Playlist Launches Kite to Power the Next Phase of Multi-Brand Fitness 

As operators expand across brands, modalities and markets, Kite introduces a new infrastructure designed to support portfolio-scale growth. 

The definition of a fitness business is expanding. 

Operators are no longer focused on building a single brand in a single lane. Today, many are managing multiple concepts across fitness, recovery and wellness, often within the same portfolio. A studio operator may now own a strength concept, a recovery offering and a boutique class experience, each serving different needs but increasingly connected through shared members and overlapping demand. 

That shift is already visible in the data. According to Mindbody data, the number of active fitness studios offering a recovery or wellness appointment type grew more than 6x between 2023 and 2025. Businesses are adapting to changing consumer behavior, expanding beyond a single modality and, in many cases, becoming part of larger, more connected portfolios. 

That evolution is creating a new layer of operational complexity. Managing multiple locations is one challenge. Managing multiple brands, each with its own identity, business model and member experience, introduces another. 

It is also exposing a gap in the technology that underpins the industry — one that Playlist has a solution for. 

Playlist has spent years operating at the center of this ecosystem through brands like Mindbody, Booker and ClassPass, building a deep understanding of how fitness and wellness businesses grow, evolve and scale. That vantage point has shaped the company’s latest move: the launch of Kite, a management platform built specifically for multi-brand, portfolio-scale operators. 

“Kite was created to fill a clear gap in the market for multi-brand franchise businesses,” says Bryan Arp, President of Kite. “Most current software platforms in the industry were built for single brands. They weren’t designed for the realities of portfolio-scale operators managing multiple brands, multiple locations, shared members and complex reporting.” 

Built For the Realities of Multi-Brand Growth 

Kite is specifically designed to mirror how modern fitness and wellness organizations are actually structured. The platform is built on a three-level hierarchy that separates operations across enterprise, brand and location. 

“At the enterprise level, leadership teams gain visibility, reporting and control across the full portfolio,” Arp explains. “At the brand level, each concept can maintain its identity, business model and unique operating requirements. At the location level, operators retain the flexibility to respond to their specific market, staff and member base in real time.” 

That structure allows decisions to be made at the right level of the organization while maintaining consistency and clarity across the whole system. 

Around that framework, Kite brings together the core functions that operators rely on to run and grow their businesses. Kite Core supports member management and daily operations. Kite Engage delivers automated marketing and communication. Kite Insights provides enterprise-level reporting and dashboards. Kite Perform integrates fitness performance data into the broader system. 

Kite Payments plays a particularly important role within that ecosystem. As a registered Payment Facilitator, the platform automates payment processing, royalty and brand-fund collection and reconciliation, giving operators a more streamlined and reliable way to manage financial flows across multiple brands and locations. 

In a multi-brand franchise model, those functions are central to how the business operates. As organizations scale, the ability to track revenue, allocate funds and maintain visibility across the network becomes critical. Bringing those processes into a single system reduces administrative overhead and supports more consistent execution. 

“When companies grow into multi-brand franchise models, disconnected systems start creating friction very quickly,” Arp says. “Leadership is left trying to run a portfolio through systems that were never designed to work together in a common structure.” 

Connecting the Member Experience  

As more operators build portfolios that span multiple brands and modalities, the member experience is becoming more interconnected. A single consumer may engage with a strength training concept, a recovery service and a wellness offering within the same network. Supporting that behavior requires a system that can recognize and serve that member consistently across brands and locations. 

That’s how Kite was built. Consumer-facing tools such as a mobile app, web widgets and a shared member portal play a central role. From the member’s perspective, the experience feels seamless. From the operator’s perspective, it creates a stronger foundation for understanding behavior across the portfolio. 

If executed well, Arp says the opportunity extends well beyond convenience. “A business can create a more connected member experience, improve retention and increase lifetime value across the portfolio. It also creates a much better foundation for personalized marketing.”  

That level of visibility allows operators to deliver more relevant offers, recommend complementary services and engage members in ways that reflect how they are actually using the business. As portfolios expand across fitness, recovery and wellness, that kind of connected engagement becomes increasingly valuable. 

It also signals a broader shift in how the industry is evolving. 

A fitness business is no longer defined by a single concept or a single set of services. It is becoming a network of brands, experiences and member relationships that operate together as a connected system. 

Kite is built for that shift. 

It brings together POS, CRM, payments, marketing, analytics and performance data into one unified platform, giving operators the infrastructure to scale without stitching together disconnected tools. 

“More broadly, the launch of Kite reflects Playlist’s commitment to delivering best-in-class technology for fitness and wellness businesses at every stage of growth,” Arp says.