Zivvy vs Zen Planner
Here is the honest version. Zen Planner is fitness business software owned by Daxko — scheduling, payments, member management for gyms, studios and martial arts schools, trusted by more than 6,000 studio owners. Zivvy is the growth platform for martial arts schools — it connects to the machinery you already run and finds the money hiding inside it.
first, an honest question
Owners search "Zen Planner alternative" for two very different reasons. The first is the software — the module math got heavy, the fit drifted, you want different machinery. If that's you, Zivvy is not your answer, and we won't pretend it is. Gymdesk, Kicksite, MyStudio and Spark all compete for that job.
The second reason is the money — the software works, the schedule runs, and the bank account still doesn't match the effort. That's not a software problem. That's hidden profit: failed payments nobody chased, students drifting toward the door, leads that never got a second call. That problem doesn't get fixed by switching platforms. It gets fixed by finding it.
If the software is the problem, switch software. If the money is the problem, you don't have to switch anything.
two different jobs.
Enterprise machinery, module by module.
Zen Planner is fitness business software under Daxko — membership management, scheduling, auto-billing, payments and reporting, plus modules for engagement, branded apps and websites. It serves martial arts alongside functional fitness, boutique studios, group fitness and gymnastics, with real institutional weight: 6,000+ studio owners, 99.8% uptime, onboarding coaching included. If you want enterprise-grade machinery with a human onboarding path, that is the job they're built for.
The money inside the building.
Zivvy is the growth platform for martial arts schools. It doesn't run your schedule, your billing, or your website — and it doesn't ask you to leave whatever does. It connects to the school you already run and finds the hidden profit: the failed payments sitting unrecovered, the students quietly going cold, the follow-ups that never happened. Then it helps you recover it — or does the recovering for you.
Zen Planner runs the business. Zivvy finds the money already inside it.
"starting at $99" is doing a lot of work
Zen Planner's pricing is public, and credit for that. But it's modular: Studio starts at $99 per month, the website is another $99, Engage is $249, the branded app is $39. Stack what a growing school actually uses and the real number sits far from the headline — with no free trial on the way in. Zivvy publishes three numbers — $397, $597, $897 — and the difference between them isn't modules. It's how much of the recovery work our team does for you. Nothing bolts on later.
Our price is the price. The tier is the amount of work we do, not the amount of software you unlock.
side by side, honestly
Yes means yes, no means no. Nobody wins a row they don't earn.
| Feature | Zen Planner | Zivvy |
|---|---|---|
| Runs scheduling, billing, memberships | Yes — that's the job | No — works alongside yours |
| Branded member app | Yes — $39/mo module | No |
| Martial arts only | No — martial arts, functional fitness, boutique, group, gymnastics | Yes — schools only |
| Publishes full pricing on the site | Partly — "starting at" per module | Yes — $397 / $597 / $897 |
| Onboarding coaching included | Yes — three free coach sessions | Yes — VIP same-day onboarding on Diagnostic HIGH results |
| Zapier integration | Yes — listed on their integrations page [Verify two-way trigger/action depth] | Yes — two-way, it's how Zivvy connects alongside |
| Finds unrecovered failed payments in your data | Revenue Recovery listed as a service [Verify scope] | Yes — The Vault |
| Flags students likely to quit before they quit | [Verify] | Yes — The Family Room |
| Works without replacing your current software | No — it is the software | Yes — that's the whole point |
| Trial | None stated — demo-led | 14 days for $1 |
| Take your data if you go | [Verify — reviews describe export fees; capture their current policy before publish] | Yes — always |
[Rows marked verify are pending a documented capture of Zen Planner's current feature set and policies. Do not publish unverified rows as No.] Zen Planner rows reference zenplanner.com, capterra.com and trustpilot.com pages as of August 2026.
the truest test of any platform is the exit.
Here's the section their comparison pages won't write. Zen Planner's Trustpilot profile holds a 2.0 from 333 reviews, and the recurring themes are billing that continued after cancellation and fees to export data. Reviews are anecdotes, not verdicts — their Capterra rating sits at 4.3 from 269 reviews, and 6,000+ studios don't stay by accident. But the pattern is worth naming because it's the exact opposite of how Zivvy is built: you take your data if you go. No export fee, no hostage negotiation, no final invoice surprise. A platform that finds your money should never be a place your money gets stuck.
Judge every platform by the door, not the lobby.
when to choose which
Choose Zen Planner if
You need enterprise-grade management software — multiple locations, complex scheduling, a branded app, and a coached onboarding. The institutional weight is real.
Choose Zivvy if
Your systems already mostly work and the money still doesn't add up. The gap between effort and bank account has a name — hidden profit — and finding it is the entire job.
Choose both if
You want Zen Planner running the day and Zivvy working the books. They were built for different layers of the same school.
the questions owners actually ask.
Is Zivvy a Zen Planner replacement?
No. Zen Planner is fitness business software; Zivvy is a growth platform. Zen Planner lists Zapier among its integrations, and Zapier is how Zivvy connects — alongside, not instead. Nothing about your daily operation moves.
What does Zivvy actually cost?
$397, $597, or $897 per month — REVEAL, RECOVER, and RUN. The difference is how much of the recovery work Zivvy's team does for you. Full detail is on the pricing page.
Zen Planner lists Revenue Recovery as a service. Isn't that the same thing?
It's the closest thing to Zivvy anywhere in this compare section, and credit for that. The difference is scope and residence: their recovery lives inside their platform, for their billing. Zivvy reads whatever your school runs, finds the failed payments and the drifting students across all of it, and works the recovery — with a team behind it on RECOVER and RUN.
Do I have to migrate my data to use Zivvy?
No. Nothing moves. And if you ever leave, you take your data with you.
What support does Zivvy include?
In-app chat, live one-on-one calls, a ticketing system, and email — staffed Monday through Friday, 9am–5pm Central. When something's wrong with your money, you talk to a person.
Where do I start?
The Diagnostic. It's free, it takes minutes, and it shows you what your school is hiding before you spend a dollar. No card, no call.
More honest comparisons: All comparisons · Zivvy vs MyStudio · Zivvy vs Gymdesk · Looking for the Zen Planner login?
see what your school is hiding.
Run the free Diagnostic. If the number surprises you, start the full platform — 14 days for $1.