Workout builder apps for personal trainers.
Five compared.

01 / The short answer

Which app suits which coach?

All five offer a free trial: 30 days for Trainerize and My PT Hub, and 14 days for TrueCoach, Kahunas and TrainHeroic. All except Kahunas say no card is needed to start; Kahunas doesn’t say either way.

02 / How to choose

Five questions that narrow the list

1. How many clients will you coach in a year? The apps price in different ways: by client (Trainerize, TrueCoach, TrainHeroic), by a client cap (Kahunas) or with unlimited clients at one price (My PT Hub). The cheapest app at five clients isn’t the cheapest at fifty.
2. Do you coach nutrition as well as training? If you want to build meal plans in the app, Kahunas and My PT Hub include them and Trainerize charges extra. TrueCoach suggests uploading meal plans as files, and TrainHeroic isn’t designed for nutrition.
3. One-to-one or groups? TrainHeroic is built around teams. The others handle groups too, but their focus is the individual client.
4. Do you need your own app? Options range from your logo on the company’s app to a listing under your name in the app stores. Prices are in each app’s section below.
5. Will clients pay you through the app? Fees differ: TrueCoach takes 5% of each payment, Kahunas takes no commission, and TrainHeroic leaves billing personal clients to you.

03 / Cost

What each app costs at your client numbers

The cheapest plan that covers 5, 20 and 50 clients, billed monthly. In brackets is the monthly cost with annual billing or a 12-month commitment, where the company offers one.

A few things the table can’t show:

• Trainerize at 20 clients needs its 30-client plan, because the tier below covers 15.
• Meal plans on Trainerize come with its Advanced Nutrition Coaching add-on: $20 a month on plans up to 15 clients, $45 above that. With it, the three figures become $45, $124 and $180.
• Kahunas’s annual figures are its yearly prices ($315 and $621) divided by twelve.
• My PT Hub’s Starter plan covers only three clients, so Premium is the price from four upwards. The bracketed figure needs a 12-month commitment.
• TrainHeroic has no annual billing below 1,000 athletes.

The app is one of the business costs that sets your minimum price. Our guide to how much to charge for nutrition coaching shows where it fits.

04 / The apps

The five apps in detail

Trainerize

ABC Trainerize prices by the number of clients you coach. There’s a permanent free plan for one client, Grow at $10 a month for two, and Pro from $25 a month for five, rising to $135 for 50. Annual billing takes about 10% off.

• Nutrition: paid plans include client meal and macro tracking, nutrition goals and a MyFitnessPal connection. Meal plans, a library of more than 2,400 recipes and shopping lists come with the Advanced Nutrition Coaching add-on.
• Sharing resources: attach a PDF to a client’s Meal Plan tab (up to 20MB), send PDFs and documents in messages (up to 10MB), or post them to a group.
• Branded app: a one-time $169 on Pro adds your logo and colours to the Trainerize app. A fully white-labelled app, listed under your name in the app stores, comes with the Studio plan.
• Payments: through your own Stripe account, with a $10-a-month add-on. Stripe’s fees depend on your country.

Suits: coaches who want training and nutrition tracking in one app, including those starting with one or two clients.

TrueCoach

TrueCoach has three tiers, priced by active clients: Starter at $29.98 a month for up to 5, Standard at $69.98 for up to 20 and Pro at $164.98 for up to 50. Above 50, it quotes on request. Extra coaches cost nothing, and archived clients don’t count towards your total.

• Nutrition: set calorie and macro goals on any plan and connect MyFitnessPal. Logging food and habits in the app itself needs Standard or above. There’s no meal-plan builder; TrueCoach suggests uploading meal plans as files.
• Sharing resources: files uploaded to your library, including PDFs, spreadsheets and documents, are visible to all your clients. To send something to one client, attach it to a direct message.
• Branded app: on Standard and Pro, at no extra cost: your logo, your colours and your own TrueCoach web address.
• Payments: built in for coaches based in the US, UK, Australia and Canada, at a flat 5% per transaction, plus $15 for each chargeback.

Suits: one-to-one coaches who programme training and track macros through MyFitnessPal, and small teams of coaches.

Kahunas

Kahunas charges a flat fee with a client cap rather than a price per client: Essentials at $35 a month for up to 25 clients, Growth at $69 for up to 50 and Ultimate at $99 for unlimited clients. Paying yearly costs $315, $621 or $900.

• Nutrition: every plan includes nutrition plans and templates, macro-only plans and a food database that clients can log from, including by barcode. Kahunas says it doesn’t currently integrate with MyFitnessPal.
• Sharing resources: the Content Library, which Kahunas also calls the Vault, takes PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, video and audio, and can release content to clients over time. Kahunas suggests adding recipes there as PDFs.
• Branded app: on Ultimate only. You’ll also need Apple’s developer account, at $99 a year.
• Payments: through Stripe and PayPal, with no commission from Kahunas.

Suits: coaches with roughly 6 to 50 clients who want meal plans included in the price.

My PT Hub

My PT Hub’s Starter plan costs $25 a month for three clients. Premium is $59 a month for unlimited clients, or $52 a month with a 12-month commitment. Ultimate, at $215, includes every add-on and five extra trainers.

• Nutrition: custom meal plans and recipes, calorie and macro targets, and food logging with a barcode scanner are included as standard. Clients can sync MyFitnessPal.
• Sharing resources: upload files to your account and assign them to individual clients, or attach PDFs and links in chat.
• Branded app: a one-time $95 puts your logo on the app icon, although the name beneath it still reads My PT Hub. A white-label app with your own store listing costs $145 a month.
• Payments: through Stripe. My PT Hub charges an application fee on each transaction; the rate is agreed in writing rather than published.

Suits: coaches past three clients who want one price however many they take on, with meal plans and group classes included.

TrainHeroic

TrainHeroic prices by athlete count, billed monthly: $17.99 for up to 5, $44.99 for up to 25 and $74.99 for up to 50, with tiers continuing to 1,000. Assistant coaches cost $9.99 a month each.

• Built for teams: one calendar delivers programming to a whole team, with team messaging and leaderboards. Team subscriptions can be sold through its marketplace.
• Nutrition: TrainHeroic says it isn’t designed to track nutrition. Athletes who pay for its Athlete Pro subscription on an iPhone can share calories and macros from apps such as MyFitnessPal through Apple Health.
• Sharing resources: there are no file attachments. Share a link instead, for example to a Google Doc, in a session or a message.
• Branded app: not available; clients see the TrainHeroic logo.
• Payments: you bill personal clients outside the app. Marketplace sales cost $1 a month per subscription plus card fees, or 30% on sales TrainHeroic finds for you.

Suits: strength and conditioning coaches, and anyone programming for teams or groups.

05 / Head-to-heads

The comparisons coaches search for

Trainerize vs Kahunas

The pricing works differently. Kahunas’s $35 plan covers up to 25 clients, while Trainerize needs its $79 plan for 20. Kahunas includes meal plans; Trainerize charges $20 to $45 a month for them. Trainerize connects to MyFitnessPal and has a free plan; Kahunas has neither. For a branded app, Trainerize’s one-time $169 adds your logo and colours to its own app, while Kahunas puts your app in the stores on its $99-a-month Ultimate plan.

Trainerize vs TrainHeroic

TrainHeroic is cheaper than Trainerize at every client number in the table above, and it’s built for programming teams. It has no nutrition tools, no branded app and no file attachments. Trainerize covers training and nutrition for individual clients and lets you share PDFs in several places.

TrueCoach vs Trainerize

TrueCoach has three simple tiers, extra coaches at no cost and branding included from its Standard plan. Trainerize is cheaper at 5 and 50 clients; TrueCoach is cheaper at 20. Both connect to MyFitnessPal, and neither builds meal plans without help: Trainerize sells an add-on for them, and TrueCoach suggests uploading them as files. TrueCoach’s built-in payments cost 5% per transaction; Trainerize uses your own Stripe account for a $10 monthly add-on.

06 / The content

What the app won’t do

Each of these apps delivers programmes, check-ins and messages. None of them writes the recipes, guides or welcome pack your clients read. That still has to come from you, and most of it ends up as a PDF.

A resource is worth making once and reusing. A branded welcome guide, a recipe book or a handout on a question clients keep asking can go into whichever app you use, and moves with you if you change. Our guides cover what a welcome pack should contain, choosing and introducing handouts and using ready-made white-label resources.

07 / Alternatives

Also worth a look

• Everfit has a free plan for up to five clients. Its paid plans start at $19 a month, billed monthly, and add food-journal and macro tracking and basic meal plans.
• Exercise.com describes itself as software for gyms and fitness businesses, and invites you to book a demo. It suits a business with staff and premises more than a solo online coach.
• No app yet. If you coach nutrition only, with a handful of clients, well-designed forms and one organised place for each client’s notes may be enough to start. Our guide to nutrition coaching forms covers what to collect, and the onboarding guide covers the process.

08 / Questions

Questions trainers ask

Which app is cheapest for a new trainer?

Trainerize is free for one client and $10 a month for two, and Everfit is free for up to five. Among the five apps compared here, TrainHeroic is the cheapest paid plan at five clients ($17.99), followed by Trainerize ($25).

Can I use MyFitnessPal with these apps?

Trainerize (on paid plans), TrueCoach and My PT Hub connect to it. Kahunas says it doesn’t currently integrate with MyFitnessPal. TrainHeroic only shows MyFitnessPal data if the athlete pays for its Athlete Pro subscription and uses an iPhone.

Do I need a branded app?

No app here requires one. The cheapest options put your logo and colours on the company’s app: TrueCoach includes it from its Standard plan, Trainerize charges $169 once and My PT Hub $95 once. A listing under your own name in the app stores costs more: Kahunas’s $99-a-month Ultimate plan, My PT Hub’s $145-a-month white-label app or Trainerize’s Studio plan. TrainHeroic doesn’t offer one.