Business Strategy
How to Choose the Right Platform for Your Wellness Business
If you have spent more than twenty minutes comparing platforms for your wellness business, you know the feeling. Every option sounds perfect until you actually try to figure out what it will cost you, whether it handles your specific use case, and whether you will still be able to afford it when you have 50 students instead of 5.
This guide cuts through that. It will help you figure out what you actually need, and which platform will get out of your way while you build it.
Start Here: What Kind of Business Are You Building?
Not all wellness businesses are the same, and platforms are not either. Before you compare prices or features, get clear on what you are actually offering.
Online courses (one-time purchase): You create content once, students buy and consume it. Examples: a 6-week yoga foundations course, a breath work series, a meditation challenge.
Memberships (recurring): Students pay monthly or annually for ongoing access. Live classes, a content library, community, or some combination. This is the model most wellness professionals scale with.
Live classes (scheduling-driven): You teach at a set time. Students sign up, show up, and pay per class or via a membership that includes class credits.
Coaching or services: You work directly with clients, often 1:1 or in small groups. The platform manages booking, payments, and maybe client communication.
Most wellness businesses eventually want all four. But knowing where you are starting helps you choose a platform that will not box you in later.
The Platforms Most Wellness Pros Consider
Kajabi
Kajabi is built for knowledge commerce: courses, coaching, communities, and email marketing, all in one place. It is polished and capable, if you want a professional-looking course or coaching program and do not mind paying for it.
Plans: Starter ($89/mo), Basic ($179/mo), Growth ($249/mo), Pro ($499/mo). Payments processed through Kajabi Payments carry a 2.9% transaction fee.
Best for: Online course creators who want everything in one ecosystem and have revenue to support the higher price points.
Watch out for: The transaction fee adds up fast. At $5,000/month in revenue, you are handing Kajabi an extra $145/month on top of your subscription.
Thinkific
Thinkific is a course-first platform with no transaction fees on any plan, which is worth noting.
Plans: Start ($99/mo), Grow ($199/mo), Expand ($374/mo billed annually).
Best for: Instructors focused on self-paced courses who want the transaction-fee-free model. Thinkific has added community and live lessons over the years, but the platform DNA is still course-first.
Watch out for: If you want memberships, live class scheduling, or a more community-driven experience, you will feel the limits.
Teachable
Teachable is another course platform that recently restructured its plans significantly.
Plans: Starter ($39/mo, 7.5% transaction fee), Builder ($89/mo, no transaction fee), Growth ($189/mo, no transaction fee). Enterprise pricing is custom.
Best for: Getting a course up quickly at a lower entry price point. The Starter plan has a 7.5% transaction fee that gets steep at any real volume. The math flips fast in favor of the higher-tier plans.
Watch out for: If you are building a wellness membership or want robust scheduling, you will hit walls. Teachable is primarily for courses.
MindBody
MindBody is the legacy platform in the wellness space. It is scheduling software built for studios, gyms, and in-person businesses that later added online tools. It dominates brick-and-mortar class management.
Pricing: Not public. You will need to contact sales for a quote.
Best for: Physical studios with staff, front desk operations, class scheduling for in-person attendance, and clients who already use the MindBody app to find and book classes.
Watch out for: Complex to set up and built primarily for physical spaces. If you are going fully online, it is a lot of platform for your use case.
Four Questions to Ask Before You Choose a Platform
Before picking any platform, run it through these four questions:
1. Can it handle your actual business model?
If you want memberships with live classes, a course platform will not get you there without workarounds. Check the feature list carefully. "Live events" can mean anything from a basic Zoom link to a full scheduling system.
2. What does it actually cost at scale?
The list price is just the starting point. Add transaction fees. Many platforms charge 2 to 7.5% on top of Stripe fees. Then factor in whether your plan includes enough products, students, or admin seats for where you are headed in 12 months.
3. Will you need to bolt on other tools?
Some platforms handle courses beautifully but require separate tools for email, community, scheduling, or payments. More tools means more monthly fees, more things to break, and more time managing integrations instead of teaching.
4. Is it built for wellness, or just used by wellness pros?
There is a difference. A platform designed for online course creators will handle yoga courses. But it will not think about class packs, drop-in pricing, membership tiers that include live and on-demand content, or the community layer that keeps wellness students engaged long-term.
Why Marvelous Is Built Differently
Marvelous was built specifically for wellness professionals: yoga teachers, movement instructors, health coaches, healers, and fitness creators.
Plans start at $79/mo. No transaction fees. You keep what you earn; only standard Stripe fees apply.
You can run courses, memberships, live classes, and on-demand content from one platform. Student scheduling, payment management, and content delivery work together because they were designed to work together, not assembled from separate modules.
Over 560,000 students have taken classes through Marvelous creators. The platform has been built around real wellness business use cases for 12 years, which means the features that matter to your students are actually there. Easy login, mobile-friendly class access, the ability to pause a membership.
It is not the cheapest option at every tier. But if your goal is to build a sustainable online wellness business with courses, memberships, live classes, and a community that keeps students coming back, Marvelous is designed for exactly that.
You can try Marvelous free and see how it handles your use case before you commit.
The Bottom Line
Choosing the right platform for your wellness business comes down to one thing: does it actually fit what you are building?
Course platforms are great for courses. Studio management software is great for studios. If you are building an online wellness business that combines live teaching, on-demand content, memberships, and community, you need a platform that was designed with all of that in mind.
Take the time to map out your business model before you compare feature lists. The right platform will feel obvious once you know what you are actually looking for.
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