Coachway vs Exercise.com (2026): Pricing, Features, Verdict

The coachway vs exercise.com choice comes down to what you run. Coachway is a single-plan app for online fitness and nutrition coaches, with a published price that rises with each active client. Exercise.com is a wider fitness business platform aimed at gyms, studios and larger brands, with member management, booking and custom-branded apps, sold by quote after a demo. A solo online coach will usually find Coachway the closer fit; a business with a front door and staff will usually find Exercise.com closer.

There is also a third option. We make Coachful, so weigh our view accordingly: if your coaching includes booked sessions, contracts, courses, a community or your own website, Coachway does not describe most of that list and Exercise.com is pitched at gyms and hides its price behind a sales call, so Coachful is what we recommend. If you only deliver workouts and meal plans, or you run a physical gym, this article says so plainly and points you elsewhere.

Coachway's details below were checked on its site in October 2026. Exercise.com's were read from its homepage and pricing page in the same month. Neither has been tested hands-on for this article, so everything here reflects what the vendors document and what public review pages show.

What is the short answer on Coachway vs Exercise.com?

Coachway suits online fitness and nutrition coaches who want a known price and a fast start. Exercise.com suits gyms and multi-staff fitness businesses that want one vendor for the building, the members and the app, and that are willing to sit through a sales process to learn the price.

• You coach online, one to one, and you sell training and nutrition: Coachway is the better of the two. The price is public, a 14-day free trial is available and the workout and meal tools are the core of the product.
• You run a gym, box, studio or several locations: Exercise.com is the better of the two. Its menu lists member and staff management, multi-location, remote door access, point of sale and trainer commissions, none of which Coachway describes.
• You want to sell on-demand fitness content or challenges to a large audience: Exercise.com, whose menu lists on-demand content, livestreaming, digital products and challenges, plus a page aimed at fitness influencers.
• You want a price before you speak to anyone: Coachway. Exercise.com publishes no numbers.
• You deliver programs and also need booking, agreements, courses, community and a website under one login: Coachful with its Fitness & Nutrition pack, which is our recommendation for most independent coaches reading this.

How do Coachway, Exercise.com and Coachful compare at a glance?

Coachway is narrower and transparent, Exercise.com is broader and quote-only, and Coachful sits across the whole coaching journey for independent coaches and small teams.

We rank on four things: one login for the whole client journey, between-session delivery, total stack cost, and setup effort with the free white-glove build.

Prices and ratings are as listed in October 2026. Review counts for Coachful and Coachway are small, and Exercise.com's is much larger, so treat the small gap between the scores as noise rather than a verdict.

What does Coachway cost compared with Exercise.com?

Coachway costs $79 a month for up to 5 active clients, plus $10 for each client above that. Exercise.com does not publish a price at all: its pricing page says "Get a Quote" and its main button says "Book Demo".

That difference matters more than any single number. With Coachway, you can work out next year's bill on a napkin. With Exercise.com, you cannot compare cost until a sales conversation has happened, and we will not guess a figure here.

The Coachway figures use the USD rate from its own pricing calculator. The headline on that page is in euros: EUR 69 a month for up to 5 clients, then EUR 9 per additional client, ex-VAT and billed monthly. The calculator picks a currency from your location and also shows GBP, DKK, NOK and SEK. VAT treatment depends on where you and your business are based, so check with an accountant if it affects your margins. No annual plan is shown.

The shape of Coachway's pricing is its main trade-off. It has "no tiers", so every feature is available from day one, and a coach with 5 clients has the same tools as one with 50, team roles and the coach mobile app included. The other side is that every client above 5 adds $10 a month for as long as they stay active. Going from 25 to 50 clients adds $250 a month. For a closer look, read our Coachway pricing breakdown.

Exercise.com's own page says "we have a package to help your fitness business succeed" and leaves it there. Priority Support, Managed Apps and Custom Dev appear in its navigation with no prices beside them, so ask in the demo whether they are part of your quote or billed on top.

What to ask Exercise.com before you compare a quote

• What is the monthly price at my current client or member count, and at double that count?
• Is there a setup fee, and what does the done-for-you migration cost? The site offers it but states no cost.
• What are the payment processing rates, and which provider is behind them? Transaction fees and the provider are not published.
• Are the custom-branded apps included, and whose app store account do they sit under?
• Are Priority Support and Managed Apps separate charges?
• How long is the contract, and how do I export my data if I leave? Data export is not documented on the pages we checked.
• Can I try the product before signing? No free trial is mentioned on the site.

How Coachful's pricing differs from both

Coachful uses flat monthly plans, with no per-client charge within a plan. Lower plans cap the number of clients, Pro is unlimited, and team plans add coach seats. Monthly plans cancel in one click, and a free trial exists. Current plans: Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients.

How do the workout and nutrition tools compare?

Coachway gives the clearest published picture of workout and meal planning for online coaches, while Exercise.com goes deeper on workout delivery in a gym setting but shows no meal planner in its feature menu.

Coachway documents a workout builder with more than 1,800 exercises, supersets, AMRAP sets and templates. Its meal planner lists more than 1,100 recipes, macros, allergy filters and PDF export. For a coach who sells training plus nutrition, that is the whole core job, and the published counts make it easy to judge.

Exercise.com's Workout menu lists a workout plan creator, workout logger, TV workouts, an exercise library, rep max progressions, supersets, performance reporting, leaderboards, progress photos and habit tracking. TV workouts and leaderboards are the giveaway: this is software that expects a room full of people as well as remote clients. It publishes no exercise count on the pages we read, and nutrition does not appear as a menu item, so ask about it if meal plans are part of your offer.

The Coachful details in the first row come from its Fitness & Nutrition pack. Note the honest gap: coaches who want a ready-made video for every lift will need to film or attach their own, since no stock exercise videos ship with it. Coachful also has no Garmin, Fitbit, Whoop or Oura sync, and Apple Health sync is not publicly available.

Which is better for booking and live sessions?

Exercise.com, by a wide margin. Booking is a listed feature and its pricing page describes scheduling appointments and classes, sending reminders and tracking visits. Coachway's site does not describe a session booking calendar at all.

That follows from how each is built. Coachway assumes the coach sends programs, checks in and messages clients, with the relationship running through the app. If you also hold a weekly call, you will likely run that through a separate scheduler, and you should add its cost to your total. Our Calendly pricing guide shows what that kind of add-on looks like.

Exercise.com also lists check-ins, but the item sits in its Business menu beside member management, and the pricing page talks about tracking visits. That reads as door or class check-ins rather than the weekly client questionnaire online coaches mean by the word. Ask which one it is in the demo, because the two jobs are very different.

If you sell sessions as well as programs, this is where Coachful pulls ahead of Coachway for independent coaches. Its booking pages have availability rules, buffers, minimum notice and time-zone detection. Calendars sync two ways with Google, Apple/iCloud and Outlook, and sessions run on built-in video or on auto-created Zoom, Meet or Teams links. Reminders go by email, plus SMS and WhatsApp once messaging is enabled. Here is a short walkthrough.

How do payments and fees differ?

Coachway publishes its fee and lets you avoid it, while Exercise.com publishes neither its fee nor its processor. Coachway's page lists a 2.4% payment fee when you use its built-in payment system, and its structured data says the fee is optional and does not apply through the coach's own Stripe checkout. Stripe's processing fees are separate in both cases.

To size that fee, take an example. A coach collecting $5,000 a month through the built-in system would pay $120 a month in Coachway's fee on top of Stripe's charges, so at 25 clients the bill would be $279 plus $120, or $399, before Stripe. The figures are illustrative, but the calculation is worth running on your own numbers before choosing a checkout route.

Exercise.com's Payments menu is the wider of the two: payment processing, ecommerce, trainer commissions, invoicing, account balances, coupon codes, payment splitting, buy now pay later and point of sale. It describes its payments infrastructure as PCI Level 1 compliant. A gym paying trainers on commission gets real value from this list. A solo online coach may use a fraction of it. The rates are not published, so get them in writing.

Coachful runs through your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account with a 0% platform fee (since August 2026), so only the processor's fees apply. You can charge one-time, by subscription or by payment plan, with order bumps, coupons, refunds, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and Stripe Tax. Each transaction gets an invoice, and you can also raise them manually. There is no PayPal. More on the coaching payments page.

How do check-ins, automation and messaging compare?

Coachway is the more clearly documented of the two for remote accountability: check-in forms, progress tracking, automations, chat with voice and video messages, and a Power Panel inbox. Exercise.com leans toward broadcast and lifecycle messaging, with email, SMS and push notifications sent automatically.

The difference shows in the wording. Coachway's feature list centers on the coach's inbox and each client's progress. Exercise.com talks about acquiring, nurturing and retaining clients through a funnel, with full CRM and client lifecycle management. An online coach with 30 clients wants the first. A gym with 800 members wants the second. Both list automations, but neither publishes enough on these pages to compare the rule builders, so try Coachway's in the trial and ask Exercise.com to show theirs live.

Coachful treats between-session delivery as the main job. Programs run over multiple weeks with weekly goals, daily tasks, habits, morning and evening check-ins, goals with progress bars and streaks. The client record pulls together goals, check-ins, habits, notes, intake answers, tags, payments and sessions, with an AI briefing per client and a status of thriving, active, quiet or at risk. Michelle, the built-in AI assistant, works from that live practice data to brief you before sessions. Questions and planning are included in your Coachful membership; confirmed builds and changes use AI credits. See the AI assistant page for what it does.

Which is better for marketing, leads and a website?

Exercise.com, on paper. Its Marketing menu lists CRM, assessments, leads, member engagement, email, SMS, push notifications, sales funnels and websites, and its Online menu adds landing pages. Coachway documents a lead pipeline and automations, but no website builder, funnels or email marketing appear in the feature list on its pricing page.

So a Coachway coach typically keeps a separate website and email tool, and those costs belong in the total. Exercise.com says it covers these, though you will need to see them in a demo to judge how good they are, since the pages we read list the features and show little of how they work.

Coachful includes a section-based website builder with a blog, custom domain, SEO settings, 30 designed homepage templates and an Import website option. It also has booking, application, lead-magnet and checkout funnels with pixels and UTM tracking, a link-in-bio page that sells, and email lists, broadcasts and multi-step sequences with triggers, delays, branching and A/B splits. For social, there is a planner that publishes to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Threads and YouTube, plus Instagram automations that can send your booking link or lead magnet by DM when someone comments a chosen keyword.

How do courses, groups and community compare?

Exercise.com covers group and on-demand delivery with online groups, on-demand content, livestreaming, digital products and challenges. Coachway describes no courses or community feature on its site, so a Coachway coach running a cohort would need another tool for the group side.

Exercise.com's list is aimed at fitness content: selling workout plans, memberships and challenges. If your product is a library of follow-along training, it fits. If your program also teaches mindset, habits or business skills through structured lessons with completion tracking, check how far its on-demand tools go before you commit, as "course" does not appear as a menu item.

Coachful has courses with modules, lessons, drip release and completion tracking, along with downloads, videos, books, AI tools, events and bundles, delivered into the client's branded home and app. On the group side, it has a community feed, group chat, direct messages, video events, group calls and webinars, and cohort groups are created automatically when someone enrolls in a program.

What is the client experience like on each platform?

On all three, clients use a branded mobile experience, but what "branded" means differs. Coachway and Coachful put your logo and colors inside their own app listing. Exercise.com sells custom-branded fitness apps as a headline feature, and the pages we read do not spell out the app store arrangement.

Coachway's client app runs on iOS and Android, comes in 6 languages, and is included in the single plan, with your logo and colors inside the Coachway app. A fully standalone white-label app under your own app store listing is a paid option, with no price shown. If you coach in several languages, check those six against what your clients need.

Exercise.com's clients log workouts, see summaries, take part in challenges and leaderboards, and interact with your business through those custom-branded apps. For a gym, the app can double as the member's route to bookings and payments, which is a broader job than a coaching app usually does. Managed Apps appears in its menu without a price, so find out who handles app updates and store submissions.

Coachful clients get one branded home and app, under the Coachful listing with your branding, not your own App Store account. It holds their next session, programs, goals, habits, courses, documents and community, so a client does not need a separate login for each part of the relationship. That is the main difference from a stack built around a training-only app: there is one place to look.

How do migration, data export and getting started compare?

Coachway is the fastest to try; Exercise.com makes the largest migration promise. Coachway gives a 14-day free trial with a card required to start and a billing reminder 3 days before it ends. Exercise.com requires a quote or demo first, and no free trial is mentioned.

Whichever you pick, ask how you leave before you sign up. Client histories and progress photos are the hardest things to rebuild, and it is much easier to get an answer about exports while you are still a prospect.

What should fitness and nutrition coaches keep within scope?

Coaching is not medical care, whichever software you use. Refer clients to a doctor or other licensed professional when they report chest pain, dizziness or fainting, unexplained injury or pain, pregnancy complications, or signs of an eating disorder, and do not use meal plans to treat a diagnosed condition unless you are qualified to do so where you practice.

Software choice touches this too. Exercise.com lists physical therapy and chiropractic among its industries, so if you treat patients, ask any vendor in writing about HIPAA and a business associate agreement rather than assuming from a menu item. Coachful is not HIPAA-certified, offers no BAA, and is not for clinical record-keeping or insurance billing, so clinical records belong in a clinical system. The Coachway pages we reviewed do not settle it, so ask.

Which should you pick for your kind of coaching business?

Match the tool to how your clients actually pay and show up. A coach who sells programs online has a different need from a gym owner, and a price comparison will not settle it.

Pick Coachway over Exercise.com if...

You train clients remotely, you have no staff or premises, you want to start this week, and you would rather see a price than book a call. It is also the better pick if meal planning is central to your offer, as Coachway documents it in detail. Our Coachway review goes further.

Pick Exercise.com over Coachway if...

People walk through your door. Door access, staff management, point of sale, class booking and multi-location reporting are the features a gym cannot run without, and Coachway does not describe them. It also makes sense if you have an audience large enough to sell plans and challenges at volume and you want a custom-branded app for it.

Are there other fitness-first tools worth a look?

If both feel wrong and you only want a training app, a few others publish prices. As listed in October 2026, HubFit starts at $39 a month for up to 50 clients, though payments start at its $69 Premium plan and a branded app is a $189 monthly add-on. PT Distinction starts at $19.90 a month with 3 clients included. My PT Hub lists unlimited clients at $59 a month. We cover more in Coachway alternatives and Coachway vs Trainerize, and the Coachway vs HubFit comparison looks at another app priced by client count.

The third option: when does Coachful beat both, and when does it not?

Coachful beats both when you are an independent coach or small team and your clients get more than a training plan. It loses to Coachway for coaches who want only a fitness app, and to Exercise.com for anyone running a physical gym.

What it is. Coachful is a coaching platform from Tallinn, Estonia. One subscription covers booking, payments, contracts, program delivery with habits and check-ins, courses, a community, a website with funnels and email, and an AI assistant, with one login for the coach and one branded app for the client. It is built for coaches who deliver programs and not just sessions, solo coaches growing into a small team, and coaches replacing 4 to 6 tools. See Coachful for fitness coaches and the wider coaching software overview.

Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. From Create, under "We'll build it for you", you describe what you want and the Coachful team builds it inside your own account, usually within about 24 hours. That can be a website, funnel, sales page, program, course outline, email sequence, form, lead quiz, webinar or automation. You can attach up to 8 reference links and up to 10 files. Nothing gets invented: no fake credentials, testimonials or prices, and gaps are left for you to fill. It does not include recording videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing. One recent build: a menopause and midlife health coach starting from nothing got a five-page site in sage and cream, with every button leading to a free 20-minute consultation. Read more about the white-glove service.

When Coachful beats both

• Your offer is a program, not only a workout plan. Multi-week delivery with habits, check-ins, goals and streaks sits alongside the workout builder and meal plans.
• You would otherwise pay for several tools. Coachway's feature list does not include booking, a website, email marketing, courses or community, so those mean other products. Add them up against Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients.
• You sign agreements before the first call. Coaching agreements with e-signature are stored on the client record. Exercise.com lists e-sign waivers and contracts too; Coachway does not describe them.
• You want a price and no sales call. Plans are published and a free trial exists, which is not the case with Exercise.com.
• You want flat pricing. Your bill does not grow by a fixed amount each time you add a client; you move up a plan when you cross its limit, and Pro is unlimited.
• You are growing a team. Team plans add coach seats with per-coach availability, staff permissions and round-robin or least-busy session assignment.
• You are working toward a credential. ICF credential tracking counts hours and clients against ACC, PCC and MCC thresholds and exports a client coaching log.

Here is how program delivery looks in the product.

When Coachful does not beat them

• Pick Coachway instead if you want a single fitness-first app and nothing else, your clients need one of its 6 app languages, or voice and video messages in chat are central to how you coach.
• Pick Exercise.com instead if you run premises. Remote door access, point of sale, TV workouts, trainer commissions and multi-location management are not part of what Coachful documents.
• Your own app store listing is non-negotiable. Coachful's client app ships under the Coachful listing with your branding. Exercise.com and Coachway's paid option are the routes to look at.
• You rely on wearables or PayPal. There is no Garmin, Fitbit, Whoop or Oura sync, Apple Health sync is not publicly available, and PayPal is not supported.
• You want a stock video for every exercise. Coachful has an illustrated library and you attach your own demo videos.
• You sell through a large sales team. There is no multi-stage deal board for large teams and no Salesforce or HubSpot integration.

How to start

1. Start a free trial and connect your Stripe or Razorpay account.
2. Ask for the white-glove build, describing the website, funnel or program you want first and attaching what you have.
3. During onboarding, have your clients, programs and content imported for you.
4. Run one client through a booking, an agreement and the first week of a program before you move the rest.

Frequently asked questions about Coachway vs Exercise.com

Is Coachway cheaper than Exercise.com?

Nobody can say without a quote, because Exercise.com publishes no prices. Coachway's cost is public: $79 a month for up to 5 clients, plus $10 per additional client, as listed in October 2026. Get a written Exercise.com quote at your real client count and at double it, then compare.

Does Exercise.com have a free trial?

No free trial is mentioned on its site as checked in October 2026. The route in is a demo and a quote. Coachway offers a 14-day free trial, and it requires a card to start.

Does Coachway have booking or a session calendar?

Its site does not describe one. Coachway focuses on workouts, meal plans, check-ins, chat, automations, leads and payments. If you run live sessions, plan on a separate scheduler or choose a platform that includes one.

Which is better for a solo online personal trainer?

Between these two, Coachway, for its published price, trial and focus on online delivery. Exercise.com does list personal trainers among its industries, but much of its value is in gym operations you would not use. If you also sell sessions, courses or a community, look at Coachful's Fitness & Nutrition pack as well.

Which is better for a gym or studio?

Exercise.com. It lists member and staff management, multi-location, remote door access, point of sale and class booking. Coachway does not describe those tools, and Coachful is not built for running premises either.

Do I get my own app with either platform?

Coachway includes your logo and colors inside the Coachway app, and a standalone app under your own store listing is a paid option with no price shown. Exercise.com sells custom-branded fitness apps, and its Managed Apps service appears in its menu without a price. Ask each vendor whose store account the app sits under and who pays for it.

Can I move my clients from Exercise.com to Coachway, or the other way?

Coachway says that where a move is possible, the move itself is free, but it covers only some platforms. Exercise.com offers done-for-you migration from every software platform, with no cost stated. Confirm what comes across, especially workout history and progress photos, before you cancel anything.

Is Coachful a good replacement for Coachway or Exercise.com?

For an independent coach who needs booking, agreements, program delivery, courses, community and a website in one place, yes, and that is who we built it for. It is not a replacement for a physical gym's operations software. It also has no wearable sync, PayPal or stock exercise videos. Current plans: Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients.

What is Coachful's free white-glove service?

Coachful's team will build something for you inside your own account, such as a website, funnel, program or email sequence, usually within about 24 hours. It is available on every plan. You provide the details and files, and they leave gaps rather than invent credentials, testimonials or prices. It does not cover recording videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing.

Is any of this software suitable for clinical work?

Coachful is not; it is not HIPAA-certified and has no BAA, so clinical records belong in a clinical system. If you treat patients, ask Coachway or Exercise.com directly and get the answer in writing. Coaching itself is not medical care, so refer clients to a doctor when symptoms or conditions fall outside your scope.