Short answer: You can leave Mindbody without losing data if you export five things before you switch: clients with contact details and marketing consent, active memberships (autopay contracts) with their next billing dates, class-pack balances with expiry dates, gift cards and account credit, and the visit history you want to keep. Map every field to its new home, import in a fixed order (products, customers, memberships, balances, history), and do not go live until the totals match on both sides. What typically does not come with you is saved payment cards and direct-debit mandates, so plan for members on recurring payments to enter their payment details again.
Nobody switches booking system because they enjoy CSV files.
The worry is rarely the new software. It is the member who had seven classes left on her pack and suddenly has none, the membership that gets charged twice in the same month, or the gift card a customer bought last Christmas that nobody can find. Those are data problems, and almost all of them can be prevented before the switch.
They also matter more than they seem. In our European studio booking report, 55.6% of more than 8,100 class bookings across 17 studios were paid with credit from a membership or class pack. Most of your bookings depend on balances and memberships being right on day one.
This guide is about the data. For the decision itself, the timeline and how to tell your members, read our honest guide to migrating from Mindbody.
What can you export from Mindbody?
Mindbody calls your customers clients and your class packs and memberships pricing options; recurring memberships usually run as contracts with autopay. Most of what you need lives in the Reports section and can be exported as CSV or Excel. Here is what to pull, and whether it belongs in your new system:
| Data | What to include | Move it? |
|---|---|---|
| Clients | Name, email, mobile, date of birth, address, Mindbody client ID | Yes |
| Marketing consent | Email and SMS opt-in status, with the date if you have it | Yes, as it is |
| Active memberships (autopay contracts) | Product, price, start date, next billing date, end of any commitment period, frozen or paused status | Yes |
| Class packs | Sessions remaining, expiry date, purchase date | Yes |
| Gift cards | Code, remaining balance, expiry date, buyer | Yes |
| Account balances | Credit or debt per client | Yes, after a review |
| Visit history | Bookings, attendance, late cancellations, no-shows | Your choice, e.g. the last 12–24 months |
| Sales and payments | Transactions, refunds | Archive for your accounts; rarely imported |
| Client notes and forms | Injuries, health questionnaires, waivers | Only what you really need (see GDPR below) |
| Timetable, staff, price list | Classes, instructors, products | Rebuild rather than import |
Report names and columns vary with your Mindbody version and plan. If you cannot find a report you need, ask Mindbody support which export options your account has, and do it well before your notice period ends. You do not want to discover a missing export after you have lost access.
Export everything twice: a test export early, to build and test your mapping, and a final export on switch day, after the last class in Mindbody. Balances change every day you keep selling and teaching, and the final export is the one that counts.
What typically does not come with you?
Some data does not exist in a form you can export, or is held by someone other than you. Plan for these from the start rather than discovering them in go-live week.
Saved payment cards and direct-debit mandates
Card numbers are held by the payment processor, not in your Mindbody reports, so they are not in any CSV. A secure transfer between processors is sometimes possible, but it depends on the old provider agreeing to it, so do not plan around it. Direct-debit mandates (SEPA or Bacs, for example) are typically tied to whoever collects the payments, so a new collector usually means a new mandate. Assume every member on a recurring payment will need to enter their payment details again, and build that step into your welcome email.
That is why the membership and the card are moved separately. In Class Booking, imported members keep their membership with its billing date, and you can send each of them a personal link that takes them straight to adding a card for the plan they already have. Agree one switch date for billing per member: the last payment Mindbody collects and the first payment the new system collects should be exactly one billing period apart. Otherwise someone pays twice or gets a free month.
Passwords
Passwords are stored as one-way hashes and cannot be exported from any well-built system, so every member logs in fresh through the link in your welcome email. Clean up bounced and duplicate addresses first: members with an old email are the ones who get stuck.
Upcoming bookings
Your timetable is rebuilt in the new system, so future bookings have no class to attach to. Close Mindbody bookings beyond your go-live date, or recreate the first week's bookings from a report of upcoming visits.
The rules behind the numbers
Balances usually export fine; the rules around them often do not. A gift card can arrive with its balance but without its restrictions, a class pack without the classes it was valid for, a frozen membership without the date the freeze ends. Write those rules down from your Mindbody product setup before you close the account.
Field mapping: from Mindbody to Class Booking
Do the mapping in a spreadsheet before anything is imported: fixing a column is far easier than fixing a thousand customer records. Your column names will differ slightly; what matters is that every field has a destination, or a conscious decision to leave it behind.
| Mindbody export | In Class Booking | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| First and last name | Customer name | Names in a single field, all caps, trailing spaces |
| Customer email (login) | Two clients sharing one address, e.g. a parent and a child | |
| Mobile phone | Phone number for SMS reminders | International format (+44, +49 …) |
| Date of birth | Date of birth | Date format: 03/04/1990 can mean 3 April or 4 March |
| Email and SMS opt-in | Newsletter consent | Import a "yes" only where the client actually opted in |
| Autopay contract | Membership (monthly, quarterly or yearly) | Price, next billing date, commitment end, freezes |
| Pricing option with sessions | Class pack | Sessions remaining and expiry date for each client |
| Gift card | Gift card | Code, remaining balance, expiry date |
| Account balance | Manual credit on the customer | Negative balances: collect or write off before you move |
| Visit history | Booking history | Choose the period; match classes by date and time |
| Client ID | A reference column in your spreadsheet | Lets you trace any record back during the checks |
| Client notes | Only what you need | Health information is special category data |
Two more things to settle in the spreadsheet:
- Encoding. Save the files as UTF-8, or names like Zoë, Søren or Müller come out garbled, and you will not notice until a member does.
- Odd products. A legacy pricing option with three people still on it: map them to the closest current product, or keep a hidden product until the last balance runs out.
Which order should you import in?
Each step depends on the one before it, so the order matters:
- Products and settings. Membership types, class packs, gift cards and prices. Imported records need something to attach to.
- Customers, deduplicated and with their consent status.
- Active memberships, with the correct next billing date and any freeze.
- Class-pack balances, with expiry dates.
- Gift cards and credit.
- History, if you are bringing it. Last, because it is the least urgent and usually the largest file.
- The final update on switch day. Re-export from Mindbody after the last class and update everything that changed since the test import: new members, packs sold, classes used, cancelled memberships.
Between the final export and go-live, stop selling in Mindbody. No new packs, no new memberships. Then the final numbers stay final.
How do you check that nothing was lost?
Two kinds of checks: totals, which catch the big mistakes, and spot checks, which catch the subtle ones.
1. Count the totals on both sides
Example: a mid-sized studio after its test import (example figures).
| Check | Mindbody export | Class Booking | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Active clients | 640 | 640 | OK |
| Active memberships | 212 | 212 | OK (also check per product) |
| Class packs with sessions left | 87 | 87 | OK |
| Sessions remaining in total | 431 | 425 | 6 missing: find the client |
| Gift card balance in total | £1,260 | £1,260 | OK |
| Account credit in total | £385 | £385 | OK |
The totals must match exactly, or every difference needs an explanation you can write down. Here six sessions are missing; sorting both lists by client ID finds the culprit, typically a pack that expired between export and import, or a client merged as a duplicate.
2. Spot-check the tricky profiles
Open 10–20 random customer profiles and compare them field by field with Mindbody. Then pick, on purpose, the ones most likely to break:
- the newest member, who signed up yesterday
- a member whose membership is frozen or paused
- someone whose class pack expires this month
- two clients sharing one email address
- names with accents or special characters
- a client with a negative account balance
- someone with both a membership and a class pack
3. Check the billing dates
Sort the memberships by next billing date and compare with Mindbody, member by member. One wrong date, repeated across 200 members, is either 200 double charges or 200 free months.
GDPR when you move member data
A migration is when your members' data is most exposed: a complete member list in a spreadsheet on a laptop. Under the EU GDPR (and the UK GDPR, which works the same way on these points):
- Sign a data processing agreement with the new provider first. You are the controller; Mindbody and your new booking system are processors, and article 28 requires a processing agreement before they handle your members' data.
- Move only what you need. Long-inactive clients, old leads and detailed health notes do not have to come along. Health information is special category data under article 9: if you do not need it to teach safely, leave it behind.
- Keep consent as it is. Carry marketing consent across unchanged. A migration is not a reason to opt everyone in.
- Treat the export files as the riskiest part. Keep them in one access-controlled folder, never as email attachments, and delete them (including copies in Downloads, sent mail and the recycle bin) once the import is signed off. Note what you deleted and when.
- Close the door behind you. When the contract ends, a processor must delete or return your data under article 28. Ask Mindbody to confirm deletion in writing, but keep the sales records your bookkeeping rules require; check the retention period with your accountant.
- Update your paperwork. Name the new provider in your privacy notice and in your record of processing (article 30), and mention the move in your welcome email.
For the wider picture, see our practical GDPR guide for fitness studios.
Checklist: moving your data off Mindbody
Before the switch
- ☐ Finish a test export well before you lose access to Mindbody
- ☐ Write down the rules behind your products (expiry, restrictions, freezes)
- ☐ Sign a data processing agreement with the new provider
- ☐ Clean up duplicates, bounced emails, formats and encoding; decide what stays behind
- ☐ Map every field in a spreadsheet, then run a test import and compare totals
On switch day
- ☐ Stop selling in Mindbody
- ☐ Final export after the last class, and update balances and memberships from it
- ☐ Totals match, spot checks done, billing dates checked: sign off
- ☐ Welcome email with the login link and a request to add payment details
After the switch
- ☐ Stop Mindbody autopay for each member at the agreed billing switch date
- ☐ Follow up members who have not added a card
- ☐ Delete the export files (keep required accounting records) and ask Mindbody to confirm deletion
- ☐ Update your privacy notice and record of processing
Frequently asked questions
Can I export my client list from Mindbody?
Yes. Clients, contact details, marketing opt-ins, pricing options, autopay contracts, gift cards, account balances and visit history can be exported from Mindbody's reports as CSV or Excel files. If a report is missing on your plan, ask Mindbody support before your access ends.
Do saved credit cards transfer from Mindbody?
Typically not. Card details are held by the payment processor and are not part of your exports, and direct-debit mandates are usually tied to the old collector. Plan for members on recurring payments to enter their payment details again in the new system.
What happens to active memberships and class-pack balances?
They are exported and recreated in the new system with the same product, sessions remaining, expiry date and next billing date. Build the mapping on a test export, update from a final export on switch day, and compare totals on both sides before you go live.
How do I check that a Mindbody migration worked?
Compare totals between the Mindbody export and the new system (active clients, memberships per product, sessions remaining, gift card and credit balances), then spot-check 10–20 profiles, including frozen memberships, shared email addresses and names with special characters.
Does Class Booking move my Mindbody data for me?
Yes. A standard migration from systems like Mindbody is included at no extra cost, and larger or unusual jobs are quoted at a fixed price agreed before work starts, so you know the cost up front. See how migration to Class Booking works.
Move to Class Booking with your data intact
Members, memberships, class-pack balances and gift cards moved for you, with a standard migration included. From €10 / £8 a month, no binding period.
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