Methodology note: No published market report tracks "practice management CRM for independent coaches" as a category. Existing coaching software reports (VMR, MarketsAndMarkets) cover coaching delivery platforms — BetterUp, Kajabi, Teachable — a fundamentally different market selling to different buyers at different price points. All figures below are derived bottom-up from ICF practitioner data.
TAM
Total Addressable Market
$320M
All coaches + adjacent practitioners × realistic software spend
SAM
Serviceable Addressable Market
$19M
English-speaking solo/small-practice coaches, $30–60/mo
SOM
Serviceable Obtainable Market
$1.2M
Year 3 target — ~2,200 paying coaches
| Component |
Value |
Source / Rationale |
| Active coach practitioners globally | 168K | ICF/PwC 2025: 123K credentialed, ~45K uncredentialed |
| Adjacent practitioners (therapists in private practice, somatic workers, IFS, energy workers, astrologers) | +80K | Conservative — US alone has 120K+ private-practice therapists. Overlapping needs, not all addressable. |
| Total potential practitioners | 248K | |
| Would benefit from dedicated practice mgmt software | ×65% | Excludes part-time, hobby-level, corp-employed |
| Realistic avg annual spend | $400 | ~$33/mo. Reflects market clustering at $20–57/mo |
| TAM | $322M | |
Bear case
$175M
168K coaches only (no adjacent), 35% adoption, $300/yr avg spend
Bull case
$500M
300K+ practitioners (ICF undercount + large adjacent), 55% adoption, $480/yr avg
Why no top-down: The commonly cited $1.94B coaching software market (VMR) tracks delivery platforms (BetterUp, Kajabi, Udemy, SAP Litmos). Different product, different buyer, different price point. Deriving RedThread's TAM from that number would be like sizing the restaurant POS market from food delivery app revenue.
| Filter |
Value |
Rationale |
| Total potential practitioners | 248K | |
| English-speaking markets (US, UK, CAN, AUS, NZ) | ×42% | ICF: NA 33% + UK/AUS ~9% |
| Solo or small-practice (≤5 coaches) | ×85% | Vast majority are solopreneurs |
| Would pay for dedicated software | ×40% | Unvalidated — survey will pressure-test |
| = Addressable coaches | 35,400 | |
| × Avg annual revenue ($45/mo, churn-adjusted) | ×$540 | |
| SAM (core CRM) | $19.1M | |
Expansion optionality (not included in SAM): An AI session analysis add-on at $20/mo with 25% attach rate adds ~$5M. Serving the full adjacent practitioner base could push toward $40–50M. These are future-state opportunities contingent on product-market fit in the core.
Year 1
| Aletheia network warm leads | 30–50 | |
| Reddit / LinkedIn organic | 50–100 | |
| Realistic conversion (20%) | ×20% | |
| Paying coaches | ~30 | |
| ARR Year 1 | $16K | $45/mo avg |
Year 3 (target)
| Community-led growth + referrals | 1,200 | |
| Content marketing / SEO | 600 | |
| Partnerships (coaching schools) | 400 | |
| Paying coaches | ~2,200 | |
| ARR Year 3 | $1.19M | 6.2% of SAM |
Key dependency: Year 3 assumes >85% annual retention and functioning referral loops. If monthly churn exceeds 5%, realistic Year 3 lands at 500–800 coaches (~$350K ARR). Your Aletheia survey will reveal whether the "package tracking" pain point is acute enough to drive word-of-mouth.
!
Software adoption rate (40%) is the biggest unknown. ICF doesn't publish tool-usage data. Many coaches use Calendly + Venmo + Google Sheets and resist consolidation. Your survey is the single most important data point to validate or kill this assumption.
!
Adjacent practitioner market is essentially unquantified. The 80K figure is a placeholder. Could be 30K or 200K. Until you test messaging with IFS practitioners or somatic workers, treat expansion TAM as speculative.
~
Price sensitivity may compress revenue. Paperbell at $57/mo is the high end. CoachAccountable starts at $20. Practice.do at $5. If the market clusters at $25–35/mo, SAM drops ~30% to $13M.
~
ICF data likely undercounts coaches. Many practitioners never join ICF. True global count could be 200K–300K+, but the incremental coaches skew part-time and price-sensitive — expanding headcount without proportionally expanding revenue.
~
SOM Year 3 assumes PMF achieved. 2,200 paying coaches requires product-market fit, strong retention, and organic referral loops — none of which exist yet.
Paperbell
$57/mo flat. $47M+ processed through platform. Est. 2K–5K active coaches. Simple, scheduling-first. Direct
CoachAccountable
$20–$400/mo by client count. 5.0/5 Capterra. Deep engagement tracking, dated UI. Direct
Simply.Coach
From $9/mo. VC-backed. Enterprise + solo. Poor UI reviews on Reddit. Direct
Practice.do
From $5/mo. CRM + messaging + voice memos. Lightweight, newer entrant. Partial
HoneyBook
$9.99–$49/mo. Generic service-biz CRM. Strong invoicing. Coaches adopt it but it's not built for them. Indirect
SimplePractice
Therapy-focused. $50M+ ARR. Proves vertical SaaS for solo practitioners scales. Insurance billing creates deep lock-in. Analog
The SimplePractice signal: A vertical SaaS for therapists reached $50M+ ARR solving practice management for solo practitioners — the identical structural play. Key difference: therapists have insurance billing complexity that creates lock-in. RedThread needs an equivalent retention hook. Package tracking + mixed billing model support is the candidate.
The honest read
Your market is real, niche, and ownable. A $19M core SAM supports a strong bootstrapped business. Reaching $1M ARR would represent ~6% market share — ambitious but achievable with the right product. This market does not support a venture-scale outcome without expanding into adjacent verticals or layering premium AI features.
The opportunity: A fragmented market where incumbents have weak moats. Paperbell wins on simplicity but lacks billing model sophistication. CoachAccountable has depth but poor UX. Nobody owns "package tracking + mixed billing models" as a positioning. That wedge is unclaimed.
The risk: Coaches are price-sensitive and tool-averse. The 40% adoption assumption is the load-bearing wall of this entire analysis. Your Aletheia survey will either validate it or force a significant downward revision.
Recommended framing: A $19M niche you can dominate, with expansion optionality into $40–50M through adjacent practitioners and AI upsell. Lead with the niche ownership story, not the TAM.