If you run a gym, fitness studio, or sports club, you already know the feeling.

You’re unhappy with your current software.

You’ve outgrown it.

It’s slow, rigid, expensive, or holding your business back.

And yet - you stay.

Not because you love it.

But because leaving feels terrifying.

The Real Reason Gym Owners Don’t Switch Software

Ask any club owner why they’re still using platforms like Mindbody, GymDesk, PushPress, or GymRealm, and you’ll hear the same answer:

“Migration is a nightmare.”

And they’re not exaggerating.

A real quote we hear all the time

“We wanted to switch for over a year. The software was slowing us down, but the idea of migrating memberships and billing scared us more than staying. We couldn’t afford downtime or angry members.”
— Gym owner, 200+ active members

This fear keeps thousands of clubs locked into systems that are stuck in the past.

Traditional Migrations Are Broken

For most gyms, switching software means:

Exporting dozens of CSV files
Cleaning years of messy data by hand
Mapping columns manually
Rebuilding memberships, passes, and pricing rules
Losing historical context
Hoping billing doesn’t break
Cost for exporting data. Can you believe it, some companies are still charging an “exit fee” to export your? $500? More?
Onboarding costs. Others are charing for onboarding. It’s 2026…

Migrations take weeks or months.
They require spreadsheets, consultants, and blind trust.

So owners do the rational thing: They tolerate bad software rather than risk breaking their business.

That’s not loyalty.

That’s vendor lock-in by fear.

Why This Problem Felt Familiar to Me

This isn’t the first industry where I’ve seen this exact problem.

Before starting 1club, I spent over a decade building OfficeRnD, a platform used by thousands of coworking spaces worldwide.

And guess what?

Coworking operators were terrified of migrations too.

Different industry. Same story.

Operators would say:

“We’ve customized everything over the years.”
“Our memberships are too complex.”
“We’ll lose data.”
“We can’t risk disrupting billing.”

We saw companies stay on outdated systems for years - not because they wanted to, but because migration felt like an existential risk.

The core issue wasn’t the data.
It was the meaning behind the data.

Why Migrations Are Hard (And Why It’s Not Your Fault)

Gym and club data is inherently complex.

You don’t just have “users” and “payments.”
You have:

Active, frozen, and legacy memberships
One-time passes, class packs, drop-ins
Pricing rules that evolved over years
Edge cases created by real-world operations
Class schedules and historical bookings

Traditional migration tools treat this as a data transfer problem.

But migrations are not about data.
They’re about understanding intent and relationships.

CSV files don’t explain:

What a membership means
Why a plan exists
How pricing logic evolved

Humans are forced to guess - and that’s where migrations fail.

The Emotional Cost of Being Stuck

What’s rarely talked about is the mental burden.

Owners know they could:

Automate more
Reduce admin time
Offer a better member experience
Run smarter pricing and scheduling

But migration anxiety freezes decisions.

Every “maybe next year” quietly costs growth.

A Different Approach: AI-Native Migrations

When we started 1club, we didn’t ask:

“How do we build a better import tool?”

We asked:

“What if migrations didn’t require courage?”

So we built migrations as a core AI-native capability, not a side feature.

What AI changes

Instead of rigid templates and manual mapping, our AI:

Understands your data structure automatically
Detects members, memberships, classes, and bookings
Infers relationships and intent
Flags duplicates and conflicts in plain language

You see exactly what will be created before anything goes live.

No surprises.

No guesswork.

Next-Day Guaranteed Migration

This led us to a bold promise:

Your migration will be completed by the next business day. Guaranteed.

Not “best effort.”
Not “depending on complexity.”

Guaranteed.

Why can we do this?

Because AI now handles what used to take humans weeks:

Understanding structure
Mapping logic
Validating outcomes

Here’s what one club told us after switching:

“We expected weeks of back-and-forth. Instead, everything was live the next day. Members didn’t even notice the switch — which is the best outcome we could ask for.”

Migration Shouldn’t Be a Life Event

Switching software should feel like switching tools—not rewriting your business history.

Our beliefs are simple:

Clubs shouldn’t stay with bad software because they’re afraid to leave
Vendors should earn loyalty through value, not lock-in
Migration should be fast, transparent, and boring

AI finally makes that possible.

If You’re Considering a Switch

If you’re running a gym or sports club and thinking:

“We can’t go through another painful migration…”

That’s exactly why we built this.

Migration fear is real.
It just doesn’t have to be rational anymore.

Why Gym Owners Are Trapped by Their Software - and How AI Finally Fixes Migrations