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 SimplePractice 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.
Exercise.com’s all-in-one fitness business management software is the gold-standard in the industry; from full app customization to workout creation, delivery, and management, e-commerce capabilities, performance health assessments, endless integrations, client engagement, and automation, we’ve made sure to cover all of our bases.
But, that’s not enough.
We can’t claim to be the best without pitting our features up against one of our competitors, SimplePractice. We want to provide you with our honest opinion on why our software is the ultimate choice (over other fitness business management software options) for your company’s needs.
In this review, we will compare the Exercise.com app features to SimplePractice’s software features so that you will have all of the information needed to choose Exercise.com for your business management software needs.
Click here to request more information on our all-in-one Exercise.com business management software!
Fitness Pros Who Trust Exercise.com
SimplePractice Software Review
SimplePractice is a practice management software that is targeted for clinicians and health care professionals like therapists and counselors. Some of the professions that would find the features of SimplePractice useful include physical therapists, occupational therapists, behavior health specialists, registered dietician nutritionists, chiropractors, speech-language pathologists, and counselors.
SimplePractice was founded in 2012. SimplePractice has a 4.6 rating out of 5.0 on Capterra, based on 2,367 reviews. The positive comments focus on ease of use, user-friendly, and creating/editing form features. The negative reviews focus on menu settings options, calendar settings, and complexity to learn initially.
The main features of SimplePractice are illustrated in the table below.
SimplePractice vs Exercise.com
SimplePractice has a specific niche for clinicians and health care professionals that are in a solo or group practice with a need for diagnostic features, treatment plans, insurance billing, and TeleHealth features. This would not be software that fitness professionals or fitness businesses would find useful because of the many features that would go unused and the many features missing that would be used by fitness professionals or fitness businesses.
On the flip side, Exercise.com is a software with all of the features that a fitness business would need to manage and grow their fitness business. The benefits of Exercise.com are numerous; here’s what Exercise.com users can expect with our software:
- Schedule appointments and classes
- Process payments securely and easily
- Online booking
- Staff roles and permissions
- Automated email and text reminders
- Endless integrations for your business
- Easy to use workout plan creator
- Deliver workouts for any scenario
- Client and trainer workout logging via the app
- Smart performance analysis made easy
- Enhance client retention
- Automated workout engagement
- Sell plans anywhere in the world
- Run workout challenges
- Put recurring workouts on autopilot
- Offer individual and custom workout programs
- Capture smart performance data
- Create custom client assessments
Unless otherwise stated, all images and reviews below are of/about Exercise.com’s All-In-One Fitness Business Management software platform.
Fitness Business Management Software
An all-in-one Fitness Business Management (FBM) software should have key features that provide all the features you need to successfully run and manage a business from your fingertips 24/7. Important FBM features include scheduling features, payment processing features, reporting, and alternate revenue streams.
Even though SimplePractice focuses on a specific niche within healthcare, it does have calendars and client scheduling features, automatic reminders, and some management functions that would be appropriate for clinicians and practitioners.
With Exercise.com, you will find an all-in-one software option that can be used by fitness managers, staff, employees, clients, and members. The features are endless to grow and manage your fitness business in a way that makes managing or running a successful business possible for anyone.
Client/Class Scheduling
Both SimplePractice and Exercise.com have client scheduling features. Clients can use online booking to schedule appointments, send automated appointment reminders, and easily sync to Google, iCal or Outlook calendars. This can be done from the website or Android or Apple mobile apps.
With Exercise.com, clients and members can also sort calendars by trainer or location, as well as pay for classes or appointments directly from the mobile app or dashboard.
Gym/Facility Management
Your fitness business management software should make managing your business efficient and easy. Managers should be able to set up different levels of access to the software for employees, managers, or fitness professionals. You should be able to generate numerous reports that will give you all the data you need about your business.
SimplePractice misses the mark on these important options, but Exercise.com has you covered.
Client Automation
Client automation makes your software work for you to send reminders and notifications via text, email, or through the mobile app. SimplePractice sends email, text, or voice reminders to clients for upcoming appointments.
Exercise.com includes email, text, and mobile app reminders, but also includes options to automate workout and assessment information. For example, Exercise.com allows trainers and fitness professionals to:
- Automate Workout Delivery
- Automate Resource Delivery
- Automate Assessment Delivery
Dedicated Zapier Support
Exercise.com gives clients a plethora of integrations – but, sometimes, you need additional options to support your business. Our partnership with Zapier allows you to, in Zapier’s words, “Integrate (link your web apps with a few clicks, so they can share data), Automate (pass info between your apps with workflows called Zaps), and Innovate (build processes faster and get more done – no code required).
Part of this partnership includes dedicated Zapier support to help you through every step of the process. With over 2,000 apps to choose from, you can rest assured that your company’s website is as efficient and user-friendly as possible.
Dedicated Account Manager
Another feature that sets Exercise.com apart from many other fitness business management software companies is our dedication to customer service and support. This is why we provide our clients with a dedicated account manager to help them through every step of the process.
If you want to redesign your website, your account manager at Exercise.com will get it done. If you want to set up an e-commerce store, your account manager won’t blink twice. Whatever you need, our world-class dev team will come through.
Customized Software
Your fitness business management software should be customized to your preferences to showcase your business. Your website and mobile apps may be the first look that a potential client or customer has of your business, so you want it to stand out. Customization allows consistency among your software online dashboard, mobile apps, website, social media, and any marketing efforts.
Custom-Branded
SimplePractice does not offer customization options such as logos, colors, or text with its software. Professionals can customize forms, like intake forms, assessment forms, or treatment plans but cannot customize the software itself.
Your software should match your branding, logo, colors, and verbiage. This consistency is what customers will recognize and will enable you to build brand loyalty. Exercise.com takes it a step further and offers full customization of mobile apps and websites. You will find the security features and marketing integrations to be helpful customizations to help you grow and manage your fitness business with Exercise.com.
iOS & Android Apps
Mobile apps are a vital component of any fitness business management software. Members and clients are always on the go, but we always have our mobile devices with us. These mobile apps allow exercisers and professionals to develop or access workout plans, the exercise library, workout logging, marketing, and communication among professionals and clients/members.
SimplePractice has mobile apps for Apple and Android devices that allow professionals and clinicians to manage their daily tasks like appointments and payment processing. The Apple mobile app has a 4.7 rating out of a 5.0 rating based on 7,500+ reviews. The Android app has a 4.5 rating out of a 5.0 rating based on 737 reviews.
Exercise.com has mobile apps for iOS and Android devices that includes all of their fitness business management features. Exercise.com also allows full customization of your mobile apps. Your clients and members can search for your business name in the iOS or Google Play store, not the name of a third-party app.
Websites
SimplePractice has a client portal that can be used to send documents or communicate with clients with secure messaging. SimplePractice also has a booking widget that can be embedded within your website, but there are no options to develop or create websites for professionals.
Exercise.com also allows full customization of your website. The best features that are offered for websites include:
- Responsive
- SEO optimized
- Unlimited theme changes
- Built to convert visitors to leads
- Custom graphic work
- Google Certified Partner
Security Features
In the days where we hear about data breaches and/or cases of compromised data almost daily, it’s important to make sure your facility’s data and your clients’ data is safe and secure. Exercise.com ensures the safety of your data with these important features:
- SSL Secure
- Privacy Shield Framework
- Google Cloud
Marketing Integrations
Marketing is an important component of any successful business. Social media, email, text messages, and notifications are great ways to stay in touch with your members and clients.
SimplePractice does not have any marketing integrations with its software. A clinician or professional would either need to do marketing on their own or hire someone to handle marketing efforts separately.
Exercise.com understands the important role of marketing and provides integrations that help amp up your marketing efforts. Some of our more popular integrations include:
- MailChimp
- ConstantContact
- ConvertKit
- Zapier
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Pixel
Grow and manage your fitness business better with Exercise.com
Workout Software
Every fitness business needs workout software that enables them to help clients meet their health and fitness goals, plus grow their business with additional revenue streams. This workout software should have all the options you need to create and share workouts, the ability to train any type of client, and extra options to make workouts fun and motivating.
Workout Creator/Logger
SimplePractice is not software designed for fitness businesses or fitness professionals, so there are no workout creation, delivery, or logging features.
Exercise.com has awesome workout creation and delivery features that any fitness professional will regularly use. Our workout creator/logger provides users with endless possibilities for delivering workouts, tips, and encouragement to clients in any scenario, including one-on-one training, group training, or online training.
1-1 Training
Many personal trainers depend on one-on-one training for the majority of their business and revenue. One-on-one training allows fitness professionals to develop a supportive and encouraging environment for their clients to meet their health and fitness goals. A workout software should make it easy for trainers to create and share any type of workout with their clients and Exercise.com does just that.
Group Training
If group training is your focus, you can use any mobile device to create or view workouts with Exercise.com. You can follow along to stay on track if you are leading the class or exercisers can view the workout plan if you are dividing the group into smaller groups or allowing them to take the lead for certain parts of the workout. If you also have access to a tv, you can show the workout plan broadcasted on the television.
For example, if you are leading an interval workout such as AMRAP (as many repetitions as possible) or EMOM (every minute on the minute), you could have a list of the exercises pulled up on a few mobile devices around the room for either you to view or for the clients to view during the workout. You can also broadcast the workout plan for everyone to see on the bigger television monitors.
Online Training
Online training is a great way to grow your business for a number of reasons. For one, you can train your current face-to-face clients if they are out of town on business or traveling on a vacation. Second, you can add new clients to your client base no matter where they are located. Third, it gives you more flexibility for training clients in a hybrid format, partially online and partially face-to-face.
Exercise.com works for you to allow you to train clients one-on-one, in groups, online, or hybrid. All of these options give you a ton of flexibility to maximize your time and revenue.
Exercise Library
SimplePractice does not have an exercise library because it does not have the target of fitness businesses or fitness professionals in mind.
Exercise.com includes an exercise library, which is an important component of any workout software. An exercise library includes instructions, descriptions, videos, photos, or tips that help exercisers understand how to complete an exercise or movement with good form and technique. This full exercise library includes options to build various workouts with intervals, sets, pyramids, supersets, or other functions.
Personal trainers and fitness professionals can use exercise libraries to design workouts and help their clients fully understand how to do an exercise correctly, what muscles are being worked, and tips to make the most of the exercise or movement.
Custom Exercises
Sometimes the exercises in the exercise library work great, but sometimes you need the option to customize exercises for your clients. Exercise.com allows you to add custom exercises so you have everything you need at your fingertips to design and deliver the most effective workouts for your clients to help them meet their health and fitness goals. You can add your own videos or photos featuring your staff and trainers.
TV Workouts
Exercise.com provides clients with the ability to watch demos of the exercises within their workout plans on television screens; gyms can also use the exercise library to cast exercise demos onto gym television screens during group classes or one-on-one training sessions. You can also stream the workout plan on a screen for group training sessions. This is a great way to provide that “personal touch” so many people look for when choosing a gym.
E-Commerce Software
E-commerce is a necessary feature of any fitness business software. SimplePractice offers payment processing options through an integration with Stripe. Clients can directly make payments or set up automatic payments. For insurance billing, claims can be submitted and tracked electronically.
Exercise.com provides fitness businesses with e-commerce options to enhance or add additional revenue streams. Safe and secure payment processing, the ability to sell retail or other products, and options to sell memberships, packages, or sessions. You can also sell workout challenges, membership plans, or workouts online.
Payment Processing
The ability to accept and process payments via credit card is vital for any fitness business. Clients and members need an easy option to book and pay for classes and appointments via mobile apps or online dashboard.
SimplePractice allows payments and deposits through Stripe and provides clients and professionals with the ability to set up automatic payments or to send payments directly through the mobile app.
Exercise.com has similar features to allow clients to securely pay via the mobile app, dashboard, or in-person. Payment processing is safe and easy.
Sell Products
SimplePractice does not have any e-commerce options to sell additional products or retail items. Exercise.com allows for e-commerce and point-of-sale products, like retail items, online workout plans, online memberships, or online packages. Selling retail items is a great boost to your business that can also create brand loyalty.
Sell Workout Plans
Personal trainers would have no options to design, deliver, or sell customized workout plans with SimplePractice. Exercise.com is clearly ahead in the game because it allows you to design and customize workout plans that you can then sell via the mobile app or website.
Personal trainers can take successful or customized workout plans they have developed and put them online to sell to new audiences anywhere in the world. It’s the perfect opportunity to generate additional revenue, build your business, and help new clients reach their fitness goals.
Offer Online Workout Memberships
Online workout memberships are a great way to grow your business. Exercise enthusiasts may have access to a gym in their home or may travel for business with access to a hotel gym. If you have a great reputation in the fitness industry, you may want to take that to the next level by marketing yourself, your skills, and your knowledge online outside of your local area.
Exercise.com gives you the ability to grow your online clientele by giving you the option to offer online workout memberships. Any personal trainer can and should take advantage of this feature to try something new and build your business.
Sell Workout Challenges
Workout challenges are an excellent way to motivate members, enhance loyalty, and generate additional revenue for your business. Workout challenges among exercise enthusiasts create an environment of healthy competition and motivate exercisers to meet their individual fitness goals. Exercise.com provides the option of creating workout challenges for participants near and far.
Performance Health Software
There are no features for conducting performance health or fitness assessments with SimplePractice. They do have forms and documents for patient assessments, but those are clinical assessments specific to their practice areas, not for health or fitness.
Personal trainers and fitness professionals would need other software to be able to fully utilize that software to conduct assessments for clients. There are online tools to help you with conducting and using assessments, but who has time to use different websites to keep track of all of that information for your clients?
Exercise.com has innovative performance health assessment features. Performance health assessment software should allow you to:
- Turn leads into clients
- Engage clients through assessments
- Gather baseline data about clients
- Plan effective fitness programs to help clients meet their health and fitness goals
- Track measurement data, injuries, etc.
- Optimize the delivery of personalized workouts and nutrition
- Use to compare to normative data of similar age and sex
Assessments
SimplePractice allows for client assessments and progress related to specific clinical health issues. This could be a mental health assessment and progress notes related to counseling sessions or other treatments recommended by the clinician. There are no options for fitness or health performance assessments within the software.
Fitness and health assessments can be used for a variety of reasons to help determine a baseline, to increase motivation, as a comparison to fitness norms, and to enhance loyalty. Assessments are used to test various fitness aspects, like cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, balance, and body composition.
You can use the results of those assessments to get a baseline measurement of your client’s current level of fitness, which can be used to plan an appropriate exercise program that also uses progressive overload to see results from their hard work. The assessment results can be compared to normative values that represent different levels of fitness for a comparable age and sex.
Performance & Measurement Reports
As mentioned, SimplePractice has progress notes built into the software program for clinicians to track a client’s progress toward goals or treatment plans.
Performance assessment reports for exercisers and active individuals are important to determine if there has been any progress over time toward goals. Exercise.com allows you to set up delivery of these reports to share information with your clients either manually or automatically.
Let’s say you conducted a push-up assessment with your client when they started their workout program with you and they were able to do 10 push-ups in one minute. After working out consistently for six months, you do the push-up assessment with them again. This time, they are able to do 20 push-ups. Both you and your client can see the improvement in their muscular endurance within the six-month time frame.
Nutrition
Nutrition and healthy eating is a key component of any health and fitness program. If a client is working hard during their personal training sessions but does not have good eating habits, it will slow their progress. By using a diet tracker like MyFitnessPal, personal trainers using Exercise.com can view their client’s nutrition and can make basic recommendations for them to improve their eating habits.
SimplePractice Pricing
All pricing plans include a 30-day free trial.
For those with a solo practice, there are two pricing options. The Essential Plan is $39 monthly and the Professional Plan is $59 monthly. For those with a group practice, the cost is $59 for the first professional and $39 for each additional professional.
The table below lists the plan options, features, and pricing.
SimplePractice Competitors
Competitors of SimplePractice include TheraNest, TherapyNotes, NextGen Healthcare, CounSol.com, AdvancedMD for mental health, and Kareo. These software packages focus on a similar niche for healthcare professionals and clinicians as SimplePratice.
The Bottom Line: Pros and Cons
SimplePractice is a useful software option for clinicians and health care professionals that need scheduling, payment processing, treatment plans, progress notes, insurance claims and billing, and TeleHealth. This software would be beneficial for mental health professionals, occupational therapists, counselors, chiropractors, and other similar professions.
The main issue is that SimplePractice is lacking many options for fitness business management. The good news is that Exercise.com offers all the features needed to help grow and manage a successful fitness business.
SimplePractice Cons
SimplePractice has a specific niche in health care professionals and clinicians that have a solo or group practice. A fitness business would not find this software useful to manage their business because it is missing too many vital features like workout creation and delivery, e-commerce, performance health assessments, and gym management features. However, it appears to be a useful option for the health care professionals and clinicians for whom the software is targeted for.
Exercise.com Pros
Exercise.com truly is an all-in-one fitness business management software that will help you manage and grow every aspect of your business. Investing in a reputable and effective fitness business management software is an investment in your business.
You can build your client base locally, nationally, or even internationally with the e-commerce and workout creation/delivery features. You can enhance client loyalty with performance assessments, mobile apps, workout creation/delivery, and e-commerce features. Exercise.com makes your life and your clients’ lives happier and healthier.
This comparison has described the all-in-one software features of Exercise.com. Which features would be most helpful to you?
Ready to schedule a demo to get a visual picture of all the features of Exercise.com? Click here to get started!
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.