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Manage and Grow Your Fitness Business Better with Exercise.com. Learn more below.
Choose Exercise.com’s All-In-One Fitness Business Management Software. Review our head-to-head AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy software comparison and see for yourself. Get a custom web and smartphone app designed for your brand with additional customization available throughout your custom-built software. Grow your business, turn leads into clients, and increase revenue.
One of the most important decisions for your business is choosing business management software. Comparing countless options can be overwhelming, and finally committing to a decision can be stressful. Exercise.com is here to help you find the best software for your business!
This in-depth review compares AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy to Exercise.com’s All-In-One Business Platform. While AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy is a decent EMR and business management software, Exercise.com promotes the growth of your fitness business! Interested in learning more? Book a demo today!
Fitness Pros Who Trust Exercise.com
AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy Software Review
Founded in 1999, AdvancedMD is a cloud-based management software for the medical field. Advanced MD offers a number of services, including but not limited to practice management, Electronic Health Records (EHR), scheduling, billing services, and performance benchmarking. AdvancedMD has tailored its services for various medical specialties, such as physicians, group practices, laboratories, mental health, physical therapy, consultants, and more.
AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy is the niched version of AdvancedMD for therapy (physical, occupational, and speech), rehab, orthopedic, and chiropractic purposes. This version offers clinical documentation templates, EHR workflow, practice management, patient engagement tools, billing, and dozens of other options through integrations.
[For the purpose of this article, AdvancedMD for Physical Therapy will be referred to as AdvancedMD]
AdvancedMD vs Exercise.com
The biggest difference between AdvancedMD and Exercise.com is that AdvancedMD is designed for medical offices or outpatient therapy clinics. Personal trainers and physical therapists may have similar approaches to helping their clients achieve their goals, but the business management platforms for fitness centers and outpatient clinics are completely different.
For instance, profit in a therapy clinic comes from thorough clinical documentation to obtain maximum reimbursement from insurance companies. Therapy clinics rightly spend additional expenses on a reliable, efficient, and secure documentation and billing system. But fitness centers don’t need billing features; paying for a software that emphasizes billing is a waste of money.
Further, because AdvancedMD is designed for outpatient clinics, there are several missing features that are vital for fitness business growth, such as custom branding, website and app creation, e-commerce capabilities, workout and nutrition software, and more.
And finally, we will reference throughout this article how AdvancedMD doesn’t have their customers’ best interests in mind. Countless reviews on Capterra sadly reveal that AdvancedMD is out to “nickel and dime” companies by hiding their prices, give unfulfilled package promises, upcharging for basic features, and giving poor customer support.
But with Exercise.com, we are here for your business’s success! Our all-inclusive software offers fully-customizable features, from your website and app to forms, layouts, scheduling, and more! We help your business grow through tailored reports, marketing integrations, and e-commerce opportunities.
Let’s get started on our in-depth comparison review.
Unless otherwise stated, all images and reviews below are of/about Exercise.com’s All-In-One Fitness Business Management software platform.
Fitness Business Management Software
Fitness managers have a never-ending to-do list. It can be hard to juggle necessary but time-consuming tasks with staff and member engagement. Business management software that makes your life simpler is invaluable!
AdvancedMD has some decent management features, but these management features are designed for physical therapy offices. Ultimately, you’ll be paying for features you don’t need and wishing you had features AdvancedMD doesn’t provide.
However, Exercise.com is designed to manage fitness businesses and we customize your platform specifically for your fitness business to help it succeed! Let’s take a closer look at what AdvancedMD offers and how Exercise.com better manages a fitness business.
Client/Class Scheduling
AdvancedMD has a very detailed scheduling calendar that is beneficial for outpatient therapy clinics. Staff can select appropriate information when making new appointments, such as the referring physician, specific injury, treatment plan, insurance, and more, that help detail the patient’s needs at the appointment. Appointment reminders are sent automatically via text, and a patient check-in kiosk is available for an additional charge.
While these features are appropriate and necessary for outpatient clinics, they are a hurdle for fitness centers. Many clients and customers expect independence to book their own appointments or classes on your website or app. With AdvancedMD, clients must call your facility to book an appointment. This can create significant challenges with maintaining a full schedule.
Additionally, AdvancedMD is designed for one-on-one sessions with a therapist; there is no option for group sessions. This eliminates your ability to track participants in group classes or group training sessions, which means your business is limited in customer engagement and profit.
But Exercise.com’s scheduling feature is designed for fitness businesses! Keep track of 1-1 sessions, group sessions, events, and participants all in one place! Our calendar is easy for members to view appointments and classes, and clients can even view the schedule by location, trainer, day, time, and more, which results in more bookings. Once a client finds an appointment or class that fits their schedule, our booking feature easily guides them through the booking and payment process.
Gym/Facility Management
AdvancedMD does have reports, but most reports are “locked” in the system and must be purchased for use. AdvancedMD advertizes customized reports, but this is also for an unknown additional fee. On the surface, AdvancedMD appears to offer what businesses need, but instead, their hidden prices force companies into adding to their monthly subscription.
On the other hand, Exercise.com includes targeted reports with our software; there’s no add-on, upcharge, or hidden fee! Our reports streamline your business so you know exactly how your business is doing at all times and can be the most profitable. Some of our popular reports track and analyze:
- Revenue
- Taxes
- Commission
- E-commerce
- Client and group reports
- Customized reports
- and more!
The data from these reports keep your finger to the pulse of your business so you can make the most informed, profitable decisions for your business.
Client Automation
AdvancedMD has automated features similar to Exercise.com, such as automatic email and text reminders for appointments. Frequency can be adjusted by day and time, and patients can confirm or cancel their appointments upon receiving the automatic notification.
But Exercise.com’s automated services are more beneficial for your fitness business! We go beyond appointment reminders and confirmations: we also automatically deliver workout plans, nutrition plans, assessments, customized messages, accept automatic payments and membership renewals, and more! This adds the personalized touch your clients desire.
Dedicated Zapier Support
AdvancedMD offers a number of integrations, but it’s primary integrations are with insurance billing, electronic health record software, worker’s comp, and other such integrations. Not only do these integrations not help your fitness business, but they leave you without the integrations you need!
Exercise.com’s software has dozens of popular business management integrations already built into our software so you have an excellent integration foundation. But we know every business is different, and we want to give you every tool to help your business succeed! That’s why we also partner with Zapier and its 2,000+ apps so your software is completely customized and efficient. Best of all, Zapier guides you through every step of the process!
Dedicated Account Manager
According to Capterra reviews, customer service is one of AdvancedMD’s weakest areas. Like most companies, AdvancedMD can be contacted via email or phone for customer service, support, and troubleshooting. Requests are answered in the order in which they are received, but countless reviews complain that AdvancedMD is not prompt with their responses. As Andrew N. comments,
“We have a hard time with troubleshooting software problems due to the complexity of the software and the customer support has not been pleasant to work with, often times waiting for over an hour on the phone to get some simple questions answered, emails that go weeks with no response, and problems that go months without being fixed.”
When your software isn’t operational, such delayed customer service can severely hurt your business!
In order to properly use AdvancedMD’s complex software, AdvancedMD offers software training with a customer service representative. However, AdvancedMD charges astronomical prices for implementation and training: $1995 for two hours of training ($997/hour), $2995 for four hours of training ($748/hour) and web-based resources, and $3995 for 12 hours of training ($332/hour). Charging such steep prices for necessary training is another way in which AdvancedMD gouges its customers.
If the training was excellent, perhaps these prices could be excused. But numerous Capterra reviews show that training is rushed and poorly presented. And if things weren’t sorted out in the allotted training time, it takes even more time on customer service calls (at $150/hour!) to completely configure your software. This is a waste of managerial time and money!
An AdvancedMD representative must be the one to make any changes or add new features to your software, but more reviews note that AdvancedMD’s poor customer service takes an extended time to complete changes–or doesn’t complete them at all! Especially for the prices AdvancedMD charges, this poor customer care is unacceptable.
But at Exercise.com, we are committed to providing you as our customer with outstanding customer service. You’ll never be lost in a sea of needy customers because we give you a dedicated account manager who assists with all your software needs–indefinitely, and at no extra charge!
From the smallest of modifications to adding a new feature, or completely revamping your website, your account manager is happy to not only make every alteration but also guide you and your staff through changes. Our exceptional customer service sets us far above AdvancedMD!
Customized Software
Personalized customer services are becoming the norm in almost every facet of society. It’s no longer enough to make a stab at personalized customer services. Instead, set yourself apart from your competitors by how you personalize a customer’s experience!
With AdvancedMD, personalized customer services are a challenge because AdvancedMD is designed for outpatient clinics. Many of its features are simply not beneficial for fitness businesses, and the features it does have lack applicability to the fitness field.
But with Exercise.com, you’re getting an all-inclusive software that’s designed for the success of fitness businesses! We make it easy to personalize your customers’ fitness experience because our platform is completely customizable to your unique business.
Let’s look at how AdvancedMD’s customized services compare to Exercise.com.
Custom-Branded
AdvancedMD offers minimal ways to custom brand your fitness center, and the options they do provide come at a hefty price. Advanced MD offers a custom mini-program bookmark for $250, a custom logo for $350, and a two-line custom text on patient bills for $500. Custom client templates range from $400 for 1-4 pages to $1300 for 16-20 pages. Any other custom work requires contacting AdvancedMD for a quote.
Not only are these prices too much for many businesses (which means businesses would forego custom work to the detriment of their business), but the custom work AdvancedMD offers isn’t appropriate for fitness businesses. Your business would have to adapt to the options AdvancedMD offers instead of having custom branding tailored for your needs.
However, Exercise.com is proud to help you promote your brand! Your custom app, website, e-commerce opportunities, workout software, and performance software are all custom-branded. This keeps your customers strongly connected and engaged with your business and aids in retention.
iOS & Android Apps
AdvancedMD has a staff app for mobile devices but doesn’t have an app for customers. Instead, clinics can pay an additional fee for a patient kiosk to confirm current health and insurance information before their appointment.
An app for your staff is necessary, but so is an app for your customers! A customer app allows clients to view your schedule, book classes and appointments, receive and log workouts and nutrition intake, view assessments, communicate with trainers, buy something at your online store, and so much more! Without an app, your customers are disconnected from your brand to the detriment of your business.
Exercise.com knows how important mobile accessibility is to the success of your business! Our software includes your own custom-branded app so your customers are fully engaged with your business and brand! Everything that can be done on a computer can be done on your app, which boosts client satisfaction for improved retention.
Websites
Your company website is the primary place potential customers carefully examine when considering membership at your fitness center. Current members visit your website as well to view the schedule, purchase something on your online store, read blog posts, or sign up for workout challenges. Websites that are outdated or clunky are a turnoff to new and current members. That’s why having an engaging, professional, eye-catching website is crucial for recruiting and retaining members!
AdvancedMD doesn’t offer any website configuration, which means you’ll have to pay a professional to design and run your website or use your valuable time to customize and manage a website.
Instead of learning how to build and manage a website, why not let the design professionals at Exercise.com fulfill this task? Choose from unlimited theme changes, custom graphic work, colors, features, custom dev, and let our exceptional dev team get to work creating an engaging, professional, SEO-optimized website! We’re also a Google Certified Partner for added website security.
And don’t forget, your dedicated account manager is always here for tech support for as long as you partner with us! This saves you valuable admin hours so you can stay engaged with your staff and customers.
Security Features
AdvancedMD is exceptionally secure software because private health information is constantly being exchanged between insurance companies, doctors’ offices, specialists, and patients, as well as payment processing. If health information is leaked or hacked, clinics could face catastrophic monetary fines. For this reason, many clinics are willing to pay a premium price for security assurance.
While fitness businesses should take the privacy of valuable health and payment information very seriously, it’s rarely necessary to pay a premium price for security measures that won’t be used.
Exercise.com upholds the highest security standards without charging a premium price. Every website and app created by Exercise.com is SSL Secure. We protect your clients’ information with the internationally-secure Privacy Shield Framework, and we utilize Google Cloud for storing and transferring data. Payments are made and processed through Stripe.
Marketing Integrations
AdvancedMD allows a number of integrations for medical billing, EMR/EHR software, and patient engagement. But again, these integrations are for medical businesses and are of no benefit to fitness businesses.
Exercise.com has marketing integrations that will engage your customers and help your fitness business succeed! We offer an abundance of popular integrations such as:
- MailChimp
- ConstantContact
- ConvertKit
- Zapier
- Google Analytics
- Facebook Pixel
- And more!
We can integrate with just about every program, which makes Exercise.com one of the most versatile and valuable fitness management platforms around!
Grow and manage your fitness business better with Exercise.com
Workout Software
Workout software can be used in many ways to engage clients, see accelerated results, foster accountability, encourage independent exercise routines, help your business stand out, and more. AdvancedMD doesn’t have workout software (or even Home Exercise Program software), so let’s take a look at how this feature from Exercise.com helps your business grow!
Workout Creator/Logger
Trainers can use our premium workout creator and logger to easily create custom-designed workouts that keep clients engaged and motivated on their journey towards meeting their fitness goals! These can be pre-designed for quick assignments or completely personalized to each client using videos from your exercise library.
Once completed, workouts are delivered automatically to your clients via your app where they can view and log their workout anytime, anywhere! Finally, clients and trainers can easily communicate in your app between sessions for improved client satisfaction.
Every client-trainer relationship has different dynamics and challenges. With Exercise.com’s software, trainers can easily meet the needs of every client, such as:
1-1 Training
This method of personal training is in high demand at most fitness centers, but it can be difficult for trainers to juggle the needs of multiple clients. Exercise.com’s system creatively manages a trainer’s client list so they can deliver a quality training experience for every client through customized workout and nutrition plans, goals and progress reports, performance and fitness assessments, and more!
Group Training
Expand your revenue options without expanding your workload by using the same resources as 1-1 training and apply them to group training. Members benefit from the social connections and accountability of the group setting, which boosts customer satisfaction and fosters a tight-knit gym community.
Online Training
Reach customers anywhere in the world by using our premium video and exercise libraries to deliver custom online training workouts to any client! Clients experience greater flexibility to perform their workouts whenever and wherever they choose. Our app keeps clients accountable and satisfied with easy communication with their trainers. Online training grows your business by increasing your virtual client pool!
Exercise Library
Despite AdvancedMD being tailored for physical therapy, they don’t include an exercise library for physical therapists to design Home Exercise Programs for their patients. Without this feature, you’ll have to pay for another exercise software or have trainers provide their own material.
This is another huge benefit to the comprehensiveness of Exercise.com’s software! All your trainers can provide the same exercise material and you don’t have to pay for another exercise software. Our quality educational and instructional exercise videos can be used to create pre-designed and custom workouts. These custom workouts boost client satisfaction and program adherence because their specific needs and preferences are met.
Custom Exercises
Exercise.com allows you to merge your YouTube or Vimeo accounts with our exercise library. These can then be incorporated into client workouts for an added personalized touch!
TV Workouts
Cast any exercise video from the exercise library onto a TV screen during a group training session for a new presentation style that grabs your participants’ attention and adds a personal touch to a group workout.
E-Commerce Software
AdvancedMD doesn’t offer any e-commerce opportunities. This means using AdvancedMD eliminates the possibility of other revenue streams, promoting your brand, or further engaging your customers!
But Exercise.com excels at promoting your business through e-commerce! Since AdvancedMD doesn’t offer any e-commerce opportunities, let’s check out just a few popular ways Exercise.com grows your business through e-commerce!
Payment Processing
AdvancedMD uses AdvancedBilling and OpenEdge for billing and payment processing. These are exclusive to AdvancedMD, which means if there are glitches with payments, you’ll need to have AdvancedMD’s customer service fix it. (And given the poor reviews for AdvancedMD’s customer service, this could be a big risk that leaves you without receiving payments!)
Exercise.com, however, uses Stripe to process all payments securely and makes it easy to track payments and revenue!
Sell Products
Creatively advertise your brand and boost your revenue by selling apparel and paraphernalia in an e-commerce store from Exercise.com! Using custom-branded products reinforces a customer’s loyalty and commitment to your fitness center. And when customers use these products in the community, your business gets free advertising!
Sell Workout Plans
Selling pre-built workout plans engages members and gives them the experience of a personalized trainer in the comfort of their own homes. We don’t limit how many plans you can sell, so there’s no cap on your potential profit! By offering a variety of plan lengths, difficulties, fitness focuses, or other specifications, you can meet the needs of any customer with your brand and significantly increase your revenue!
Offer Online Workout Memberships
Many customers desire customized workouts without a gym commitment. While you can charge a premium price for this service, the profit is often offset by the extensive time needed to create personalized plans.
But with Exercise.com’s software, trainers create the client’s entire plan in one sitting, program the workouts to be delivered at automatic intervals, and then track client progress through their program. This allows you to capitalize on a rising fitness trend, gain more customers, and boost your revenue without losing trainer productivity!
Sell Workout Challenges
Use workout challenges to promote your brand, foster a positive gym community, and turn a profit without increasing your workload! Exercise.com’s software effortlessly runs and manages your own custom workout challenges that fit the needs and preferences of your unique participants. All you have to do is award the winner!
Performance Health Software
Initial and periodic performance assessments are essential to the personal training profession: they ensure a client’s safety during training and guide trainers to appropriate fitness approaches and goals for each individual client.
AdvancedMD is designed for outpatient therapy clinics, where therapists perform an evaluation on a patient, make a diagnosis, give a treatment plan, and then document patient progress at regular intervals throughout the treatment plan. AdvancedMD has standard templates, and for a hefty upcharge (ranging $400-$1300), custom templates upon request.
Exercise.com’s assessment feature is included with our software, and we can easily offer customizable forms and assessments! Keep reading to find out more about how this feature helps boost your trainers’ productivity and client engagement!
Assessments
In addition to providing standard assessments, Exercise.com enables trainers to customize targeted performance assessments for every client so they can achieve their specific goals. This is an excellent way to use our versatile software and add a personalized touch to your clients’ fitness experience.
Performance & Measurement Reports
Not only does Exercise.com provide personalized assessments, but we also include personalized interactions! Automatically deliver workout reminders, goal achievements, recurring assessments, progress photos, measurements, and more, to further engage your customers and personalize their fitness experience!
Nutrition
Every trainer knows that altering dietary intake is key to transformative, lasting change for a client’s health and weight loss. That’s why Exercise.com provides a nutrition tracker that is custom-tailored to meet the client’s specific needs and goals. The nutrition tracker is easy to use and track dietary intake, so clients stay accountable and motivated to meet their goals.
Software AdvancedMD Pricing
AdvancedMD doesn’t list prices on its website and asks that potential customers request a quote. But Business.com reports that AdvancedMD has two pricing options: a standalone medical management software and an integrated/EMR software. The standalone software is $429 per provider (or for fitness businesses, per trainer), per month, and the integrated software is $729 per provider, per month.
Even more astounding, these prices are just the base software, without any add-ons or custom work. And as we’ve seen in this review, AdvancedMD makes their base software inefficient or ineffective unless users pay more and upgrade their integrations and reports. This means that AdvancedMD’s monthly fee is even higher than the above figures.
For many fitness businesses, the price alone of AdvancedMD eliminates them as a software option. It’s common in a fitness business to have multiple staff and trainers who need access to the schedule, reports, and member files. But the price for each account is likely too much to justify using AdvancedMD.
AdvancedMD Software Competitors
Competitors to AdvancedMD include:
Not surprisingly, many of AdvancedMD’s competitors are also for medical documentation and not fitness businesses. Exercise.com is the clear choice for fitness business management software!
The Bottom Line: Pros and Cons
Choosing the right business software is a big decision! Let’s take a final look at AdvancedMD and Exercise.com:
AdvancedMD Cons
Simply put, AdvancedMD is not designed for fitness businesses. Although it has many features that benefit outpatient clinics, these would be inconvenient or wasted in fitness businesses. AdvancedMD’s programming of certain features, like scheduling, reports, customer service, and customization, is more of a hassle than a help to fitness businesses.
Additionally, AdvancedMD doesn’t offer several essential features for fitness business growth, such as a mobile app, websites, marketing integrations, workout or nutrition software, or e-commerce. This means you must pay for more software to fill the gaps left by AdvancedMD.
By choosing AdvancedMD, you would be paying astronomical prices for a base package, custom work, add-ons, and integrations, that aren’t even optimally beneficial to your business.
Exercise.com Pros
Unlike AdvancedMD that forces your business to adapt to its software limitations, Exercise.com is custom-designed to fit the needs of your fitness business! Our features are specific to the fitness field: easy booking and scheduling, workout and performance software, e-commerce, custom-branded mobile apps and websites, and so much more!
Exercise.com makes your business platform decision easy! We’re here to help your business grow. Are you ready to get started? Book a demo today!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Who are you guys, anyway?
The team at Exercise.com solves a major problem — how to grow your business without wasting time and losing money. We work with the real, confident decision makers — the best of the best — like James Harrison (Steelers great), Don Saladino, D1 Training, Fairchild Sports Performance, and Freestyle Connection — and offer our all-in-one fitness business software to simplify managing your business. The team at Exercise.com solves a major problem — how to grow your business without wasting time and losing money. We work with the real, confident decision makers — the best of the best — like Steelers great James Harrison, Don Saladino, D1 Training, Fairchild Sports Performance, and Freestyle Connection — and offer our all-in-one fitness business software to simplify managing your business.
What sets you apart from your competitors?
We turbocharge your business with our all-in-one fitness business software that’s custom branded for your business.• Efficiently schedule, view, and manage all appointments and classes — including by trainer, location, and service — with easy options for scheduling recurring events and availability.• Save time creating workouts with our simple workout plan creator and exercise manager and built-in integrations, tools, and more.• Sell your training three ways – group subscriptions, individualized training, and single workout plans – to increase revenue inside and outside your training walls.• Take clients through your custom assessments to automatically deliver personalized workouts based on the data important to their success.
Why not pay for custom development?
So many things could go wrong when building custom-branded apps. It’s also expensive, takes years to develop, and requires trust with your developers. We have a proven track record delivering apps for top trainers around the world and remove the risks present when doing it on your own.
What if I’m not technical?
You don’t need to be. Our dev team will build your custom-branded apps and take care of all the technical stuff so you can focus on what you do best.
What if I don’t have a following?
Engaging the followers you have is paramount because you can instantly convert engaged followers into paying clients with your all-in-one fitness business software.
Is it hard to set up?
No, it’s very easy. All you need to do is follow our success team’s proven process. We will deliver your custom-branded, all-in-one fitness business software, and you can do what you do best!
What if I wait to implement this solution?
If you wait, you will leave a lot of opportunity on the table to save time as you scale and manage your business with all-in-one software to engage and retain your clients. Whether you’re looking to bill customers on a recurring basis, single session, or package basis, do it all with a fully integrated, secure platform that can support in-person and online payments. This is a high-quality problem to solve. You shouldn’t wait to solve it.
What exactly do I get?
You get all-in-one fitness business software that does everything you need. No more having one software solution for doing personal training, another for booking and scheduling, something else for client assessments, and yet another pricey subscription for marketing and client communication. And then there are custom-branded iOS & Android apps. If you’re tired of paying too much for too many moving parts, stop the hacks and demo the Exercise.com all-in-one fitness business software today. This all-in-one fitness business software will save you time running your business, handle everything in one place, provide endless opportunities to engage and retain your clients, and allow you to sell workout plans.
Will this really work for me?
Yes. We have a proven track record with fitness professionals like Ashley Borden, Just-Train, PJF Performance, Madeline Moves, and Fit Thrive. Our all-in-one fitness business software will allow you to grow your business as much as you want.
What are the next steps?
The next step is simple. Click “Get a Price” anywhere on this page and schedule a call with one of our team members.
Will this integrate with my other software?
Our software integrates with a variety of other software including Zapier, Stripe, YouTube, Vimeo, MailChimp, MyFitnessPal, ConvertKit, and more.
What if I don’t have the budget?
This is an all-in-one fitness business software that allows you to grow your business as much as you’d like. You should strike while the iron is hot by investing in a workout platform that will help you scale your business, earn more revenue, retain and engage your clients, and save you time running your business.