Switching studio software without the flinch: the dry run

August 3, 2026

Every platform promises free migration. Almost none show you the result before it happens. That gap is where the fear lives, and it is why studio owners stay on software they dislike for years.

What goes wrong in a normal migration

The export from your old platform arrives as a spreadsheet. Someone maps columns. Members land with the wrong balance, or a pack with no expiry, or a class history that starts on migration day as if the studio opened last week. The front desk finds out one member at a time, at the door. Owners in studio threads describe exactly this, and describe a worse version: platforms that make leaving hard by holding the export or the recurring billing hostage.

What a dry run changes

Frontmat imports Mindbody and Punchpass exports as they come. The first run is a dry run. Nothing is written. Instead you get a report of what would land: every member, their remaining credits, their pack expiry dates, their class count and history, and the rows that need a decision (a duplicate email, a pack we cannot interpret). You fix the source or accept the mapping, then run it for real. Balances and lifetime class counts carry across, so the member with 300 classes wears her badge on day one.

Day 0, day 1, day 2

Day 0: send the export, read the dry run, fix what needs fixing. Day 1: members arrive with balances and history intact. Nobody re-registers, and nobody re-types a card at the front desk. Saved cards live with the payment processor, so members reconnect a card on their first purchase, and the front desk sees exactly who has done it. Day 2: you teach class. We watch the first week with you.

The exit terms are the contract that matters

Ask any vendor, us included, for a sample member export before you sign. Frontmat is month to month, and a full export of members, history, and ledger is available from your settings page at any time, before, during, or after cancelling. If a vendor hesitates on that question, believe the hesitation.