Search “best software for personal trainers” and the first page is almost entirely vendor blogs (PTPioneer, TrueCoach, Hevy Coach, Trainerize itself) plus a fitness-education site and a coaching forum thread, not G2, not Capterra, not a big media roundup. That’s a useful signal: nobody neutral has actually sat down and compared what each platform charges once you account for client count, because the pricing pages are built around a selector widget that most visitors never touch past the default view.
The short version: TrueCoach’s $26.34/month Starter plan covers 5 clients with payment processing already included. ABC Trainerize advertises a lower $9-23/month sticker for a similar client range, but Stripe payments, nutrition coaching, and video coaching are all separate add-ons on every tier below its $248/month Studio Plus plan. Stack the ones a working trainer actually needs, and the “cheaper” option can cost more than TrueCoach for the same 5 clients. PTminder and CoachAccountable take the opposite approach: every feature is included on every tier, with no add-on menu at all.
Quick Comparison
| Tool | Entry Price (Lowest Tier) | Client Cap at Entry | Payments Included? | Free Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TrueCoach | $26.34/mo (Starter) | 5 clients | Yes, free automated payments on every tier | 14 days, no card required |
| ABC Trainerize | $9/mo (Grow) | 2 clients | No, the Stripe add-on is $10/mo extra (Grow, Pro) | 30 days, unlimited clients, no card required |
| PTminder | $59/mo (50 Client plan) | 50 clients | Yes, online payments included on every tier | 14 days, no card required |
| CoachAccountable | $20/mo (Starter) | 2 clients | Not a payment processor; billing/invoicing tools included | 30 days, full features, no card required |
| FitSW | $19/mo (Premium, annual billing, 5-client tier) | 5 clients | Not confirmed on the public pricing page | Free trial, no card details stated |
| Hevy Coach | $25/mo | Up to 10 clients | No, it’s a workout-programming and tracking tool, not a billing system | 30 days, no card required |
All six companies’ own pricing pages checked directly on September 3, 2026, including interacting with each site’s client-count selector rather than reading only the default view.
TrueCoach: The Cheapest All-In-One at 5 Clients, Once You Add Up What Trainerize Actually Costs
TrueCoach’s Starter plan is $26.34/month for up to 5 active clients (roughly $1 more per month billed annually at 1 month free, or 2 months free on Standard and Pro). Its own pricing page lists the program and workout builder, client management, MyFitnessPal integration, a client dashboard, a 3,000+ exercise video library, and in-app messaging, plus the detail that matters most for this comparison: automated payment processing, all included at that price with no separate add-on to buy. Standard ($57.99/month, 20 clients) adds public coach profiles, wearable integrations, and a custom-branded app; Pro ($136.99/month, 50 clients) raises the client cap again with the same feature set. The 14-day trial requires no credit card, and annual subscribers get a 90-day money-back guarantee on their first year.
The number worth sitting with is what the same 5-client scenario costs on Trainerize once you match TrueCoach’s included feature set. Trainerize’s Pro tier starts at $23/month, which looks $3 cheaper than TrueCoach’s Starter. Add Stripe Integrated Payments ($10/month, since Trainerize doesn’t process payments on its base plan) and Advanced Nutrition Coaching ($20/month at this tier) and the total lands at $53/month for the same 5 clients: roughly double TrueCoach’s all-in price for a comparable feature set.
- Who should NOT default to TrueCoach: a trainer running more than 50 clients on one account. Pro tops out there, and anything above requires TrueCoach’s custom pricing for 250+ clients, which isn’t published.
- Who it’s right for: a trainer who wants one flat price that already includes payment collection, rather than pricing out which add-ons they’ll need on a cheaper-looking competitor.
ABC Trainerize: The Cheapest Sticker Price in This Comparison, and the Most Add-Ons
Trainerize’s headline pricing is the lowest of the six: Basic is a permanent free plan for 1 client (mobile app, workout programs, basic messaging, habit coaching), Grow is $9/month for 2 clients, and Pro starts at $23/month for a bracket that its own page says covers “5 to 200 clients.” A 30-day free trial with unlimited clients and no credit card required is also the most generous trial in this group.
What isn’t included at either price is the part a working trainer usually needs first. Trainerize’s own add-ons page lists Stripe Integrated Payments, Advanced Nutrition Coaching, Video Coaching, and a “Business” toolkit (booking links, referral capture, and premium scheduling) as separate purchases on both Grow and Pro, priced at $10/month, $20-45/month, $10/month, and $25/month respectively, all explicitly marked “Not Available on the Free plan.” Only the $248/month Studio Plus tier (500+ clients, billed per location) bundles all of them in. Trainerize’s own pricing page also shows a second, harder-to-find comparison table further down the same page, listing what look like the same tiers under different names and different prices: “Small Business” at $79/month for up to 30 clients and “Medium to Enterprise” at $275/month for up to 500 clients. We couldn’t fully reconcile that against the $9-23/month figures shown in the main plan cards above it. Whichever table is current, the add-on structure for anything below Studio Plus is consistent across both.
- Who should NOT budget off the $9-23/month sticker alone: any trainer who wants to collect payments in-app or offer nutrition coaching. Those are separate line items on every tier except the $248/month Studio Plus plan, and Trainerize’s own pricing page isn’t fully consistent about what the mid-tier plans cost once you’re past the free tier.
- Who it’s right for: a trainer just starting out who only needs the free Basic tier’s mobile app and workout delivery for their first client, or one who’s already decided Studio Plus’s bundled pricing makes sense at their client volume.
PTminder: No Add-On Menu, but the Cheapest Tier Starts at 50 Clients
PTminder prices by a flat client-count band rather than a per-seat or add-on model: $59/month covers up to 50 clients, $89/month up to 100, $119/month up to 150, $149/month up to 200, and $209/month for unlimited clients, all confirmed directly on PTminder’s own pricing page. Every tier includes client management, calendar and booking, online payments and invoicing, workout and nutrition planners, and reporting, with no separate purchase required to unlock payment collection or nutrition tools the way there is on Trainerize. A branded mobile app is the one paid add-on, at $40/month. The 14-day free trial requires no credit card, and annual billing saves 10%.
The trade-off is obvious once you’re not yet at 50 clients: PTminder has no small-solo tier. A trainer with 5 or 10 clients pays the same $59/month as one with 49, which makes it the most expensive of the six at low client counts even though nothing is held back behind add-ons.
- Who should NOT choose PTminder: a trainer with fewer than roughly 15-20 clients, where TrueCoach’s $26.34/month or FitSW’s $19/month tier covers the same all-inclusive feature set for meaningfully less.
- Who it’s right for: a trainer already running 30-50+ clients who wants payments, scheduling, and nutrition planning bundled into one flat price with nothing to add later.
CoachAccountable: Fully-Featured on Every Tier, but the Steepest Per-Client Cost at Scale
CoachAccountable takes PTminder’s “no add-ons” approach even further: its own pricing page states plainly that it’s a “complete, fully-featured system for EVERY plan,” and pricing scales purely by active client count across 13 named tiers, from Starter ($20/month, 2 clients) up through Level 8 ($4,000/month, 1,000 clients). Habit tracking is the platform’s specific strength (recurring tasks, automated reminders, and progress visualizations aimed at accountability rather than just workout delivery), and only active clients count against the tier; deactivated clients keep lifetime access to their records without counting toward the bill. The 30-day free trial has no feature restrictions and requires no credit card.
The scaling curve is the number to look at before committing. At the low end, $20/month for 2 clients ($10/client) is close to TrueCoach’s per-client cost. At 1,000 clients, $4,000/month works out to $4/client, the highest per-client cost of any platform in this comparison at that scale, well above Hevy Coach’s roughly $0.70-$1.40/client in the same range or Trainerize Studio’s flat $248/month base.
- Who should NOT scale up on CoachAccountable: a high-volume trainer or a small studio adding clients quickly. The per-client cost gets meaningfully worse as you grow, unlike the flatter curves on Trainerize Studio or Hevy Coach.
- Who it’s right for: a coach running a smaller roster of higher-touch clients who specifically wants deep habit and accountability tracking, where the tool’s strength justifies paying more per client than a pure workout-delivery app would cost.
FitSW: Cheapest Confirmed Entry Price, Scaling Hidden Behind a Client-Count Selector
FitSW’s Premium (Trainer) plan is $19/month on annual billing for up to 5 clients, the lowest confirmed entry price of the six, with the same feature list at every client tier: program automation, progress tracking, compliance tracking, custom branding, package and session sales, digital PAR-Q forms, live virtual classes, and in-app messaging, all without a separate add-on menu the way Trainerize has one. We selected higher tiers directly on FitSW’s own pricing page to confirm how the price scales rather than trusting the default view: 30 clients is $49/month, and 1,000 clients is $289/month, both on annual billing. FitSW’s site defaults to annual pricing and states a 15% discount applies versus paying monthly, but doesn’t display the monthly-billed figure without toggling, so budget for a somewhat higher number if you’re not ready to commit annually.
FitSW’s own pricing page doesn’t state whether payment processing is included or a separate integration, which is worth confirming directly with FitSW before assuming it works the same way as TrueCoach’s or PTminder’s built-in payments.
- Who should NOT assume $19/month scales linearly: at 1,000 clients FitSW’s $289/month sits above PTminder’s $209/month Unlimited tier, so a large-roster trainer should compare the two directly rather than assuming FitSW’s low entry price holds an advantage at scale.
- Who it’s right for: a solo trainer or small studio that wants the lowest confirmed starting price with a full feature set and no add-on menu to navigate, and who commits to annual billing to get that $19/month rate.
Hevy Coach: Cheap and Simple, but It’s a Programming Tool, Not a Business System
Hevy Coach is $25/month flat for 1-10 clients, scaling through nine client-count bands up to 501-1,000 clients. We selected each band directly on Hevy Coach’s own pricing page rather than reading only the default: $90/month at 26-50 clients, $160/month at 51-100, and $700/month at 501-1,000. Every plan includes unlimited workout programs, a built-in exercise library with custom exercise creation, client workout and measurement tracking, in-app client chat, and free access to the Hevy Pro client app. The 30-day free trial requires no credit card.
What’s missing is everything outside workout delivery and tracking. Hevy Coach’s own feature list has no mention of scheduling, booking, invoicing, or payment collection anywhere on its pricing or features pages. It’s built specifically for programming and progress tracking, not as a business-operations platform the way TrueCoach, Trainerize, or PTminder are. A trainer who needs to book sessions and collect payment through the same tool they use for programming will need a separate system for that half of the business, or a different platform entirely.
- Who should NOT choose Hevy Coach as their only platform: any trainer who wants scheduling and payment collection built in. Hevy Coach doesn’t do either, so budget for a second tool or a payment processor on the side.
- Who it’s right for: a trainer whose scheduling and payments already run through something else (in-person cash, Square, a separate booking page) and who mainly wants a clean, affordable workout-programming and progress-tracking app for clients at any scale, since its per-client cost stays competitive even at 500+ clients.
Who Should NOT Buy Any of These Six
A trainer with one or two clients who trains them in person, takes cash or a card reader payment directly, and just wants a place to write down a workout doesn’t need a dedicated platform yet. Trainerize’s free Basic tier or a plain notes app covers that until the business is real enough to need client-facing tools. On the other end, a multi-location gym or franchise needs centralized reporting and role-based staff permissions that go beyond what any of these single-business-owner platforms are built for; that’s a conversation for each vendor’s enterprise or studio sales team rather than a self-serve plan.
Solo service businesses in other niches run into the same “cheap sticker price, paid add-ons for what you actually need” pattern. Our guides to software for estheticians and software for therapists and counselors cover the same shape of problem: a platform whose entry price looks like the whole story until you price out the features a working solo provider needs on day one.
FAQ
What software do most personal trainers use? TrueCoach, ABC Trainerize, and Hevy Coach come up most consistently across trainer-focused blogs, YouTube reviews, and Reddit threads in this space, alongside PTminder and FitSW as lower-profile alternatives with comparable feature sets.
Is there a free app for personal trainers? Trainerize has a permanent free Basic plan for 1 client with mobile app access, workout programs, and basic messaging. Hevy Coach, TrueCoach, PTminder, CoachAccountable, and FitSW all require a paid plan after their free trial period ends, though none require a credit card to start that trial.
What’s the cheapest software for a solo personal trainer with a handful of clients? On confirmed pricing at a 5-client scale, FitSW’s $19/month (annual billing) is the lowest confirmed figure, with TrueCoach’s $26.34/month close behind but including payment processing that FitSW doesn’t clearly state either way. PTminder isn’t competitive at this scale since its cheapest tier starts at 50 clients for $59/month.
Do these platforms charge a fee for collecting client payments? TrueCoach and PTminder include payment processing in every tier’s price. Trainerize charges a separate $10/month Stripe Integrated Payments add-on on Grow and Pro (included only on the $248/month Studio Plus tier). Hevy Coach doesn’t process payments at all. CoachAccountable and FitSW don’t clearly state their payment-processing terms on their public pricing pages.
How much does personal trainer software cost as a business grows past 500 clients? It varies more than the entry prices suggest: Trainerize Studio Plus is a flat $248/month base for 500+ clients (billed per additional location), Hevy Coach is $700/month for 501-1,000 clients, PTminder tops out at $209/month unlimited, FitSW is $289/month at 1,000 clients, and CoachAccountable’s per-client cost keeps climbing to $4,000/month at 1,000 clients, the widest spread of any comparison point in this guide.
Bottom Line: Which Should You Choose?
- Want one flat price that already includes payment collection at a small client count: TrueCoach, $26.34/month for 5 clients.
- Want the lowest confirmed starting price and don’t mind annual billing: FitSW, $19/month for 5 clients.
- Already running 30-50+ clients and want everything bundled with no add-on menu: PTminder, starting at $59/month for up to 50 clients.
- Want deep habit and accountability tracking for a smaller, higher-touch roster: CoachAccountable, from $20/month for 2 clients, but price out the per-client cost before scaling up.
- Only need programming and progress tracking, with payments and scheduling handled elsewhere: Hevy Coach, from $25/month, with the most competitive per-client cost at large client counts.
- Want the cheapest sticker price and are certain you won’t need payments, nutrition coaching, or video coaching soon: ABC Trainerize’s free or $9/month tiers. Just confirm the add-on costs before you need them, since Trainerize’s own pricing page isn’t fully consistent about what the mid-tier plans cost.
If you run a membership studio rather than one-on-one training, see our martial arts studio software comparison. For session-based scheduling outside fitness, our tutoring scheduling software guide covers the same booking-and-billing problem for tutors.