What your own app really costs: a local business guide to booking software
Most booking and coaching platforms advertise a small monthly price, then add tiers, per-client fees and paid add-ons on top. Here is an honest look at what you actually pay, and what you get to keep.
By The Aip Nua team
If you run a local business in Ireland, a barber shop, a salon, a gym, a martial arts club, you have probably been sold a booking or coaching platform to run it. The pitch is always the same: a tidy monthly price and your own branded app. The reality, once you read past the headline, is usually a good deal messier.
We build apps for these businesses, so we spend a lot of time looking at what the other options actually charge. Here is the honest version.
The price on the page is rarely the price you pay
Most platforms lead with a low monthly figure. Then the extras arrive.
Glofox, popular with gyms and martial arts clubs, starts somewhere around €95 to €110 a month, but with add-ons it can climb past €600. It usually ties you into an annual contract with fees to leave early, and the branded app is a separate paid add-on on top. Payment processing often carries a markup too.
The personal training platforms follow the same shape. PT Distinction and My PT Hub either fold the branded app into a pricier tier or sell it as a premium add-on, and then charge you per extra client on top. The number you signed up for is rarely the number on the invoice a year later.
The "branded app" is usually everyone's app
This is the part worth slowing down on. When these platforms say you get your own branded app, what you actually get is one shared app, the same software every other business on the platform is running, with your logo and colours painted on the surface.
Your club and the club down the road can be running the identical app, just skinned differently. You are renting a paint job on everyone's product. And if you ever leave, you keep nothing. There is no app that is yours to take.
An honest comparison
We are not going to pretend we do everything the big coaching platforms do. We do not ship a built-in exercise library or a nutrition planner, because a barber or an MMA club does not need one. Here is where things actually stand.
| Aip Nua | Glofox | PT Distinction | My PT Hub | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Your own app on the App Store and Play Store | Included | Paid add-on, costly | Included (Pro) | Paid add-on |
| A real app built for you, not a shared white-label skin | Yes | No, shared skin | No, shared skin | No, shared skin |
| Custom features built to order | Yes, anything you want, within reason | No | No | No |
| Flat monthly price, no per-client fee | Yes | No, tiers + markups | No, per extra client | No, tiers + add-ons |
| No per-booking or payment-processing markup | Yes | No | Varies | Varies |
| No long contract, cancel anytime | Yes | No, annual + exit fees | Monthly | Varies |
| One price, no upsells, no surprises | Yes | No | No | No |
| Bookings, scheduling and payments | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Extra features like exercise or nutrition plans | Built on request | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Best suited to | Local businesses building a brand (and yes, since it's all custom, that's really just a polite way of saying anyone) | Franchises, multi-site studios | Online coaching | Online coaching |
What we do differently
One price, every month, no upsells and no surprises. Your own app that is genuinely yours, built for how your business actually runs rather than skinned from a template. And it is not just bookings: whatever your business needs to do, memberships, deposits, class schedules, a proper storefront, a loyalty setup, we build it in, rather than pointing you at a tier you have to upgrade into.
Think of it less like buying software and more like having your own developer. If there is a feature you really need, you tell us and we build it. Try getting that from a platform's support queue.
If most of your clients are regulars who already know your name, you should not be paying a platform a growing tax to manage relationships you already own.
A different model, not a cheaper one
Here is the real difference, and it is not about price. The platforms above sell you software. You rent a seat inside a product thousands of other businesses are also renting, and you make the best of whatever it happens to do.
We are something else. Instead of paying for software, you are paying someone to build software for you. Your app, your features, made for how your business actually works, and yours to keep. It is the same shift that has already happened everywhere else: people have stopped wanting one-size-fits-all and started wanting things built around them. Software for local services is just catching up.
Think of us as your own developer on call. Not a support ticket in a queue somewhere, a person who builds what your business needs. So this is not "use them if you are big, use us if you are small." It is a straight choice between renting a shared product and having one built for you. For a local business with its own name over the door, that is an easy call.
Tell us the one feature you wish you had
That is genuinely the best place to start. Whatever your current setup cannot do, the thing that annoys you every week, tell us and we will build it in.
Give us a shout:
- Phone: +353 (89) 262 3937
- Email: Nua@aipnua.com