Strategy & Planning

How to run a pricing analysis as Fitness Studio Founders

Strategy & PlanningFor Fitness Studio Founders2 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Your pricing lives in Mindbody or Wodify, but neither one tells you whether your $175/month unlimited membership is actually profitable once you factor in the members who come five times a week versus the ones who show up twice and cancel. You manually export attendance CSVs, open a Google Sheet, and try to reverse-engineer margin by class type — comparing drop-in rates, intro offers, and ClassPass payouts against instructor costs and space overhead. It takes most of Sunday. By the time you have a number you trust, the week has started and you've already made three decisions without it.

Build this on Starch → See the apps used

Strategy & PlanningFor Fitness Studio Founders2 apps12 steps~24 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A live pricing analysis that compares revenue-per-visit across every membership tier, drop-in rate, and ClassPass/intro-offer cohort — updated automatically from your Mindbody or Wodify data via browser automation

A spend dashboard that pulls your actual operating costs from Plaid bank accounts so you can see true margin by class type, not just gross revenue

A scenario model that shows what happens to runway and break-even if you raise your unlimited membership by $20, cap ClassPass credits, or add a premium early-morning tier

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Transaction Insights Scenario Analysis

Data sources & config

Transaction Insights connects to your Plaid bank accounts — Starch syncs your Plaid data on a schedule, so spend by category is always current. Scenario Analysis connects to both Plaid and Stripe — Starch syncs your Stripe revenue and Plaid transactions on a schedule to anchor every model in real numbers. Because Mindbody and MarianaTek don't offer open APIs for independent studios, Starch pulls attendance, fill rates, and membership cohort data through browser automation — no API needed.

Prompts to copy

Pull all transactions from my connected Plaid account for the last 6 months. Group them by category — instructor payroll, rent, software, marketing — and show me month-over-month spend per category so I can see my true cost per class offered.

I want to model three pricing scenarios for my studio: (1) keep current pricing, (2) raise unlimited memberships from $175 to $199 and add a 10-class pack at $220, (3) remove ClassPass and replace that revenue with a referral campaign. Use my actual Stripe revenue and Plaid burn as the baseline. Show me projected runway and break-even for each scenario over the next 12 months.

Every Monday, scrape my Mindbody account for last week's class attendance by time slot and membership type — drop-in, unlimited, intro offer, ClassPass — and write me a plain-English summary of which classes had the highest revenue-per-head and which were running below 60% capacity.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Connect your Plaid business checking account in Starch. Starch syncs your transaction history on a schedule — every charge, every payroll run, every software subscription appears in a categorized feed within minutes.

2 Connect your Stripe account if you take payments there (many studios use Stripe for online membership signups alongside Mindbody billing). Starch syncs your Stripe charges and subscription data on a schedule.

3 Open Transaction Insights and tell Starch: 'Group my last 6 months of Plaid transactions into: instructor pay, rent/utilities, software (list each vendor), marketing spend, and everything else. Show me a monthly trend for each.' You now have your cost structure without touching a spreadsheet.

4 Set up a browser automation to log into your Mindbody or Wodify account weekly and pull class attendance broken down by membership type and time slot. Tell Starch: 'Every Monday at 7 a.m., scrape last week's Mindbody attendance report. For each class, show me: number of attendees, their membership type (drop-in / unlimited / intro / ClassPass), and the effective revenue per head based on what each type pays.'

5 Once you have cost data from Plaid and revenue-per-visit data from Mindbody, open Scenario Analysis. Tell Starch: 'Use my Stripe revenue and Plaid burn as the baseline. My current unlimited membership is $175/month. Model what happens if I raise it to $199.' Review the runway and break-even projection Starch builds.

6 Add a second scenario: 'Same baseline. Now assume I cap ClassPass bookings at 20% of total weekly spots and replace that revenue with 15 new direct unlimited members at $199. Show me how runway changes versus scenario 1.'

7 Add a third scenario for a new pricing tier: 'Model adding a premium early-morning tier at $229/month for unlimited 6 a.m.–8 a.m. classes only. Assume 20 members buy it in month 1, growing 10% monthly. How does break-even move?'

8 Review the side-by-side scenario output. Starch shows runway, monthly burn, and break-even date for each path. Identify which combination of price increases and ClassPass reduction gets you to break-even fastest without requiring an unrealistic number of new members.

9 Use the Transaction Insights anomaly alerts to sanity-check your cost assumptions. If your instructor payroll spiked last month because of a sub, Starch flags it. Make sure your scenario baseline reflects normalized costs, not a one-off month.

10 Tell Starch: 'Draft a one-page pricing rationale I can share with my business partner. Include: our current revenue-per-visit by membership type, the three scenarios we modeled, which one we're recommending, and why.' Starch produces a readable summary you can review before presenting it.

11 Schedule the Monday attendance automation to run weekly so your pricing model stays grounded in actual fill rates. If a 9 a.m. Saturday class consistently runs at 95% capacity, that's the first candidate for a premium price point — you'll see it in the weekly pull.

12 Revisit the Scenario Analysis model each quarter when Starch has another 90 days of synced Stripe and Plaid data. Update the assumptions and rerun — pricing decisions compound, and a model that runs on real numbers beats a gut-check every time.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

Try it on Starch →

Worked example

Q1 2026 Pricing Review — 450-member Pilates Studio

Sample numbers from a real run

Unlimited memberships (280 members × $175)	49,000
Drop-in revenue (avg 90 visits/month × $28)	2,520
ClassPass payouts (avg 110 bookings × $14 net)	1,540
Intro offers (20 new members × $49 for 2 weeks)	980
Instructor payroll (8 instructors)	22,400
Studio rent	12,000
Software (Mindbody, Spotify, Zoom, etc.)	1,100
Marketing spend	1,800

Total monthly revenue: $54,040. Total operating costs: $37,300. Gross margin: $16,740 — looks healthy until you calculate revenue-per-visit. Starch's browser automation pulls last quarter's Mindbody attendance: unlimited members averaged 9.2 visits/month, meaning the studio netted $19.02 per unlimited visit. ClassPass bookings netted $14.00 per visit with higher instructor utilization on peak slots. The Monday attendance scrape reveals that the 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Tuesday/Thursday reformer classes ran at 97% capacity all quarter while the 1 p.m. Wednesday class averaged 38%. Scenario Analysis, using the Plaid and Stripe baseline, shows that raising the unlimited rate from $175 to $199 (a 13.7% increase) with a projected 8% churn on price-sensitive members still adds $3,640/month in net revenue and moves break-even forward by 11 days. Capping ClassPass at 15% of weekly spots and redirecting that demand to direct memberships in scenario 2 adds another $1,200/month but requires converting 18 ClassPass regulars — achievable based on the studio's historical intro-offer conversion rate of 34%. The studio owner presents scenario 2 to her partner using the plain-English summary Starch drafted, and they roll out the new pricing in April.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Revenue per visit by membership type (unlimited vs. drop-in vs. ClassPass vs. intro offer)

Class fill rate by time slot and day of week (flagged when below 60%)

Monthly cost per class offered (instructor pay + rent prorated by schedule)

Member retention rate at 30 / 60 / 90 days post-intro offer

Runway in months at current burn, updated each time Plaid syncs

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Mindbody built-in reports

Shows you attendance and revenue in aggregate but can't combine that data with your actual operating costs from your bank account, so you never see true margin by class type.

Google Sheets with CSV exports

Flexible but entirely manual — you rebuild the same pivot tables every month and any pricing scenario requires rewriting formulas by hand, which means it only happens when you have four hours free.

ClassPass Studio Portal analytics

Only shows ClassPass-specific booking data and payouts; gives you no visibility into how ClassPass revenue compares to your direct membership margin or what it's doing to your peak-slot utilization.

QuickBooks + accountant

Good for tax-ready books but your accountant isn't modeling three pricing scenarios on demand, and QuickBooks won't scrape your Mindbody attendance to connect cost and revenue at the class level.

Wodify Analytics (built-in)

Useful for CrossFit boxes on Wodify but limited to Wodify data — no connection to bank transactions, Stripe revenue, or scenario modeling for future pricing decisions.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — transaction insights, scenario planning all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Mindbody and MarianaTek don't have open APIs for independent studios. Can Starch actually get my data out?

Yes — Starch automates your Mindbody or MarianaTek account through browser automation, the same way you'd log in and pull a report yourself, but on a schedule and without you doing it. No API needed. You stay logged in; Starch handles the navigation. This is the same approach Starch uses for any website that doesn't offer an independent-operator API.

I use Stripe for online membership signups and Mindbody for in-studio payments. Can Starch handle both?

Yes. Starch syncs your Stripe data on a schedule (charges, subscriptions, payouts) and pulls your Mindbody data via browser automation. Your Scenario Analysis model can draw on both — Stripe covers your online membership revenue and Plaid covers everything hitting your bank account, including Mindbody settlement deposits.

Is Starch SOC 2 certified? I'm nervous about connecting my bank account.

Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified today — that's worth knowing upfront. Your Plaid connection uses read-only bank data (Starch can't initiate transfers). If SOC 2 certification is a hard requirement for your studio's data policy, that's an honest reason to wait.

How often does the pricing data update? I don't want to make a decision based on last month's numbers.

Plaid and Stripe sync on a schedule, so your cost and revenue baseline is refreshed regularly — not real-time, but current enough for pricing decisions. The Mindbody attendance automation runs on whatever schedule you set (weekly by default). If you want a fresh pull before a big pricing meeting, you can trigger it manually.

Can Starch model the impact of adding a class to the schedule, not just changing prices?

Yes. Describe the assumption to Starch — 'Add one 6 a.m. reformer class Monday through Friday, 10 spots per class at $28 drop-in, assume 60% fill rate in month 1 growing to 85% by month 3, instructor cost $45 per class' — and Scenario Analysis builds that into your model alongside the pricing changes. You're not limited to the inputs the software guesses you need.

What if I want to share the pricing analysis with a co-owner or silent investor?

Tell Starch to draft a written summary or export the scenario comparison. You can describe the format you need — 'a one-page PDF with our three scenarios, the key assumptions, and our recommendation' — and Starch produces a document you can review and send. You're not emailing raw spreadsheet files.