| Product |
Model |
Entry price |
Typical coach spend |
Key gate |
| Practice.do |
Flat tiers |
$5/mo |
$29–49/mo |
Client count |
| Simply.Coach |
Flat tiers |
$9/mo |
$29–49/mo |
Features + clients |
| CoachAccountable |
Per-client tiers |
$20/mo |
$40–100/mo |
Active client count |
| HoneyBook |
Flat tiers |
$10/mo |
$33–49/mo |
Automation features |
| Paperbell |
Single flat rate |
$57/mo |
$57/mo |
None — all features included |
| RedThread |
Recommended → |
$0 (free tier) |
$29–49/mo |
Billing models + AI |
The market clusters at $29–49/mo for solo coaches. Paperbell at $57 is the ceiling — they earn it through brand trust and 14K+ customers. CoachAccountable scales above $100 only for coaches with 25+ active clients. Your initial $30–60/mo target range is correct directionally but the sweet spot skews toward the lower end for customer acquisition. You earn the right to charge $49+ after proving retention.
Per-seat
Charge per coach user. Standard in B2B SaaS. Makes sense when the buyer is a team or org.
REJECT
Your buyer is a solo coach. Per-seat = flat rate with extra steps. No upside, just confusion.
Usage-based
Charge per client or per session logged. Revenue scales with the coach's business.
RISKY
CoachAccountable does this ($4/active client). Coaches hate unpredictable bills. Creates perverse incentive to avoid logging data.
Flat-rate tiers
2–3 fixed monthly prices differentiated by features. Predictable for buyer and seller.
RECOMMENDED
Coaches want simplicity. Paperbell's single-price model proves flat pricing works. Tiers let you capture value from power users without penalizing small practices.
Freemium
Free tier with limited features, paid upgrade. Standard growth play for bootstrapped SaaS.
ADD THIS
A free tier is your distribution engine. Coaches are tool-averse — you need zero-friction trial. Gate it by client count (3 clients free), not time.
Verdict: Freemium + flat-rate tiers. Free tier for acquisition (replaces the 14-day trial that coaches abandon). Two paid tiers differentiated by billing model sophistication and AI features. This gives you a natural upgrade path: free → core when they hit 4+ clients → pro when they want AI session analysis or advanced package tracking.
Why not per-client like CoachAccountable? CoachAccountable's own Capterra reviews cite pricing complaints. One coach wrote their costs became uncomfortable as they scaled. Coaches manage 12 clients on average (ICF data). Per-client pricing creates anxiety at exactly the moment a coach is growing — the wrong emotion to associate with your product.
You don't have survey data yet, so I'm running a proxy Van Westendorp using competitive price anchoring and coach economics. The four VW questions map to observable market signals:
| Van Westendorp Question |
|---|
| Too cheap (quality doubt) | < $15/mo |
| Cheap (good deal) | $19–25/mo |
| Expensive (hesitation) | $45–55/mo |
| Too expensive (walk away) | $65+/mo |
Evidence for these thresholds:
Too cheap (< $15): Practice.do at $5 and Simply.Coach at $9 are perceived as lightweight / starter tools. At that price, coaches question whether it's a serious product.
Cheap ($19–25): CoachAccountable entry at $20/mo is seen as great value. Reddit threads consistently call this range "fair" for coaching tools.
Expensive ($45–55): Paperbell at $57 draws comments about needing to justify the cost. Coaches at this range need to feel they're replacing 3+ other tools.
Too expensive ($65+): No solo-coach practice management tool charges above $60 flat. The market has a hard ceiling here for individual practitioners.
Competitive price positioning
Optimal intersection: $29/mo (core) and $49/mo (pro). $29 sits above the "too cheap" zone while undercutting Paperbell by 49%. It prices into the "good deal" band where purchase friction is lowest. $49 captures power users who want AI features and advanced billing tools, anchored just below Paperbell's $57. The $20 gap between tiers is wide enough to feel meaningful, narrow enough that upgrade doesn't feel like a leap.
Charging for what you built instead of what you solve
Your positioning doc describes features: "Smart Package Dashboard," "Renewal Workflow," "Flexible Engagement Models." These are inputs. Coaches don't buy features — they buy the answer to "which clients owe me money versus which clients I owe sessions to."
That single question, answered reliably, is worth $29/mo to any coach running 5+ clients on mixed billing models. It prevents revenue leakage (missed renewals), eliminates the anxiety of manual tracking, and saves 2–3 hours per week of spreadsheet wrangling.
The fix: Price and position around outcomes, not capabilities. Your tiers should be named for the problem they solve, not the features they contain. "Starter" → "Solo." "Pro" → "Practice." "Enterprise" → drop it entirely (you don't serve enterprises).
The math that justifies $29/mo: If RedThread prevents even one client from silently churning because you caught a package nearing completion, that's $600–$3,600 in recovered revenue. Your entire annual subscription pays for itself on a single saved renewal. Lead with that ROI story, not feature lists.
Free
$0
forever / no card required
Get started managing your first clients. See why coaches switch from spreadsheets.
- ✓ Up to 3 active clients
- ✓ Session-package billing model
- ✓ Session logging & tracking
- ✓ Package progress dashboard
- ✓ Basic payment tracking (manual)
- ✓ Client notes
Not included
- – Pay-as-you-go & retainer billing
- – Renewal alerts & workflows
- – AI session analysis
- – Data export
Most popular
Core
$29
per month · billed monthly
$24/mo billed annually
Full practice management for coaches with mixed billing models. The sweet spot.
- ✓ Unlimited clients
- ✓ All 3 billing models (session-package, retainer, PAYG)
- ✓ Renewal urgency alerts at 75% / 90% / 100% completion
- ✓ Payment tracking (all methods)
- ✓ Prospect pipeline & temperature tracking
- ✓ Dashboard analytics
- ✓ Data export (CSV)
Not included
- – AI session notes & analysis
- – Cross-session pattern recognition
- – Calendar sync
- – API access
Pro
$49
per month · billed monthly
$39/mo billed annually
AI-enhanced coaching insights. For coaches who want to see patterns across sessions and clients.
- ✓ Everything in Core
- ✓ AI session note integration (Granola, Otter, etc.)
- ✓ Cross-session pattern recognition
- ✓ AI-suggested threads of inquiry
- ✓ Calendar sync (Google, Outlook)
- ✓ Priority support
- ✓ API access
Why these gates maximize upgrade rate:
Free → Core trigger: The 3-client cap. Average coaches carry 12 clients (ICF data). A new coach hits the cap within 1–3 months of starting. The free tier proves value; the cap creates natural pressure. No artificial time limit means coaches don't churn before experiencing the "aha" moment. The billing model gate matters too — when their 4th client wants a retainer instead of a session package, they need Core.
Core → Pro trigger: AI features are aspirational, not essential. Coaches upgrade when they have enough session history (~6 months) to make pattern recognition valuable. This means Pro revenue compounds over time as your cohort matures. Calendar sync is deliberately held at Pro because it's a convenience feature with high perceived value that coaches request frequently — it creates upgrade pull without blocking core functionality.
Annual discount strategy: Offer 17% off for annual billing ($24/mo Core, $39/mo Pro). This is standard SaaS and locks in revenue. Frame it as "2 months free" — coaches respond better to that framing than percentage discounts. Do not offer annual on Free tier (defeats the purpose).
Assuming Year 3 target of 2,200 paying coaches (from TAM analysis):
| Tier |
% of paid users |
Users |
Avg monthly |
Annual revenue |
| Free |
(not counted) |
~6,000 |
$0 |
$0 |
| Core |
70% |
1,540 |
$27 |
$499K |
| Pro |
30% |
660 |
$44 |
$348K |
| Total |
|
2,200 paid |
$32 blended |
$847K ARR |
Blended ARPU of $32/mo reflects a 70/30 Core-to-Pro split with ~30% of users on annual plans (lower effective rate). Conservative relative to the $45/mo assumed in the TAM analysis — deliberately so. Achieving the $1.2M ARR from the TAM slide requires either more users (2,800+) or a richer Pro tier that shifts the mix. Both are plausible by Year 3 if AI features deliver real value.