Disclosure: Telomere has formal partnerships with one or more of the software platforms discussed in this post. The views here are our own.
If your studio runs on Mindbody, Mariana Tek or Momence, your boutique fitness software now belongs to one of two large parent companies, and that changes how you should think about your contract, your data and your client experience over the next few years.
On one side sits Playlist. Mindbody bought ClassPass in 2021, rebranded the group as Playlist in 2025, and in March 2026 completed a merger with smart-equipment company EGYM that values the combined business at $7.5 billion (TechCrunch). Playlist now spans more than 40,000 businesses on Mindbody and more than 88,000 venues on ClassPass.
On the other side sits Xplor. Mariana Tek was already part of Xplor, and Momence joined through Clubessential Holdings, which merged into Xplor under a single brand in March 2026 (Pilates Studio Software). Xplor's fitness portfolio now also includes Exerp, ClubReady, TrueCoach and several others, supporting more than 61,000 customer locations in 70 countries (Studio Software Advice).
To be clear, Mariana Tek and Momence have not merged into one product. They are sister brands under the same owner, which is a quieter change but still worth understanding.
What the Playlist and Xplor consolidation changes for your studio software
In the short term, very little changes for your front desk. When Playlist launched, it said each of its businesses would keep operating as it does today with no changes to products or services (American Spa) and Xplor has kept Mariana Tek and Momence as separate platforms with separate pricing.
The longer-term shifts are where owners should pay attention. Playlist has been moving its businesses onto new shared infrastructure and reporting on the rebrand noted it cut headcount and global marketing to fund that build (Fit Tech). The strategic direction is clear: AI tools like Mindbody's Messenger AI, ClassPass SmartTools deciding how many spots to release to the marketplace and EGYM's personalized training plans, all sold across one customer base (TechCrunch). For a studio, that means more of your booking, pricing and client acquisition decisions may be shaped by algorithms owned by your software vendor.
That direction is already showing up in the product. In July 2026, Playlist launched AI Concierge, a 24/7 front desk assistant that answers missed calls, responds to client inquiries and books appointments automatically. In September it followed with AI Insights, a set of analytics tools built into Mindbody that flag clients at risk of leaving and benchmark your studio against anonymized data from more than 110,000 facilities across Playlist's brands. The core features come on every Mindbody plan at no extra cost, while comparative benchmarking is reserved for the higher Accelerate and Ultimate tiers. These tools may well be useful, but notice the model: your business data powers the benchmarks, and the most valuable insights sit behind a plan upgrade.
On the Xplor side, two sister platforms with overlapping customers rarely stay fully separate forever. Shared payments, shared support teams, or a gradual nudge from one product to the other are all common outcomes in software roll-ups, though Xplor has not announced any of these.
Whichever camp you are in, keep an eye on five specifics over the next 12 to 24 months: renewal pricing and payment processing rates, how easily you can export your full client and transaction history, support response times, whether features you rely on get slower updates and how much of your client data is used to power marketplace or AI features you did not opt into.
Should you switch from Mindbody, Mariana Tek or Momence, or renegotiate?
For most studios, the right move is to stay and renegotiate, not to switch. A software migration costs you weeks of staff time, a dip in booking conversion while clients relearn an app, and real risk to your autopay memberships. Nothing in either deal, on its own, justifies that cost.
What the consolidation does give you is leverage and a reason to ask questions. Before your next renewal, request your current effective processing rate in writing, ask what is guaranteed for the contract term and confirm in writing that you can export client profiles, attendance history, memberships, payment records and tokens, custom fields and your reporting history if you ever leave. Ask your account manager directly what the merger means for your product's roadmap and support team. A vague answer is useful information in itself.
If you do adopt new AI or integration features, judge them by your own numbers rather than the vendor's. A few months in, check whether weekly reporting takes your team less time, whether rebooking or retention has improved, whether staff are following up with clients faster, and whether your software bill has grown faster than any of those gains.
Switching makes sense in narrower cases: your renewal comes with a meaningful price increase, support has noticeably slipped, or a feature your business depends on has stalled. If you are moving within Xplor, from Momence to Mariana Tek or the reverse, ask whether shared ownership makes the migration cheaper or faster, since that is one of the few places consolidation can work in a studio's favour. If you are on Mindbody and lean heavily on ClassPass for acquisition, factor in that both now sit under the same roof, so your marketplace exposure and your software contract are effectively one relationship.
What software consolidation means for independent boutique studios
Our view at Telomere is that consolidation makes independent studios more dependent on their software vendors and the successful Pilates, yoga and boutique fitness studios will be the ones that deliberately keep control of their client relationships. When one company owns your booking system, your payment processing, your marketplace listing and increasingly your AI tools, it also owns most of the data that tells you who your clients are and why they stay.
The vendors are also moving closer to the work studios used to do themselves or hire out. Xplor Mariana Tek launched Professional Services in 2023, an in-house marketing offering that pairs boutique studios with its own experts for acquisition and retention strategy (CB Insights). Bundled marketing from your software provider can be convenient, but it is worth asking whose interests that marketing is optimized for. A platform with a marketplace to fill and a suite of add-ons to sell will naturally recommend tools that keep you inside its ecosystem.
None of this makes the platforms bad partners. Mariana Tek, Momence and Mindbody each solve real problems well and scale can fund better products. The practical response is to own what matters: keep your email list and client data exportable, build your own brand rather than relying on a marketplace for discovery, and make sure your marketing and fitness studio retention strategy would survive a change of software.
The bottom line for boutique fitness studio owners
You do not need to panic or migrate, but you should use this moment to renegotiate, confirm your exit options in writing, and reduce how much of your growth depends on any one platform.
If you want a second set of eyes on your software contract or processing rates, Mindbody consulting, or a marketing plan that works regardless of which system you run on, book a call with Telomere's boutique studio consulting team and we will walk through it with you.
Sources
American Spa: Mindbody and ClassPass announce new parent brand
Athletech News: Playlist launches AI Concierge, https://athletechnews.com/playlist-launches-ai-concierge-plans-more-artificial-intelligence-products/
Australasian Leisure Management: Playlist launches AI analytics tools, https://www.ausleisure.com.au/news/playlist-launches-ai-analytics-tools-for-fitness-and-wellness-operators
Mindbody: Introducing AI Insights, powered by Playlist, https://www.mindbodyonline.com/business/education/blog/AI-insights
Telomere Consulting provides business consulting and marketing services to studio owners in the boutique fitness and yoga space. The Telomere team helps you navigate business strategy from conception to implementation. We provide end-to-end marketing support and would love to hear from you. Click here to book your free intro call. We want you to treat your business the way you treat your body – making the right choices now to optimize its potential for a long and healthy life. Visit us here to learn more.