Most salon owners who come to Grove have been on Mindbody for years. They know something isn't working. They're not sure if Boulevard is actually better — or whether a switch this big is survivable when you have a full book, a team, and clients who are actively booking. That's what this page is for.
The base price isn't the number that matters. When we sit down with salon owners and walk through everything they're paying — the base plan, the marketing tools, the support tier — the total is almost always higher than they realized.
Mindbody was built for fitness studios — class schedules, waitlists, bulk bookings. For a hair salon where everything runs on appointments, that architecture shows up as friction your team works around every single day. These are the patterns we see most. (For the fuller picture of who Grove works with, start here.)
Blocking time for processing, managing multiple services in a single visit, per-stylist timing that varies by treatment — none of this is native to Mindbody. Every stylist on your team has their own way of building it. That inconsistency costs time and creates double-bookings.
"I've been on Mindbody for 8 years and I still manually block color time in a separate calendar. There's no good answer inside the platform."— G2 review, 4-chair salon owner
The Mindbody consumer app brings discovery. It also shows your clients the salon next door. After you've built a loyal book, you're paying 20% on clients who found you through your own Instagram or a referral — clients Mindbody's algorithm never touched. They still get the commission.
"They didn't bring me that client. I did. But they take 20% anyway because she happened to rebook through the app."— Reddit, r/salon
Salons that started at $80/month are paying $469 today. That's the same platform, the same features, a decade of price increases without a corresponding decade of improvements for appointment-based businesses. The COVID-era contracts locked many salons at discounted rates that are now expiring at full-price renewals — 20% or more above last year.
"About 10 years ago, we paid $80 per month. Today? $469 per month!"— Trustpilot
| Feature area | Mindbody | Boulevard |
|---|---|---|
| Per-client service timing (color, processing) | ✗ Manual workaround required | ✓ Native — configurable per provider |
| Multi-service booking in one appointment | ~ Clunky — requires manual setup | ✓ Built for it — stacked services native |
| Branded online booking | ✗ Routes clients through Mindbody app | ✓ Clients book directly on your site |
| Client ownership | ~ Contested — 2025 Universal Login raised concerns | ✓ Clear — no marketplace, no shared login |
| Support | ✗ AI routing standard; dedicated is $600–1,000/mo extra | ✓ Proactive account support included in all plans |
| Marketing and retention tools | ✗ Messenger AI add-on: $179/mo | ✓ Included in plan |
| Marketplace / discovery | ~ Yes — useful early, 20% commission at scale | ~ No marketplace — direct booking only |
| Mobile app (consumer-facing) | ✓ Strong — large user base | ~ Functional — smaller footprint |
| Booking completion rate | Baseline | ✓ Documented 15% increase post-switch |
| Payment processing | 2.75% + 10¢ | Competitive — single payment owner, no split |
| Class scheduling infrastructure | ✓ Native — this is what it was built for | ~ Available — not the core focus |
| Contract flexibility | ✗ 12–24 month terms; $499 data exit fee | ✓ Month-to-month available; no data exit fee |
Per-client service timing is configurable per provider. Multi-service stacking — a cut and color with a 45-minute processing block in between — is native, not a workaround. Your front desk builds appointments the way the service actually runs.
Boulevard includes proactive account support in all plans. When your booking goes down on a Saturday morning, you're not navigating AI chat trees or waiting 90 minutes on hold. Operators who switched from Mindbody name this specifically — it's the detail they didn't expect to matter as much as it does.
Boulevard's booking is branded and direct — clients stay on your site, in your experience. No Mindbody app login. No competing salons surfaced below your listing. For owners who've spent years building a client relationship, this is the part that feels like getting something back.
Boulevard is the right fit for most appointment-driven salons — but not without caveats, and you'd run into these eventually anyway. Better you hear them from us first. If any of these outweigh what Boulevard gets right for your salon, see the full alternatives roundup.
Mindbody's consumer app has a much larger installed base. If client discovery through a booking marketplace is still a meaningful channel for you — particularly if you're earlier in building your book — that's a real tradeoff. Boulevard's app is functional; it's not a replacement for Mindbody's marketplace traffic.
Boulevard's text messaging is included up to a usage threshold. High-volume salons with active text reminder campaigns can hit that threshold mid-month. It's not expensive to resolve, but it shows up on your first few bills as an unexpected line item if you haven't accounted for your text volume.
Boulevard's onboarding team is inconsistent. Some implementations are excellent — the account team stays engaged through go-live and beyond. Others move fast and leave gaps. Ask specifically about your onboarding lead and what the first 60 days look like. This is solvable with the right prep, but it's not something to discover after you've already canceled Mindbody.
Not sure which list you're in? The free assessment runs the numbers on your specific setup in about five minutes.
The three concerns every salon owner raises — and what's actually true about each of them. More on staff training and data timelines in the salon owner FAQ.
Mindbody charges $499 to export your client records, appointment history, gift cards, and service packages. This is the most common reason owners delay leaving. The fee is real — but it's also a one-time cost that is typically recovered inside of two months on the lower all-in plan.
Your clients' data — appointment history, gift card balances, active packages — transfers. What requires attention is the booking link update: your old Mindbody link stops working on go-live day. A week of advance communication through email, text, and your Instagram bio handles this. The clients who don't get notified are the ones who call confused the first week.
The hardest 30 days of a platform switch are the ones where your front desk is learning new booking flows while clients are actively scheduling. Boulevard's scheduling UI is designed to be faster to learn than Mindbody — the feedback from operators is consistent on this — but "easier to learn" still requires a dedicated training window. Build in two weeks before go-live.
Answer 8 questions about your business and we'll tell you exactly where you stand — what the move would cost, what it would gain, and whether this is the right time. The assessment runs on this site, takes about 5 minutes, and gives you a straight answer on the other side.
Grove only gets paid when a business switches through us. Which is exactly why we'll tell you if this isn't the right time — or if Boulevard isn't the right platform for your specific setup.
No email required. Results appear on the page in about 30 seconds.
Want to talk it through instead? Start with the assessment and you'll see the option to book a 20-min call after.