These days, life coaches are no less than entrepreneurs – besides coaching clients, they need to be adept at running a business as well.

Their day-to-day activities are a blend of serving as a Coach and as a Small Business Owner. There are two core activities they need to keep track of – coaching clients and running a business. Yet, these distinct activities are performed by one and the same person.

Setting up client appointments, sharing resources with coachees, keeping track of coachee progress, sending invoices, collecting payments, marketing, selling, and more – these are all routine activities in a day of a life coach.

The good news is that life coaches can benefit by using the right software to help them manage these tasks effortlessly and productively.

But, take note – not all ‘small business management’ tools are made specifically with coaches in mind. For this reason, we bring you a list of the best coaching platforms that are designed to support the dual-hatted coach and small business owner.

10 Best Coaching Platforms for Life Coaches

1. CoachVantage

Top of our list is CoachVantage, an all-in-one coaching management software that’s purpose-built for coaches. It’s really simple to get started and set up an account on CoachVantage.

The dashboard provides you with a view of all your relevant data in one glance. You can see upcoming appointments, active clients enrolled in coaching programs, forms and assignments that are pending client submission, your coaching hours, and your total revenue. It also reminds you of upcoming client birthdays, so you can add a touch of personalization to your client interactions. 

In addition to adding active coaching clients, you can also add the contact information of hot leads, prospects, and past clients. It has a ‘Profile’ page for each contact so you can save important information about your contacts. Thus, CoachVantage also serves as a simplified CRM.

A noteworthy feature of this coaching software is the ‘Coaching Log’ feature. The platform keeps track of your paid and pro-bono coaching hours by automatically recording them in the ‘Coaching Log’ table as soon as a client session is completed. 

The Coaching Log is a nifty feature that’s unique to the CoachVantage platform and is highly beneficial for coaches who need to track coaching hours for certification and credentialing.

With CoachVantage, coaches can create coaching program landing pages online to fully automate client acquisition and onboarding. On the landing page, clients can make payments, fill up an intake form, e-sign a contract, and book coaching sessions. Everything is seamless and automated, so it works like a charm after the initial set up.

Once the sign-up process is completed, clients get an email confirmation and can then log in to the client portal. With the client portal, it’s easy for coaches and clients to collaborate with each other throughout the coaching journey. Coaches can share notes, goals, allow clients to book sessions, e-sign contracts, and more.

Another stand-out feature is the in-built ‘Scheduling’ feature. Unlike other coaching tools that only allow clients to book coaching sessions, the Scheduling feature in CoachVantage can be used as a stand-alone tool as well as for booking coaching sessions. 

This means you can set it up for prospects to book a call with you – for example, a ‘discovery call’, a virtual yoga session, an online presentation, etc. This effectively eliminates the need for other scheduling tools like Calendly, Acuity, or Square Scheduling app and the like.

2. Coaching.com

Coaching.com is a platform that’s designed primarily for executive coaches who manage corporate clients. It also supports organizations and coaching teams. Its robust dashboard gives you a holistic view of everything that is happening within your coaching practice.

Check all your scheduled sessions at a glance and send assignments seamlessly while tracking billable activities. There is also a client portal where you can invite clients with different access levels. Moreover, coaches get to schedule sessions, update goals, coach through video sessions, respond to forms, and many more.

The platform also offers program templates that you can customize for your own coaching roadmap. Engagement automation, notification, and two-way calendar sync with Google, Exchange, and iCal are its other features.

3. Paperbell

Paperbell is a  coaching platform that coaches find easy to set up and use. It allows clients to self-schedule their sessions based on the coach’s availability while automatically creating a buffer between the appointments.

Here, you also get a custom landing page that you can personalize with your logo, copy, and images. There is also a client dashboard where you get an overview of appointment history and future appointments, purchase history, total spending, signed contracts, and private client notes.

Clients can download the digital resources that come with your course and store them in their portal. You can even integrate this software with Google Calendar, Zoom, and PayPal for your convenience. 

4. Coaching Loft

Coaching Loft is a comprehensive coaching software with a professional digital coaching management system. By setting up your coaching profile on this platform, you can make yourself searchable by search engines.

The central coaching dashboard includes the client activity log, account statistics, session notepad, client assessment, and many more. Using Coaching Loft, coaches can have improved engagement and follow-ups with their clients. It is also possible to create a profile on this app so that coachees can find their preferred coaches.

With client action tracking, coaches can track the progress of their clients while keeping them engaged and informed. From the same platform, you can manage your coaching agreements, send invoices, and manage your coaching plans.

5. Nudge Coach

Nudge Coach is a coaching accountability software that makes client management easier for coaches. It enables you to send group or private messages to your coachees from the coaching platform.

With a combination of learning modules and habit trackers, coaches can make sure that their clients are on track and accountable. The software also lets you create interactive cards from a number of pre-built templates. The cards are somewhat like emails, but you can share them through this app.

Using the sequence feature of Nudge Coach, you can schedule your programs in advance and make sure these get delivered automatically. Here, you can also set up daily and weekly goals for your clients. 

6. Simply.Coach

Simply Coach is one of the top coaching platforms you can use to make your coaching life simpler. Apart from saving you time, it lets you deliver unique experiences to coachees. The collaborative dashboard of this tool allows goal and progress management from one place.

Coaches can have their clients set up their own goals through Client Workspaces. It can also provide reports on client progress and ROI that you can share with the sponsors. Simply Coach is ideal for session management and sharing resources. Processes like signing contracts, package subscriptions, and sending invoices can be automated on this software.

7. Delenta

Delenta is another coaching software that you can use for your coaching business. Here you can sell your coaching services to your target audience with custom branding and a landing page.

It takes only a few minutes to set up coaching packages on this platform. It also offers a storage facility for the coaches to keep their notes, rewards, and client tasks in one place. The integrated video conferencing feature is ideal for life coaching.

Moreover, you can also use it to collect testimonials from your clients. Comprehensive call analytics, meeting reminder, a built-in payment system, customizable branded contracts, and e-signature are other highlighted features of this platform.

8. Satori

With Satori, you can simplify your coaching process and free up your headspace. It helps you reclaim your time and energy to focus on your coaching. On this platform, you get a private client log-in area where your clients can buy plans, make appointments for coaching sessions, sign agreements, and also readily make payments.

Coaches can customize the login pages according to their brand and offer a professional experience to the clients. This platform can be used for sending session reminders, checking progress, and collecting reviews when the program is complete. 

Other great features of Satori include a self-managed dashboard, quick client enrollment, session notes, a business dashboard with actionable metrics, and automatic billing.

9. Practice

Practice is one of the best coaching software applications that makes coaching business management handy for coaches. Here, they get dedicated client records that contain every interaction history, shared document, and other details.

In addition, the client gets a central hub or portal from where they can chat with coaches and communicate using voice memos. It also offers different pre-built templates that you can customize to create forms and contracts for your coaching business. 

You can also store your resource and guideline files on Practice and share these with your clients. Moreover, coaches can easily create custom packages and payment plans here. Invoices, custom availabilities, Google Calendar and Stripe integration, and automated reminders are other notable features of this coaching platform.

10. CoachAccountable

If you are a coach who finds it hard to manage day-to-day admin work, you can use CoachAccountable. With its help, you can attract more clients to take up your coaching packages and close more deals. 

Users will get a result-driven experience as they can use the tools for managing coaching plans and tracking progress. It even reminds the clients about upcoming sessions so they do not miss any. The software also demonstrates results with various metrics. 

It takes around 10 minutes to set up the basics on CoachAccountable. You can even customize your client portal with your logo and brand color. The platform also offers you pre-loaded worksheets, session note templates, etc.

Features to Look For When Shopping for the Best Coaching Platform

Purpose-Built Platform: As a coach and small business owner, you must ideally choose a platform that has all the necessary features for running your business and managing your coaching clients. Otherwise, you will find yourself having to use multiple tools, which will reduce your productivity and efficiency and will not give you a holistic view of your business.

User-Friendly Interface: The top coaching platforms should also come with an easy-to-use interface. You should not have to spend a lot of time learning how to use the software.

Easy Scheduling: A proficient coaching software application should allow your clients to easily schedule coaching sessions. Integration with external calendars is highly preferred to avoid scheduling conflicts and double bookings.

Coaching Logs: The best coaching platforms should track your coaching hours automatically so that you never have to ‘remember’ to do so – you’re busy enough running your business! This feature is a must-have for coaches looking to attain their coaching credentials.

Seamless Payment: While choosing a coaching software application, make sure it enables your clients to make payments easily. Automatic invoice and payment reminders are also important functionalities of these applications. 

Affordability: Look for a coaching platform that is in alignment with your requirements and budget. Go for transparent pricing and avoid plans with hidden costs. For example, some coaching platforms, such as coaching.com, charge you a fee for payments that you collect, over and above the payment gateway commissions. 

Buyer beware! Avoid pricing gimmicks like ‘forever free’ plans that have a catch. Typically, ‘forever free’ plans (offered by Paperbell, for example) limit you to one client or a single coaching engagement, so be mindful of such gimmicks. 

Responsive and Friendly Customer Support: When using any software, you might find it hard to understand or use certain features. For these reasons, always go for coaching software that has great customer support. It’s best to do your research and look at other coaches’ reviews on sites like Capterra.

Wrapping Up

If you are in the coaching business, it can start getting unwieldy to manage more than a handful of clients without the help of a coaching software to automate your processes. Investing in the right coaching software could be the key to unleashing your full coaching potential.

Understandably, coaching professionals find it difficult to choose the right coaching platform for business management. 

Regardless of the time you have spent in the coaching industry, you need an application that lets you streamline your coaching process through automation, collect personalized feedback from your clients, seamlessly share resources with your coachees, and automatically send recurring invoices at the scheduled time. All these features are available on CoachVantage.

So, what are you waiting for? Go for CoachVantage — the best coaching software to transform how you manage your coaching business at a budget-friendly price.

Sign up for our 14-day free trial today!