduling for freelancers | $6.40/month per user |
Housecall Pro | Automated appointment scheduling for home services | $49/month |
Wrike | Scheduling for mid-sized companies | $9.80/month per user |
Booker | Scheduling for salons | $129/month |
Doodle | International employee/group scheduling | $49/year per user |
Acuity Scheduling | Automated group/facility scheduling | $15/month |
MINDBODY | Scheduling/support for fitness businesses | $129/month |
UpKeep | Appointment scheduling for any business | $35/month per user |
UltiPro | Employee scheduling for large businesses | N/A; contact vendor |
mHelpDesk | Automated scheduling/organization | $169/month |
[Table from Capterra]
Although Gymcatch is intended to be used by fitness businesses, you may notice that Gymcatch’s competitors are mostly generic scheduling and payment processing services. This is because Gymcatch doesn’t offer unique fitness-related features like Exercise.com. In theory, Gymcatch could be used by any business that needs a booking and scheduling program.
However, Exercise.com is the superior booking and scheduling program because it is tailored for your fitness business. And not just any fitness business, but your fitness business. Instead of being required to use Gymcatch’s standard layout system, with Exercise.com you can personalize the layout and booking options to your preferences and needs. And that doesn’t include the other customizable features which empower you to grow and manage your business with confidence!
The Bottom Line: Pros and Cons
Choosing the right management software is a critical business decision. It can be the difference between a thriving, growing business and one that checks all the right boxes but doesn’t gain any momentum. While it’s commendable (and necessary) to save money where you can, investing in Gymcatch won’t cut many corners. You may have a great scheduling software platform, but you’ll need to piece together various programs in order to effectively manage every other aspect of your business.
With Exercise.com, all you need is one software! Our platform is here to help your business flourish. It’s easy for managers, trainers, and customers to use, which boosts customer satisfaction, aids in retention, and creates raving fans.
– Gymcatch Cons
Gymcatch isn’t a bad booking and scheduling platform. In fact, it has dozens of highly positive reviews with satisfied customers. However, it’s key to remember that because it’s primary function is scheduling, Gymcatch lacks features that are crucial to managing and growing a fitness business, such as:
- Fitness centers must use Gymcatch’s one-size-fits-all website and app, not their personalized brand. Gymcatch’s brand takes front and center.
- It doesn’t offer reporting or marketing integration features that help manage and grow your business. These must be done manually or with another program.
- It doesn’t offer any personal trainer features such as workout creation, exercise library, nutrition plans, performance assessments, or client resources. Trainers and clients must use multiple software platforms, which can be confusing and frustrating for some clients.
- It doesn’t offer any e-commerce capabilities, leaving you with missed opportunities to engage members and grow your business.
It’s clear to see that while Gymcatch may do a wonderful job of keeping your schedule organized, it won’t grow your business. In order to stand out in a sea of fitness centers, you must invest more time and money to fill these gaps with other apps, programs, or personnel. Otherwise, your business may remain stagnant.
– Exercise.com Pros
Instead, choosing Exercise.com’s All-in-One platform takes the brunt of managerial duties so you can spend more time equipping your staff and building relationships with customers. It encourages staff and trainer productivity by staying in one program and avoids any client frustration of switching between apps. Additionally, Exercise.com’s software aids your business by:
- Boosting your business’s efficiency and revenue through easy-access reporting and unlimited marketing integrations.
- Keeping customers engaged with your brand by using your completely custom-designed website and app.
- Letting you keep the full profit of your services through our private payment processor.
- Completely customizing workout and nutritional plans for every client with videos, personalized instructions, initial and periodic performance assessments, and resources.
- Capitalizing on every opportunity to engage members through countless e-commerce and POS customizations
- AND providing a hassle-free scheduling and booking experience for your staff and customers that can be accessed anytime, anywhere, on any device.
While Exercise.com provides an easy and reliable scheduling layout, it does so much more than that! Our platform helps you manage and grow your business for years to come. The convenience of needing only one software is unbeatable, and you can depend on Exercise.com to deliver a professional, personalized customer experience every time. Interested in learning more? Book a demo today!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Who are you guys, anyway?
The team at Exercise.com solves a major problem — how to grow your business without wasting time and losing money. We work with the real, confident decision makers — the best of the best — like James Harrison (Steelers great), Don Saladino, D1 Training, Fairchild Sports Performance, and Freestyle Connection — and offer our all-in-one fitness business software to simplify managing your business. The team at Exercise.com solves a major problem — how to grow your business without wasting time and losing money. We work with the real, confident decision makers — the best of the best — like Steelers great James Harrison, Don Saladino, D1 Training, Fairchild Sports Performance, and Freestyle Connection — and offer our all-in-one fitness business software to simplify managing your business.
What sets you apart from your competitors?
We turbocharge your business with our all-in-one fitness business software that’s custom branded for your business.• Efficiently schedule, view, and manage all appointments and classes — including by trainer, location, and service — with easy options for scheduling recurring events and availability.• Save time creating workouts with our simple workout plan creator and exercise manager and built-in integrations, tools, and more.• Sell your training three ways – group subscriptions, individualized training, and single workout plans – to increase revenue inside and outside your training walls.• Take clients through your custom assessments to automatically deliver personalized workouts based on the data important to their success.
Why not pay for custom development?
So many things could go wrong when building custom-branded apps. It’s also expensive, takes years to develop, and requires trust with your developers. We have a proven track record delivering apps for top trainers around the world and remove the risks present when doing it on your own.
What if I’m not technical?
You don’t need to be. Our dev team will build your custom-branded apps and take care of all the technical stuff so you can focus on what you do best.
What if I don’t have a following?
Engaging the followers you have is paramount because you can instantly convert engaged followers into paying clients with your all-in-one fitness business software.
Is it hard to set up?
No, it’s very easy. All you need to do is follow our success team’s proven process. We will deliver your custom-branded, all-in-one fitness business software, and you can do what you do best!
What if I wait to implement this solution?
If you wait, you will leave a lot of opportunity on the table to save time as you scale and manage your business with all-in-one software to engage and retain your clients. Whether you’re looking to bill customers on a recurring basis, single session, or package basis, do it all with a fully integrated, secure platform that can support in-person and online payments. This is a high-quality problem to solve. You shouldn’t wait to solve it.
What exactly do I get?
You get all-in-one fitness business software that does everything you need. No more having one software solution for doing personal training, another for booking and scheduling, something else for client assessments, and yet another pricey subscription for marketing and client communication. And then there are custom-branded iOS & Android apps. If you’re tired of paying too much for too many moving parts, stop the hacks and demo the Exercise.com all-in-one fitness business software today. This all-in-one fitness business software will save you time running your business, handle everything in one place, provide endless opportunities to engage and retain your clients, and allow you to sell workout plans.
Will this really work for me?
Yes. We have a proven track record with fitness professionals like Ashley Borden, Just-Train, PJF Performance, Madeline Moves, and Fit Thrive. Our all-in-one fitness business software will allow you to grow your business as much as you want.
What are the next steps?
The next step is simple. Click “Get a Price” anywhere on this page and schedule a call with one of our team members.
Will this integrate with my other software?
Our software integrates with a variety of other software including Zapier, Stripe, YouTube, Vimeo, MailChimp, MyFitnessPal, ConvertKit, and more.
What if I don’t have the budget?
This is an all-in-one fitness business software that allows you to grow your business as much as you’d like. You should strike while the iron is hot by investing in a workout platform that will help you scale your business, earn more revenue, retain and engage your clients, and save you time running your business.