Hapana reviews well. On Capterra, checked 29 July 2026, it averages about 4.4 out of 5 across roughly 95 to 100 verified reviews, and reviewers there regularly praise the member-facing app, the all-in-one approach, and named account managers by name. The complaints are concentrated rather than general, and they cluster in four places: billing and contract errors, migrations that went badly, long lock-in terms, and support quality that reviewers describe as inconsistent. Several of the strongest negative reviews are written by franchisees who were told to use it rather than owners who chose it, which is worth holding in mind when you read them.
Two disclosures. We build VERVE Pulse, which competes with Hapana. And everything below is what reviewers have written, not anything we have independently verified, so treat it as the questions worth asking rather than as fact about anyone's current terms. Both companies are Australian, so the usual "we are local" line does not separate us here and we are not going to pretend it does. Hapana has been going since 2014 and reports more than 80 staff, and it runs some of the biggest boutique brands in the region. We are much smaller and much younger.
Ask any vendor: what is the minimum term, in writing, and can I cancel from inside the software without ringing anyone? Then ask them to show you the billing failure screen, because how a platform handles a declined payment matters more day to day than any feature on the tour.
Pulse, shipped: no lock-in term. The account owner cancels from Settings, it runs to the end of the period already paid for, and it can be reversed before it takes effect. Failed payments land in a dunning view with manual retry. Every plan includes a full data export from Settings, thirteen datasets as CSV or JSON, so leaving is not a negotiation.
Ask any vendor: who performs the migration, what happens if it is wrong, and can I see the total monthly cost including every add-on before I sign? Ask for the feature you were sold to be demonstrated in the live product, not a slide.
Pulse, shipped: the import wizard has a ready-made Hapana preset that maps the columns and handles existing records, alongside presets for Mindbody, Glofox, Zen Planner, PushPress and generic CSV. On annual plans the migration concierge means our team does the import. The 30 day trial needs no credit card and runs the whole product, so you can test the import before any money or member data moves.
Ask any vendor: is a named person accountable for my account, and what happens when they are on leave? Send a real support question during the trial and time the reply.
Pulse, shipped: support is the Gold Coast team that builds the product, during Australian business hours. That is a genuine trade-off rather than a clean win. You do not get a dedicated account manager the way Hapana's best reviews describe, because we are not big enough to staff that. What you get instead is that the person answering can change the code.
Ask any vendor: sit a front desk staff member down during the trial and have them do the five things they do every day. Count the clicks. That single exercise predicts adoption better than any feature list.
Pulse, shipped: one member screen holds profile, billing, bookings, check-ins, notes and history rather than splitting them across modules. Owners change plans, pricing, timetable and settings themselves, and a settings activity log records who changed what. Automated sequences are editable per step, including the email body.
Ask any vendor: what broke most recently, and how did customers find out? Then book a class from a phone on mobile data at your busiest hour of the week.
Pulse, honest: we are not going to claim a product this young has no bugs. It has them, and we ship fixes in days rather than quarters because there is no support company between you and the engineers. What we will not claim is a reliability record, because we do not have the operating history to point at one. Anyone who has been running since 2014 has survived things we have not met yet.
Ask any vendor: is the price published on the website? Hapana's own pricing page, checked 29 July 2026, lists Basic, Premium and Pro and states they are billed per location, but shows no amounts, so the number reviewers quote is theirs and not a published figure. A vendor that will not publish a price will not usually give you the cheapest one.
Pulse, shipped: the price is on the site. Core $199/month +GST for up to 300 active members, Grow $349/month +GST for up to 600, Pro $549/month +GST for up to 1,200, no per-member fees, another 100 members is $49/month, annual billing gets two months free. Every plan includes 500 SMS a month, email campaigns and push notifications rather than charging for them separately. AI content generation, win-back automation and the playbook sit on Grow and above.
Every claim above is in the product today. Here is the other half, because a comparison that only lists wins is a brochure.
| Capability | Status in Pulse |
|---|---|
| No lock-in, self-serve cancellation, full data export | Shipped, every plan |
| Hapana import preset and migration concierge | Shipped |
| 500 SMS a month, email campaigns, push notifications | Shipped, every plan |
| Equipment register, service and warranty tracking | Shipped, every plan |
| Xero, Open API, custom reports, custom domain | Shipped, Pro only |
| Multi-site location scoping and per-location revenue | Shipped, paid add-on per location |
| Per-location billing with separate payment accounts | Not built |
| Restricting staff to only their own location's data | Not built, roles control what staff can do, not which location they see |
| Franchisor reporting and royalty billing | Not built |
| Writing data back through the API | Not built, the API is read-only |
| ClassPass, Meta Ads, Google Ads, Google Business | Not built, request-only, demand sets build order |
| Dedicated account manager per gym | Not offered |
If you are a franchise, Hapana is probably the right answer and we are not. Franchising needs per-location billing with separate payment accounts, franchisee data isolation so one operator cannot see another's numbers, and brand-level reporting across the network. None of those three are built in Pulse, and multi-site here means location scoping rather than a franchisor console. Hapana runs large multi-site brands today and has done for years.
The same applies if a named account manager is what you are buying. Hapana's strongest reviews are about specific people, and that is a real service model we do not run. And if you are already on Hapana, working, with a good manager, the review complaints above are not a reason to move. Switching costs are real and the worst outcome in this whole category is a migration you did not need.
Export your data first, before you cancel anything, while the account is still fully active. Check your contract for the minimum term before you give notice, because a two year term reported by reviewers is not something you want to discover late. Run a trial alongside your live system rather than instead of it, and move billing last. For the full evaluation framework, the gym software buyer's guide walks through it in order, and the integrations page lists exactly what connects today.
The complaints repeated most often in the public reviews we sampled are billing and contract setup errors, long lock-in terms with some reviewers reporting multi-year commitments, migrations and implementations that went badly, and inconsistent support quality. Usability friction, back office bugs and price relative to stability follow behind those. Hapana still averages about 4.4 out of 5 across roughly 95 to 100 Capterra reviews as at 29 July 2026, and several of the strongest negative reviews are written by franchisees who did not choose the software themselves.
Hapana does not publish prices. Its own pricing page, checked 29 July 2026, lists three tiers, Basic, Premium and Pro, and states they are billed per location, without showing amounts. Reviewers report figures in the high two hundreds to low three hundreds per month, but that is reviewer-reported rather than published, so get a written quote covering every add-on before signing. VERVE Pulse publishes its plans on the pricing page, from $199/month +GST with no per-member fees.
Yes. The import wizard has a ready-made Hapana preset that maps the columns and handles existing records, including Australian day-first date formats. On annual plans the VERVE migration concierge performs the import for you. Export your data from Hapana before you cancel, while the account is still active, and check your minimum term first.
Not today. Per-location billing with separate payment accounts, restricting staff to only their own location's data, and franchisor reporting and royalty billing are all unbuilt. Pulse has seven staff roles, but they govern what a person can do rather than which location's numbers they can see. Multi-site in Pulse means locations can be assigned to members, staff and classes, filtered on those screens, and revenue attributed per location, which suits an owner running two or three sites rather than a franchise network. If you are franchising, a platform built for it will serve you better right now.
Every plan includes 500 SMS a month, email campaigns and push notifications. Larger SMS volumes are a paid pack, and AI content generation, win-back automation and the launch playbook sit on the Grow plan and above. Plan prices and add-on prices are both published on the pricing page rather than quoted on request.
Try VERVE Pulse free for 30 days. Full access to the CRM, AI lead scoring, and the whole gym platform underneath it. No card required.