Yoga App Development: Case Study-based Guide for Yoga Studios or Startups

In the United States, from 2010 to 2021, the number of Americans practicing yoga at least once a year increased by 63.8%, growing from 21 million to 34.4 million.

These figures indicate a steady and growing yoga market. The increasing popularity of online yoga sessions and applications, initiated during the pandemic, underscores a significant shift towards digital platforms in the yoga industry.

Moreover, the addition of yoga sessions is becoming increasingly popular in the context of corporate wellness app development.

What pain points do they have and what solution can you offer them?

Yoga app development services open a new window of opportunities for you: it can make it possible to provide your services with greater flexibility to people who can’t visit your studio physically (for example, because they live in another city) but who are willing to watch your online classes, have an ability to chat with your teachers, etc.

The key challenge here is your USP (Unique Selling Point). In other words, what you’re going to offer your audience, so that you stand out from what your competitors already provide, and why your audience is going to pay for your product.

❓ What Types of Yoga Applications Exist?

Before we tell you how to create a yoga app, let's delve deeper into the types of yoga applications. Well, what are the different types of yoga apps, and who are they designed for?

Specific Yoga Studio Apps

These applications are designed for a specific yoga studio or a network of studios. In such an app, yoga enthusiasts can track class schedules and information about yoga instructors. Among the essential features of the app for a yoga studio is the ability to plan classes, including event scheduling, and purchase packages through the app.

Thanks to such an application, yoga studios are always in touch with their clients, making yoga classes a convenient and pleasant experience.

Aggregator Apps

Aggregator apps, as compared to apps for yoga studios, provide users with a broader spectrum of instructors and yoga classes. In such an app, users can access information about instructors, view class schedules, and search for sessions based on their preferences (such as duration, style, or format).

Aggregator apps offer a significant advantage for yoga enthusiasts – the ability to join classes with world class instructors.

Yoga and Fitness Combination Apps

These apps combine traditional yoga poses with other dynamic exercises, such as high-intensity interval training or Pilates. For example, the Daily Yoga app offers users multiple yoga asanas, Pilates, fitness, and core power yoga for weight loss.

By the way, if you are interested in exploring how to develop a fitness app, our team can provide valuable insights and expertise to guide you through the process.

Statistics

Asana Rebel is headquartered in Berlin. The company has an estimated annual revenue of $2.8 million financially. The revenue efficiency is highlighted by the fact that every employee brings about $101,500 to this figure. The company's workforce comprises 28 employees, and it has experienced a 4% growth in employee count over the past year, indicating steady organizational expansion.

Business Model Canvas

The business strategy of Asana Rebel incorporates components of exercise technology, digital health, and subscription-based services. Here's an overview:

• Revenue from Subscriptions: The subscription model of Asana Rebel is the main source of income for the company. Although users may download the app for free, a paid membership is necessary to access all of its exercises, yoga classes, and other health and fitness content. This business strategy promotes customer retention and offers a consistent flow of revenue.
• Variety of Fitness Content: Asana Rebel provides a vast range of content, such as mindfulness practices, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), yoga-inspired workouts, and meditation. Because it accommodates a range of fitness levels and tastes, its diversity appeals to a wide audience.
• Digital Platform: Asana Rebel takes use of the rising trend of digital health and the pervasive usage of smartphones as a mobile application. Users' exercise routines are made more convenient and flexible by the availability of their workouts and health material at any time and from any location.
• Data analytics and personalization: The app makes suggestions and customized exercise schedules based on user data. BLE integrations can ensure seamless communication between the app and external devices, such as fitness trackers or smart yoga mats, eliminating the need for manual input of exercise data. By improving user experience and engagement, customization has the potential to increase subscription retention rates.
• Global Reach: By providing its information in several languages, Asana Rebel aims to reach a worldwide audience. Its potential user base is increased outside of English-speaking nations because to its global strategy.
• Marketing and Community Development: The business makes investments in these two areas. This involves using the app's user community features, content marketing, and social media interaction to make users feel motivated and like they belong.
• Partnerships and Collaborations: Asana Rebel has the potential to get into partnerships and collaborations as a means of generating content, promoting its brand, and broadening its range of services. Through these alliances, the business may expand its customer base and enhance the value of its current offerings.

📱 Top Yoga App Features to Consider

No matter what audience you want to target, it’s still important to develop a yoga mobile app that is a good (from a technical perspective) product. What standard features should be on your list? Let’s find out!

# 1: Registration 🔐

Whoever your users are, they most likely expect to get personalized content. Also, registration is especially important if you plan to implement some in-app purchases (for example, online yoga courses/video tutorials). It will help to link a specific user to their purchases, so they don’t get lost if they uninstall the app or switch to another device.

However, don’t forget that users are usually annoyed by a long and complicated registration process. A Social Login Feature, also known as a Passwordless Email/SMS Sign Up is something that can help: it allows reusing data from social media networks (like Facebook or Twitter) to create the in-app profile or just receive a “magic” link to your email, which redirects you back as a registered user once clicked.

Apart from that, it’s reasonable to integrate Google Account and Apple ID sign-ins using the APIs we linked. As for the Social Media Logins, you can enable such using APIs like authO.

Additionally, don’t make the registration mandatory. We recommend leaving an option to skip the registration and come back to this process later, once you really need some data from the user (e.g., for payment processing).

# 2: Yoga Sessions 🧘‍♂️

This is one of the key yoga app features that your audience expects to see. Luckily, there are plenty of ways to provide such content:

1. It may be videos recorded by your teachers or you (if you’re running your separate studio).
2. You can use images to demonstrate exercises (like in the Pocket Yoga app).
3. As a kind of an intermediate option, it’s also possible to create animations that will show the right technique (like in the 5 Minute Yoga Workouts app).
4. You may even run live classes for yoga!

Based on our experience, we recommend you to make a yoga app with the first option. Why? Because it looks more natural, provides more value than a simple animation or a static image and promotes you or your teachers to the audience. Moreover, it initiates a deep connection between you and your audience, as they see a real person speaking on their screens.

What is also great about the Yoga Sessions feature is that you can organize it in any convenient way. Here are a few ideas for your mobile application development for yoga instructor:

• Create curated collections to satisfy users with different needs.
• Offer guided yoga sessions classes that take place in real-time to support and help users during the whole session.
• Develop long-term workout plans (from several weeks and up to a month) in which different exercises are combined to reach a specific result.

# 3: Push Notifications 🔔

Finally, don’t forget about Push Notifications. There are plenty of ways to use them as you develop an app for yoga. For example:

• Encourage your clients to participate in your sessions regularly.
• Remind users about upcoming events.
• Inform the audience when new yoga exercise collections are available.

Push Notifications are a powerful retargeting tool, so we strongly recommend you to add it to your yoga app features MVP list.

You can also use push notifications to send users reminders and take some moments to breathe deeply during the day and take a couple of mindfulness breaks to support their mental well-being. In case you’d like to learn more about building an application for mental health, feel free to follow the link:

# 4: eStore 🛍

The yoga app industry is much wider than just exercises and meditation courses. For example, people also need comfortable outfits, yoga mats, bags, towels, blocks and straps, meditation seatings, and so on.

So, although it’s not really an MVP-feature, if you’re selling some of these goods, it’s possible to create a yoga app that will also work as an online marketplace. According to some studies, mobile apps are even a better solution for retail purposes than a website since:

• Apps have a 120% higher conversion rate.
• People browse 286% more products using their mobile devices.
• The add-to-basket rate is also higher (up to 90%).

Therefore, you can greatly increase your key sales metrics.

# 5: Blog 📰

Usually, this feature doesn’t fit into the usual MVP list, so we’d recommend keeping it for the coming updates after your app gets a Proof of Concept. The good news is that it can be useful for both types of projects. Why?

Because people enjoy interesting and useful content. No matter if you plan to build your own yoga app with online yoga courses or an app for a yoga studio, your audience is likely to get more info on different techniques and methods, news, etc., through a blog.

What is also great about the Blog Feature is that nowadays, people are open to share things they like. It means that they can repost your blog posts on their social media pages and become your brand promoters among friends and relatives.

This is also where the Social Media Login can come in handy. To make sure that users also benefit from connecting their media accounts to your app, you can offer them bonuses like discounts for paid content or unique avatars for their accounts.

# 6: Coach Q&A 💬

We see this feature as a part of your possible monetization strategy since it provides your audience with some advanced possibilities (this is especially true for Startups). Yet, if you’re designing app for yoga to complement your offline business, it may be reasonable to consider it free-of-charge and use it as a powerful tool to build a strong relationship between your studio and customers.

This feature can be a chat with a yoga coach who can help with exercise techniques or answer some organizational questions related to your studio.

You can also do it via the video sessions and surely would need a special features for that. It should be:

• Camera & audio functions.
• Turn on/off buttons.
• Chat within the call.
• Live reactions (like smiling or clapping emojis).
• Screen sharing (option) & others.

These functionalities are essential considerations in the context of yoga instructor app development.

# 7: Gamification 🏅

People love challenges. For you, this means that you can use challenges to keep users interested in frequent interactions with your brand. Providing the audience with a feeling of accomplishment is one of the best ways to keep your retention and engagement rates high.

A great way to implement this feature is to reward users with badges as they get certain achievements (complete a course, workout a few days in a row, etc.).

# 8: Events 🏃‍♀️

If you regularly hold yoga training, chances are high you also organize some offline events like outdoor sessions, practices with invited yoga gurus, etc.

Therefore, you can make your own yoga app that will keep users informed about such activities. As a result, more people will know about your initiatives and join which means that your customer base will remain active and enthusiastic.

However, this feature may be also useful for Startups that want to build a strong community around their apps. Just like the Nike+ training — they have nothing to do with the official Nike representatives and are completely based on the enthusiasm of local users.

📝 Create a Yoga App in a Few Steps

In this section, we will provide detailed information on how to create a yoga app in the 7 key steps. Let's get started!

# 1 Market Research and Defining the Target Audience

Before starting the development of your yoga application, you need to analyze all yoga market trends, potential growth in the healthcare industry and make a competitor research. Define the target audience of your application in detail.

In addition to identifying the general group of people by age or gender, answer the main question: “Will the application be suitable for beginners, or are we targeting people who have been practicing yoga for a certain period?”

# 2 Concept, Features, and Monetization Strategy

The next step in yoga application development is to determine the app type: a specific studio app, an aggregator app, or a combination of both. Consider the key features (registration and login, various yoga sessions, personalized recommendations, high-quality video pose tutorials, social media integration, audio instructions, progress tracking, and multilingual support). Brainstorm with your team about additional features and think about what will make a yoga app stand out from others on the market.

Choose the ideal monetization options for your application. We will provide more details on this in the next section, so keep reading!

# 3 Tech Stack and Development Approach

This stage is crucial in the development process as it plays a significant role in your application's performance, scalability, and the security of user data. A cross-platform development approach, particularly in the expertise of fitness apps React Native development at Stormotion, can be a good solution.

If you are seeking experienced yoga app developers, write to us and share your idea, and we will gladly help you bring it to life.

In the era of artificial intelligence, we cannot overlook it. Integration with AI can help create personalized workout plans and engage users. The use of machine learning algorithms can assist in creating extra features such as pose analysis and progress forecasting, among others. This will significantly help distinguish your application in the market and attract users.

# 4 Design and User Experience

The application's design is the first thing users will see when they install it. Focus on a clean, intuitive interface with simple navigation. Use calm colors and straightforward menus to enhance user interaction.

# 5 Development and Testing

Design a yoga app gradually, starting with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test core functionalities. MVP development has several advantages, such as releasing the app with basic features and quickly gathering valuable feedback from real users.

# 6 Launch and Marketing

Develop a strong marketing strategy with a focus on social media, content marketing, and partnerships with influencers. Launch a yoga app on relevant platforms (iOS and Android) and gather user reviews for improvement.

However, there is even more than this! They’ve also delivered the Pocket Yoga Teacher app. As you can guess from its name, the application is designed yoga teachers. What are they able to do within the app?

1. Create, edit and share yoga practice sets.
2. The editing possibilities are quite broad: teachers are allowed to change the order and duration of poses, adjust the voiceover, add music, etc.

Their monetization model is paid downloads. They have two versions of the app - for practitioners and teachers that also differ in price.

Find What Feels Good (FWFG) Yoga with Adriene

The FWFG application is a great example of how you can build an app for a yoga studio or your own brand. Adriene is a yoga instructor, actress, and co-founder of this online yoga library. Her whole app is built around the idea of creating a strong and successful community that connects health experiences to real faces.

So, the yoga mobile app development costs are between $60-78,000.
We used an average hourly rate $50/hour that is quite standard for Eastern Europe.

If you want to get a more accurate estimate of costs to develop a yoga app, provide us with the details of your project by hitting the button at the end of the article.

💡 Takeaways

Yoga app development is a good idea for both Businesses and Startups operating in this industry:

• If you have your own studio, you can make a yoga app to build a stronger relationship with your customers and encourage them to interact more often with your brand.
• However, there are many yoga app examples that initially started as small startups and managed to grow into big products.

Looking for the perfect Tech Partner that will help you to create a Yoga App? Contact Stormotion by clicking the button below, and we, as an app development company, will revolutionize the yoga industry together!