Pilates Studio Billing Software: Only Two Systems Let You Keep Your Own Stripe Account
Most comparisons rank billing on features. Features are not what costs you money. One structural decision, made before you process a single payment, sets your rate, your failed payment recovery, and whether your clients have to re-enter their cards if you ever leave.
The Short Answer
Walla and StudioGrowth are the only two platforms that let you connect your own Stripe account. Everyone else processes your payments through an account they own.
That one difference decides five things: what rate you pay, whether you can negotiate it, what happens when a client’s card fails, whether you can see your own transaction data, and whether your saved cards travel with you if you switch.
Walla ranks first because it offers ACH today and publishes every rate including its card reader. StudioGrowth ranks second on payment method breadth, with ACH due in the second half of 2026.
This page ranks on billing alone. For overall fit, see our rankings of the best software for pilates studios, where the order is different.
In This Guide
Why Your Processor Account Decides Everything
When you take a card payment, the money moves through a merchant account. The question almost nobody asks during a demo is whose name is on it.
If the account is yours, you have a direct relationship with the payment processor. You see every transaction in their dashboard, you get their published rate, you can negotiate that rate as your volume grows, and the customer records and saved cards belong to you.
If the account belongs to your software vendor, none of that is true. They set your rate. You see what they choose to show you. And your clients’ saved card details sit in a system you do not control.
Five things follow from that one decision. Your processing rate and whether it carries a markup. Whether you can offer ACH. What happens when a card declines. Whether you can pull your own transaction data. And whether your clients have to re-enter their card details the day you switch platforms.
What you pay
Stripe’s published rate is 2.9% plus 30 cents online. On your own account, that is what you pay. On a vendor’s account, the vendor sets your rate and it usually sits above Stripe’s, because the difference is part of how the platform makes money.
Arketa is the clearest illustration because it says so out loud. Its Individual plan carries a 3% platform fee on top of Stripe’s own charges, which takes the effective rate close to 6%. Most platforms in the same position simply do not mention the markup.
On $10,000 a month in card payments, the gap between 2.9% and 6% is $310 a month, or $3,720 a year. That is larger than most software subscriptions.
What happens when a card fails
This matters more than most studio owners realise. Failed payments cause between 20 and 40 percent of subscription churn, and subscription businesses lose roughly 9 percent of recurring revenue to cards that simply declined. On $10,000 a month, that is about $900 walking out the door from members who never chose to leave.
Stripe handles this natively. Smart Retries spreads reattempts across roughly three weeks, timing each one using machine learning rather than a fixed schedule, and stopping on hard declines. Its account updater refreshes expiring and reissued cards before a charge fails at all. If recovery fails after the retry window, the membership cancels.
StudioGrowth uses this directly and layers its own email and SMS notifications on top. Because Walla studios also connect their own Stripe account, the same tooling should be available, though we have confirmed this for StudioGrowth and not yet for Walla.
On a vendor’s processor you get whatever they built. Mindbody, for example, offers a configurable “number of days to resubmit declined autopays” setting and an option to convert declines into a negative account balance. That works, but it is a fixed retry window rather than machine-timed reattempts, and it needs configuring.
What leaves with you
This is the one nobody writes about, and it is the most expensive to get wrong.
Your client list will export from any platform. Your clients’ saved card details generally will not. Card tokens are tied to the merchant account that created them, so if that account belongs to your vendor, the tokens stay behind when you leave.
In practice that means every member has to re-enter their card during your migration. Some will not get round to it. Some will use the prompt to reconsider their membership. A switch that should be an admin task becomes a churn event.
On your own Stripe account, the account is yours. You keep the customers, the saved cards and the full transaction history, and you point a new platform at the same account.
The Three Structures, and Which Platform Uses Which
Every platform we review falls into one of three arrangements. The first is meaningfully better than the other two, and the difference is invisible during a demo unless you ask.
| Structure | Platforms | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Your own Stripe account | Walla, StudioGrowth | Stripe’s published rate with no markup, negotiable at volume, full dashboard access, and your saved cards stay yours |
| Stripe Connect, vendor owns the account | Glofox, Arketa | Stripe branding on payouts, but the vendor holds the account and sets your rate. Arketa publishes its 3% markup; most do not. |
| The vendor’s own processor | Mindbody, Momence, WellnessLiving, Mariana Tek | Rate set entirely by the platform and generally unpublished. No processor choice. |
Verified August 2026. Where a platform does not publish an arrangement, we have described what it does rather than naming the provider behind it.
The middle tier is the one that catches people out. Stripe Connect lets a software company process payments on behalf of its customers. You see Stripe’s name on your payouts and reasonably assume you have a Stripe relationship. You do not. The vendor holds the merchant account, sets your rate, and can add a markup on top of Stripe’s own charges without ever showing it as a separate line.
1. Walla
Walla
The only platform offering your own Stripe account, ACH, and a published rate for every payment type
- Processor accountYour own Stripe
- Online rate2.9% + 30c, published
- Card reader rate2.7% + 5c, published
- Platform markupNone
- ACHAvailable now
- Fees charged to clientsNone
- Entry price$320/month
Walla is the only platform we review that clears every billing test. Studios connect their own Stripe account, so the rate you pay is Stripe’s published rate with nothing added, and you can negotiate it directly with Stripe once your volume justifies it.
It publishes both rates, which almost nobody does: 2.9% plus 30 cents online and 2.7% plus 5 cents through its card reader. That second figure matters for a studio selling retail or taking payment at the front desk, and it is the only in-person rate published anywhere in this category.
ACH is what puts it first. For a studio selling a $300 membership, ACH costs a flat fee rather than roughly $9 in card charges. Across a hundred members that is a meaningful monthly difference, and Walla offers it today.
Walla also states plainly that it charges your clients nothing to book, with no convenience fees on the app or website and no surcharge on first-time bookings. Several platforms in this category do add client-side fees, and your members experience those as your prices.
Two things to weigh. Walla is the most expensive entry point in this comparison at $320 a month, and it notes that your price reflects the contract term you choose, so a rolling monthly arrangement is unlikely to match the published figure. It is also built primarily around group classes: owners consistently report that private appointment handling is less developed, which matters if privates and duets are meaningful revenue for you.
2. StudioGrowth
StudioGrowth
Your own Stripe account, published rate, and the widest range of ways to actually take money
- Processor accountYour own Stripe
- Online rate2.9% + 30c, published
- Platform markupNone
- ACHDue second half of 2026
- Cash, bank transfer, pay laterRecorded and reconciled
- Failed payment recoveryStripe Smart Retries, plus SMS
- Entry price$159/month
StudioGrowth clears the same structural test as Walla. Studios connect their own Stripe account, the rate is Stripe’s published 2.9% plus 30 cents, and there is no platform fee on top. It costs half what Walla does at the entry tier.
It ranks second only because ACH is not live yet. The company has it scheduled for the second half of 2026. If you are choosing today and ACH matters to you, that is a real gap rather than a technicality.
Where it pulls ahead is everything that is not a card. Cash, bank transfer and pay-later arrangements can all be recorded against a client’s account and reconciled properly, rather than being tracked in a spreadsheet beside the software. That sounds mundane until you run a studio outside the US, or take a deposit in cash, or put a long-standing client on a payment plan.
Failed payment recovery runs on Stripe’s own tooling. Smart Retries reattempts declined cards across roughly three weeks with machine-timed attempts, the account updater refreshes expiring cards before they fail, and StudioGrowth layers email and SMS notifications on top. Late cancellation and no-show fees are charged automatically on the Bloom plan and above, with cancellation windows you set yourself.
The practical read: if ACH is not on your list, StudioGrowth gives you the same billing structure as Walla for less money and with more ways to take payment. If ACH is on your list, wait or choose Walla.
Why the Other Six Do Not Qualify
None of these are bad platforms, and several rank well in our overall rankings. They are excluded here on one criterion: you cannot hold your own merchant account, so you cannot see or control what you pay.
Stripe Connect, where the vendor owns the account
Arketa
Arketa is the only platform in this group that tells you about the markup, and it deserves credit for that. Its Individual plan publishes a 3% platform fee on top of Stripe’s own charges, which puts the effective rate close to 6%. One studio owner reports exactly that figure in a public review. Arketa does not state whether the same 3% applies on its studio tiers, which are quote-only, so ask directly.
Glofox
Glofox runs on Stripe Connect with the account in its name. It publishes no processing rate at all, and no tier pricing beyond a starting figure of $99 a month. Owners report costs escalating with add-ons and contract terms that were not clear at signing. It also has no automatic late cancellation fees, which one pilates owner raised directly in a review and which is a specific miss for a studio with fixed capacity.
The vendor’s own processor
Mindbody
Mindbody Payments runs on Stripe underneath, but on Mindbody’s account rather than yours. Its own payments page says businesses can still use Stripe or Square outside Mindbody, but that those payments “typically won’t be fully connected” to Mindbody’s booking, which makes it impractical.
Rates are not published and, per Mindbody’s own knowledge base, vary by business credit and other factors. Reported figures are 2.99% plus 30 cents in person and 3.60% plus 30 cents online. Recurring memberships are billed at the online rate, because a stored card counts as card-not-present, so your most predictable revenue attracts the higher charge. Bookings through the Mindbody consumer app add a 20% commission capped at $30.
Its failed payment tooling is the best documented of any platform here, with configurable retry windows, dashboard alerts and client notifications. That is a genuine strength. It is one strength against a structure you do not control.
Momence
Momence has moved to its own payment processor. Its published rate is 3.9% plus 30 cents, the highest headline rate in this comparison, and its lower instructor tiers add a platform fee on top: 5% on the free plan and 2.5% on Pro. The studio plan at $199 a month removes the platform fee but keeps the 3.9%.
On $10,000 a month in card payments that is $390 leaving before you have paid for anything else, which is $120 a month more than a studio on Stripe’s own rate.
WellnessLiving
Every card payment routes through Paragon or Nuvei. There is no Stripe option, the rate is not published anywhere, and operators report they cannot negotiate it or switch processor. There is also a $199 annual maintenance fee for PCI compliance on top of your subscription.
This is the most locked-in arrangement in the category. You cannot see your rate before signing, and you cannot change it afterwards.
Mariana Tek
Mariana Tek does not offer your own merchant account. Your rate is set by the platform and is not published, along with everything else about its pricing. Reported figures put processing at 2.75% plus 25 cents, which if accurate is the lowest rate anyone in this category quotes, but it is not confirmed and you will not see it until you are in a sales process.
In its favour, it charges no-show and late cancellation fees automatically. One operator who switched from a platform without that capability reported their no-show fee revenue doubled.
What to Ask on a Demo Call
Five questions. Ask for the answers in writing, because none of this appears on a pricing page.
| Ask this | What you are checking |
|---|---|
| Do I connect my own Stripe account, or do payments run through yours? | Everything else follows from this. If they hesitate or explain that theirs is simpler, they own the account. |
| What is my exact processing rate, and is there a platform fee on top? | A markup on top of the processor’s rate is common and rarely volunteered. Ask for both numbers separately. |
| Do you support ACH or bank debit, and at what rate? | On a $300 membership, ACH costs a flat fee rather than roughly $9. Across a hundred members that adds up. |
| What happens when a client’s card is declined? | You want automatic retries over a period of weeks with client notifications, not a report you have to check. |
| If I leave, do my clients’ saved cards come with me? | Usually not, unless the account is yours. This is the difference between a migration and a churn event. |
If a vendor will not answer the first two in writing before you sign, that is your answer.
Bottom Line
Walla and StudioGrowth are the only two platforms that let you keep your own Stripe account. That gives you Stripe’s published rate with no markup, automatic failed payment recovery, the ability to negotiate as you grow, and the certainty that your clients’ saved cards travel with you if you switch.
Choose Walla if ACH matters and you can absorb the $320 entry price. Choose StudioGrowth if you want the same structure for half the money and a wider range of ways to take payment, and you can wait on ACH.
Everyone else sets your rate for you. Some of them are excellent platforms in other respects, but on billing specifically you are accepting a number you cannot see and cannot change.
This page ranks on billing alone. See our rankings of the best software for pilates studios for how these platforms compare overall, and our pricing guide for what each one costs in total.
The Full Picture
Billing Is One Part of the Decision
See how all eight platforms compare on scheduling, equipment handling, support and price, with verified ratings and the seven we rejected.
See the Rankings15 platforms tested. No paid placements.