Stan Store vs Beacons: Which Link-in-Bio Store Fits Coaches?

Stan Store vs Beacons comes down to one trade. Stan Store charges a flat $29 a month with no Stan fee on sales and puts calendar booking, a course builder and a community on that entry plan. Beacons starts free but keeps a 9% seller fee on its Free and $10 Creator plans until you move up to Creator Plus at $30 a month. For a coach who sells paid calls and a course from Instagram, Stan is the simpler buy. For a creator testing a first download with no budget, Beacons Free costs nothing until the first sale. Neither one runs the coaching after the purchase: no contracts, no client records, no programs with habits or check-ins.

That gap is why this comparison also covers a third option, Coachful. We make Coachful, so weigh our view with that in mind. Every Stan Store and Beacons fact below is as listed on their own pricing pages and help center in October 2026, and where a page did not document something, we say so instead of guessing.

What is the short answer by use case?

Pick by what you sell and what happens after someone pays. Here is the quick version before the detail.

• You sell paid calls and a course to an Instagram audience: Stan Store Creator. Booking, courses, community and Instagram AutoDM are all on the $29 plan, with no Stan fee on sales.
• You are testing one digital product with no budget: Beacons Free. It costs nothing up front, but Beacons keeps 9% of every sale.
• You also do brand deals as a creator: Beacons. Its media kit and affiliate link tools are built for creators who earn from sponsors as well as products.
• You need email broadcasts, upsells, discount codes and affiliates: Stan Store Creator Pro ($99 a month) or Beacons Creator Plus ($30 a month). Stan documents more of the sales toolkit; Beacons is cheaper.
• You coach clients through a multi-week program with sessions, contracts and between-session check-ins: neither. That is a coaching platform job, and it is where Coachful fits (more on that below).

If you are still deciding whether a link-in-bio store is the right category at all, our Stan Store alternatives guide covers the wider field.

How do Stan Store and Beacons compare side by side?

Stan Store is a more complete selling tool on its entry plan; Beacons is cheaper to start and broader for creators who also do sponsorships. The table ranks all three options on the criteria that matter most to a coach.

Ranking criteria: one login for the whole client journey, delivery between sessions, total stack cost, and setup effort (including a free white-glove build).

The ratings deserve a caution. Stan Store has thousands of Trustpilot reviews and a high score; Beacons has a few dozen and a low one. A small sample swings easily, so read the recent reviews yourself rather than treating 2.0 as a verdict. Our Stan Store review goes through what public reviewers praise and complain about.

How much do Stan Store and Beacons cost in 2026?

Stan Store costs $29 or $99 a month (or $300 or $948 a year), with a 14-day free trial and no free plan. Beacons has a free-forever plan and three paid plans at $10, $30 and $100 a month, with two months free on annual billing.

A few details sit outside the headline numbers:

• Stan's trial converts. Stan's help center says the first month is charged when the 14-day trial ends. Stan does not publish a /pricing page; its prices come from its own pricing article (updated July 22, 2026) and help center.
• Processing is extra on both. Stan's "keep 100% of every sale" means no Stan fee; Stripe or PayPal still charge their own processing. Beacons does not show Stripe, PayPal, Klarna or Affirm processing fees on its pricing page.
• Beacons' fee is the real price on low plans. At 9%, the seller fee quickly costs more than the plan itself.

Our full Stan Store pricing breakdown covers the plan features line by line.

What does the 9% Beacons fee cost at real sales levels?

The fee changes the comparison more than the sticker price does. The table below uses example monthly sales figures, not data from any real coach, and leaves out payment processing, which applies on every option.

The break-even points are simple arithmetic. Beacons Creator Plus costs less than Beacons Free once you sell more than about $333 a month ($30 divided by 9%), and less than Beacons Creator once you pass about $222 a month. In other words, any coach with steady sales should skip the lower Beacons plans. At that point the real matchup is Beacons Creator Plus at $30 against Stan Store Creator at $29, and the difference is features, not price.

Which has the better storefront and link in bio?

Both build a mobile-first page that sits behind your Instagram or TikTok bio link; Beacons gives more pages and a media kit, Stan Store gives a tighter checkout-focused store. Which one is "better" depends on whether you are a coach first or a creator first.

Stan Store Creator includes a mobile and desktop storefront, one store, unlimited products and customers, analytics and lead magnets with email collection. The page is built to sell: each product is a block that opens a checkout. Stan positions it around paid calls, courses, digital downloads and memberships.

Beacons' Free plan includes a link in bio, a media kit, unlimited digital products, affiliate links and analytics, with one website of one page. Creator raises that to five websites of three pages each and adds a free custom domain and advanced SEO and marketing tools. Creator Plus gives ten websites of five pages, and Creator Max fifteen of ten. If you want a small multi-page site as well as a bio link, Beacons documents more room for it.

The media kit is the clearest Beacons advantage for anyone who pitches brands. Stan Store does not list a media kit. For a coach who earns only from clients, that matters little; for a fitness or lifestyle creator who coaches on the side and takes sponsorships, it is a real reason to look at Beacons.

Neither tool is a full coaching website. If you want a proper site with a blog, a booking page and an application funnel under your own domain, see our guide to the coach website builder options.

How do booking and 1:1 calls compare?

Stan Store includes calendar booking on its $29 Creator plan; Beacons' pricing page does not list calendar booking at all. For a coach who sells sessions, that single line may decide the comparison.

With Stan, a paid call is a product on your store: the buyer picks a time and pays in one flow. That is enough for selling single calls or small call packages. What Stan does not document is the layer around the call: intake records, coaching agreements, session notes or a history of every session with that client. Stan's plan pages list no contracts, invoices or client records, and it is not built as a CRM.

Beacons' pricing page, which is where we checked, does not list booking. If booking matters to you, test it during setup on the Free plan before you commit to a paid tier.

For coaches whose business is mostly sessions, a dedicated tool usually fits better. Coachful's booking pages support availability rules, buffers, minimum notice and time-zone detection, with two-way Google, Apple/iCloud and Outlook calendar sync, built-in video or auto-created Zoom, Meet or Teams links, intake questions at booking, paid sessions and session credits. Reminders go by email, plus SMS 24 hours before and WhatsApp one hour before once messaging is enabled. Our coaching scheduling software page and the Calendly pricing guide cover the options if you only need a calendar.

Courses, memberships and community: which goes further?

Stan Store gives you courses and a community on the entry plan; Beacons holds courses and memberships back until Creator Plus. At comparable prices ($29 against $30), both now include courses, so the question becomes which delivery suits your clients.

Stan Store Creator lists an unlimited course builder, recurring subscriptions and community. That means a coach can sell a self-paced course, charge a monthly membership and run a simple community without upgrading. Based on our September 2026 profile of Stan, course and community content must be rebuilt elsewhere if you leave, because the export covers customers and contacts as a CSV, not the content itself.

Beacons Creator Plus lists unlimited courses with video hosting and unlimited memberships. The Free and Creator plans sell digital products but do not include courses or memberships. Beacons' pricing page does not describe a community space, and we found no export details on the pages we checked.

Neither tool documents cohorts, group calls tied to a program, or a place where clients log progress between sessions. For coaches who run groups, see group coaching software and the online course platform for coaches guide. If a community is the core of your offer, our Skool pricing breakdown covers a community-first tool.

Email, funnels and upsells: what does each plan include?

Stan Store puts its whole sales toolkit on Creator Pro at $99 a month; Beacons includes unlimited email sends on Creator Plus at $30 but documents fewer sales tools. This is the biggest price gap between the two.

Two points stand out. First, Stan's $29 plan collects emails but cannot send broadcasts, so a coach who wants to nurture a list either upgrades to $99 or pays for a separate email tool. Second, Beacons' "affiliate" features are about you promoting other brands' links, not about running an affiliate program where others promote your offer. Stan's Creator Pro affiliate management is the latter.

Both tools document Instagram auto-DM: Stan lists AutoDM on Creator, and Beacons lists Instagram auto-DM on its Free plan. If your sales start in Instagram comments, that is a genuine strength of both.

Which handles payments and checkout better?

Beacons supports more processors and currencies; Stan Store offers buy-now-pay-later only on its top plan. Both support Stripe and PayPal.

• Stan Store: Stripe and PayPal on both plans. Creator Pro adds Stan Payments, Afterpay and Klarna. No Stan fee on any plan.
• Beacons: Stripe, PayPal, Klarna and Affirm, with buy-now-pay-later on Creator Plus and up, and sales in 20+ currencies. The 9% seller fee applies on Free and Creator.

Neither documents invoices or coaching agreements. For a coach selling a high-ticket package, that means the contract, the invoice and the payment plan live somewhere else. Coachful runs payments through your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account with one-time payments, subscriptions, payment plans, Apple Pay and Google Pay, Stripe Tax, an invoice for every transaction plus manual invoices, and e-signed agreements sent before the first call (see coaching contracts). Coachful does not support PayPal, so if your buyers insist on PayPal, both Stan and Beacons cover that and Coachful does not.

What do clients experience after they buy?

With Stan Store or Beacons, the client experience ends at the purchase or the content: they get a download, a course login or a booked call. With a coaching platform, the purchase is where the experience starts.

Picture a 12-week program sold from a bio link. On Stan Store, the buyer pays, receives course access and perhaps books calls through your store. Between calls, there is no documented place for them to log a habit, answer a weekly check-in or see their goals. You would add a form tool, a spreadsheet or a messaging app, and the client would juggle several logins.

On Beacons Creator Plus, the picture is similar: a course or membership with video hosting, and whatever you add on top for the coaching itself.

On Coachful, the same buyer lands in your branded client home and app. They see their program week by week, daily tasks, habits, morning and evening check-ins, goals with progress bars, upcoming sessions, documents and your community. You see their check-ins and a status of thriving, active, quiet or at risk, so you know who needs a message before the next call.

This difference matters most for coaches whose results depend on what clients do between sessions: health, fitness, habits, career transitions, leadership development. It matters least for coaches who sell a one-off strategy call or a template pack.

Which should you pick for your type of coaching?

Choose by the shape of your offer, not the price tag. The table summarizes when each option is the right call and when to skip it.

When Stan Store is the better pick

Stan Store suits a coach whose audience lives on Instagram or TikTok and whose offers are calls, a course and maybe a membership. The $29 Creator plan includes booking, courses, community and AutoDM with no seller fee, and its large Trustpilot sample is reassuring. The friction comes later: email broadcasts, discount codes, upsells and affiliates sit on the $99 plan, and nothing in Stan manages clients once they have paid. Pick it over Coachful if your business is mostly one-off calls and digital products sold to a social audience, you rely on Instagram AutoDM, or your buyers need PayPal.

When Beacons is the better pick

Beacons suits creators first and coaches second. The free plan is the lowest-risk start in this comparison, the media kit helps with sponsorships, and Creator Plus at $30 is a reasonable deal once fees stop applying. Its weak spots for coaches are the 9% fee on lower plans, no booking on the pricing page, and a small, critical Trustpilot sample. Pick it over Coachful if you are testing a first product with no budget, you earn from brand deals as much as coaching, or you sell in many currencies and want PayPal, Klarna or Affirm at checkout.

For coaches just starting out, our guide for new coaches explains what to set up first. Fitness coaches who sell training programs can compare both against the Fitness & Nutrition pack.

Is there a third option that also runs the coaching?

Yes: a coaching platform that includes the store, the booking and the delivery. Coachful is our product, and it is the option we recommend for coaches who deliver programs, not just sessions or downloads.

What Coachful is. Coachful is a coaching platform. 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 you and one branded app for your clients. It is built for coaches who deliver programs, solo coaches growing into a small team, and coaches replacing four to six tools. The company is based in Tallinn, Estonia, and has a Trustpilot score of 4.5 from 21 reviews.

Who it is for. Life, health, fitness, business and career coaches who sell packages or programs and want clients to stay engaged between calls. If your Stan Store or Beacons page already sells a call, Coachful replaces the store and adds what happens next. See the coaching software overview for the full picture.

Where Coachful beats both Stan Store and Beacons

• Delivery between sessions. Multi-week programs with weekly goals, daily tasks, habits, morning and evening check-ins, goals with progress bars and streaks. Neither Stan nor Beacons documents any of this.
• Client records. Each client has goals, check-ins, habits, notes, intake answers, tags, payments, sessions and an AI briefing, with a status of thriving, active, quiet or at risk.
• Contracts and invoices. E-signed coaching agreements sent before the first call and stored on the client record; an invoice for every transaction.
• Booking that coaches need. Two-way calendar sync, buffers, minimum notice, video links, session credits and multi-coach assignment.
• Email and funnels on one plan. Broadcasts and multi-step sequences, plus booking, application, lead-magnet and checkout funnels, are included in your Coachful membership rather than reserved for a top tier.
• A 0% platform fee. Since August 2026, Coachful takes no platform fee; you pay only Stripe or Razorpay processing.
• An AI assistant that knows your practice. Michelle works from live practice data: she builds programs, drafts emails, summarizes recorded sessions and briefs you before each call. Questions and planning are included in the membership; confirmed builds and changes use AI credits. More on the AI coaching assistant page.

This walkthrough shows how a program is built and delivered inside Coachful:

Where Stan Store or Beacons beat Coachful

Coachful is not the right tool for everyone, and this is what it does not do:

• No permanent free plan. Beacons Free is cheaper for a creator with no sales yet. Coachful has a free trial, not a free plan.
• No PayPal. Both Stan Store and Beacons support PayPal; Coachful uses Stripe Connect or Razorpay.
• No media kit or brand-deal tools. Beacons is built for creators who pitch sponsors.
• Not a course marketplace and not a general website builder for non-coaching sites; no third-party plugins.
• Not HIPAA-certified (no BAA) and not for clinical record-keeping or insurance billing. Health coaches who need that should look elsewhere.
• The client app runs inside the Coachful app with your branding, not under your own App Store account.
• Affiliate tracking is partial. Coachful tracks links, clicks, conversions and revenue, but you record payouts manually.

If you sell only downloads under a few dollars each, a link-in-bio store is the leaner choice. Coachful earns its place once clients pay for an ongoing relationship.

What does the white-glove build include?

Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. On every plan, you can ask the Coachful team to build something for you from Create > We'll build it for you, or from the "Want us to build it for you?" card on the Website, Funnels and Programs pages. Describe what you want (a website, funnel, sales page, program, course outline, email sequence, link in bio, lead quiz, event or automation), attach up to 8 reference links and up to 10 files such as logos, photos, brand guides and copy, and the team builds it inside your own account, usually within about 24 hours. Nothing gets invented: no fake credentials, testimonials or prices, and gaps are left for you to fill. It does not cover recording videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing. Beacons offers white-glove onboarding only on Creator Max; Coachful's build service is free on every plan.

Recent anonymized builds include a business mentor for beauty professionals who got a 12-week mentorship sales page, a free start-up-guide funnel and rewritten follow-up emails, and a leadership coach with a Squarespace renewal days away who got one clean homepage with a repeated "talk with me" button. Read more about the free white-glove service.

How to start

Start a free trial, then request a white-glove build of your site or first program so you are not setting it up alone. Your clients, programs and content are imported for you during onboarding. 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). If you need room for 15 active clients, the cheapest plan that covers them is Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients.

How hard is it to switch later?

Switching from Stan Store means exporting your customer list and rebuilding your content; Beacons does not document its export on the pages we checked. Plan for that before you invest months of content in either.

Stan's export covers customers and contacts as a CSV. Course and community content must be rebuilt elsewhere (based on our September 2026 profile). For Beacons, ask support what you can export before you upload a large course library.

Coachful exports your full client data as a ZIP (roster, notes, check-ins, goals, habits, sessions and form responses), and courses can be exported too. When you move in, clients, programs and content are imported for you during onboarding, and a somatic coach leaving Kajabi, for example, had the homepage and About page rebuilt and the contact form connected through the white-glove service. If you are comparing heavier course platforms too, see our Kajabi pricing guide, or browse every head-to-head on our comparison hub.

What is the bottom line on Stan Store vs Beacons?

For most coaches choosing between the two, Stan Store Creator is the better value: booking, courses and community on a $29 plan with no seller fee. Beacons wins for creators who want a free start or a media kit, and Creator Plus at $30 is competitive once sales are steady. Avoid the 9% Beacons tiers once you sell regularly.

If your clients pay for a program rather than a product, both tools leave the coaching itself to other apps. That is where Coachful replaces the store, the scheduler, the contract tool, the email tool and the client tracker with one login.

Frequently asked questions

Is Stan Store or Beacons cheaper?

Beacons is cheaper to start because its Free plan costs nothing, but it keeps 9% of sales on Free and Creator. Once you sell more than about $333 a month, Beacons Creator Plus at $30 beats the free plan, and it sits within a dollar of Stan Store Creator at $29. At that point the choice is about features, not price.

Does Stan Store take a percentage of sales?

No. As listed in October 2026, Stan Store charges no Stan fee on any plan. Stripe or PayPal still charge their standard processing fees on each payment.

Does Beacons have a free plan?

Yes. Beacons Free is described as free forever and includes a link in bio, media kit, unlimited digital products, affiliate links and analytics. It is limited to 50 email sends a month and one single-page website, and Beacons keeps a 9% seller fee on sales.

Does Stan Store have a free trial?

Yes, a 14-day free trial on either plan. Stan's help center says the first month is charged when the trial ends, so cancel before then if you decide against it.

Can I book coaching calls on Beacons?

Beacons' pricing page, as listed in October 2026, does not list calendar booking. Stan Store includes calendar booking on its Creator plan. If booking is central to your business, test it on Beacons Free before paying, or use a tool built for coaching sessions.

Which is better for selling a coaching course?

Stan Store includes an unlimited course builder on its $29 plan; Beacons includes unlimited courses with video hosting from Creator Plus at $30. Both sell the course well. Neither documents program features like daily tasks, habits or check-ins, so if the course is part of a coaching program, a coaching platform delivers it better.

Can Stan Store or Beacons replace a coaching platform?

Not for coaches who manage ongoing clients. Neither documents contracts, client records, session notes or between-session check-ins. They are storefronts that sell access; a coaching platform like Coachful also delivers and tracks the coaching.

What is Coachful's free white-glove service?

On every plan, you can ask the Coachful team to build a website, funnel, program, course outline, email sequence, link in bio or similar inside your account, usually within about 24 hours. You attach up to 8 links and 10 files; the team invents nothing and leaves gaps for you. It does not include video recording, logo design, ads or ongoing marketing.

Does Coachful support PayPal like Stan Store and Beacons?

No. Coachful takes payments through your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account, including Apple Pay and Google Pay, with a 0% platform fee. If your buyers need PayPal, Stan Store or Beacons will suit them better.

Which is better for health or fitness coaches?

For selling a program file or a call, either works, with Stan Store's booking giving it the edge. For coaching clients through workouts, nutrition targets and weekly check-ins, look at a coaching platform; Coachful's tools for fitness coaches cover workout logging and check-ins. Coaching is not medical treatment, so refer clients with medical conditions to a qualified professional, and note that Coachful is not HIPAA-certified.