FAQ

Questions coaches actually ask.

The master question hub for TrainedBy. Pricing, payments, client experience, AI, migration, retention, ownership, and the awkward blockers coaches usually want answered before they commit.

Last updated: April 25, 2026Built for coaches running a real coaching business

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Search pricing, payments, migration, AI, retention, exports, client experience, and the rest of the awkward questions in one place.

39 questions across 8 sections

01 · Fit & getting started

Fit & getting started

TrainedBy is built for coaches treating coaching like a real business. Before the product details, here is who it is for and what happens when you start.

Who is TrainedBy for?

Coaches running a real coaching business — 5 to 200 active clients, online or hybrid. Physique, strength, lifestyle, contest prep, postpartum, women's health, general fitness. If you have paying clients and friction in onboarding, delivery, payments, check-ins, or retention, TrainedBy replaces the stitched-together stack with one operating system. Smaller rosters are welcome and the platform scales with you — but the product is not a beginner tutorial. It is the operating layer behind a practice, not a course on how to start one.

What happens on day one — how fast can I start coaching?

Same day. Pick a tier on /pricing, check out, and you're inside TrainedBy immediately — no sales call, no onboarding queue, no waiting. Your coach page goes live at trainedby.fit/@you, and you can invite your first client, build your first plan, and take a payment inside the first hour. Studio takes longer because the brand-layer setup is bespoke — custom domain, white-labelled apps, a named contact. For Starter and Pro, the answer to 'when can I start' is 'when did you check out.'

Is this complicated to learn — for me or my clients?

No. The coach side is opinionated, not configurable — you don't build a workflow engine, you write programs and check who needs you. The Weekly Cockpit sorts your roster, the AI surfaces flag what to look at, and each editor (My Link, Programs, Check-ins) does one job. The client side is even tighter — workouts open in a session, meals log from a photo, check-ins follow your structure. Coaches typically have their first client invited the same day, and the client app is built for first-week use without a tutorial. See /features for the full surface.

Do I need a demo?

No. The product is live and self-serve. Every workflow Starter and Pro do is documented on /features, priced on /pricing, and usable the moment you check out. If you want to see the product doing real work first — coach view, client view, check-ins, the Weekly Cockpit, proof cards — /features shows it. Studio is application-only because the commercial setup is bespoke. For everyone else: no call, no queue, no demo tax.

See how the system works

02 · Pricing & tiers

Pricing & tiers

Three tiers. Same coaching system underneath. TrainedBy takes 0% of what your clients pay you, every coaching workflow is included in every tier, and pricing scales by roster size, not by feature unlocks.

Is the price on pricing actually what I pay?

Yes. The number on /pricing is the whole number. Every coaching workflow — training, nutrition, check-ins, habits, messaging, progress photos, Body Scan, Snap, the Weekly Cockpit, retention automation, proof cards, your coach page, payments — is included in your tier. No per-client fees. No per-feature unlocks. No add-ons gating the real product. The subscription is the only line item you pay TrainedBy. Standard Stripe processing fees apply to your clients' payments — those go to Stripe, not us, the same fees you'd pay running Stripe yourself.

Is this too expensive?

Pro is £39 a month. Your clients pay you £150–£300 a month each. One retained client covers the full year of Pro — and TrainedBy takes 0% of what your clients pay you, so the subscription is the only line item you owe us. The math works on one save. Pro pays for itself the moment it stops one client churning, converts one lead on your coach page, or recovers one failed renewal. A year of Pro costs less than one client-month of a serious coaching fee.

Is there a free trial?

No. The product is live and fully self-serve — every coaching workflow is included on every tier, with no demo tax and no waiting list. The moment you check out you're inside, with your coach page live and your first client invitable inside the first hour. If you want to start small, Starter is the low-risk entry at £10 a month — move to Pro when you cross five clients. If you want to see the product doing real work first, /features shows it.

What if I only have a small roster?

Start on Starter — £10 a month, up to five active clients, every coaching workflow included. When you cross five, move to Pro in one click without losing anything you've built. Don't pay for capacity you aren't using, and don't use a small roster as a reason to stay on Sheets and WhatsApp. A small roster is the right moment to start running like a serious coach — cheaper, faster, and less painful to grow into TrainedBy than to migrate into it later with 40 clients already scattered across apps.

How is Pro different from Starter?

Pro is the tier a working roster actually runs on. Starter is capped at five active clients; Pro takes you to 50 and unlocks the business layer Starter doesn't: bulk migration tools, advanced coach analytics, retention and follow-up automation, clean-branded share cards in your name only, and Founding 100 eligibility. The coaching workflows themselves are identical — training, nutrition, check-ins, habits, messaging, Body Scan, Snap, the Weekly Cockpit. What Pro adds is the infrastructure to operate, retain, and grow at real volume. Coaches running a roster, not a side practice, belong on Pro.

Which plan should I actually pick?

Up to five active clients: Starter. Five to fifty active clients running the business seriously: Pro. A practice that already operates more like a brand — your own iOS and Android client apps, your own domain, the TrainedBy name disappearing from what your clients see: Studio. If you're between tiers, Pro is almost always the right answer; it's what a working roster actually runs on. Move between tiers any time without losing what you've built.

Is Studio for me?

Studio is for coaches and brands whose commercial setup looks more like a small company than a single practice. You get your own iOS and Android client apps under your brand, a custom domain where the TrainedBy URL disappears from what your clients see, a bespoke commercial setup, and a named founder contact. Unlimited clients, as a consequence of the tier. Not an enterprise tier, not an agency tier — the brand layer for a practice running past the standard plan. If you're not sure, the honest answer is almost always Pro.

What happens after Founding 100?

Founding 100 closes permanently when the 100th seat fills. After that, Pro moves to whatever standard rate applies, now and later. Coaches who claimed a Founding seat stay locked at £29 a month or £190 a year for the life of the subscription. The rate never moves, no matter what happens to Pro pricing later. A hedge against future pricing, not a discount promo. Founding seats do not reopen. Cancelling out of Pro and coming back later means losing the lock; the rate does not re-attach.

Can I change plans later?

Any time. Upgrade, downgrade, or cancel — no penalty, no notice period, no friction. Your client data stays yours and remains exportable while your account is active. If you downgrade, you keep your content; only the capacity and the business-layer features scoped to the higher tier are affected. If you cancel, the next billing cycle doesn't renew. One exception: cancelling out of Pro releases the Founding 100 locked-for-life rate, and it can't be reclaimed.

See pricing

03 · Payments & the money path

Payments & the money path

Your money path is the one thing that should not feel fragile. TrainedBy runs on Stripe Connect, takes nothing from what your clients pay you, and handles renewals and recovery quietly so revenue does not leak.

What fees do you take?

Zero. TrainedBy takes 0% of what your clients pay you. Stripe Connect sends every payment direct to your bank; standard Stripe processing applies — the same fee you'd pay running Stripe yourself — and that goes to Stripe, not us. No revenue share, no per-transaction surcharge, no hidden workflow upsell, no 'premium payments' tier. The subscription on /pricing is the only line item you owe TrainedBy. Most platforms in this category charge a platform fee on top of Stripe; TrainedBy doesn't — the difference compounds fast at real roster volume.

Where do payments go?

Direct to your bank through Stripe Connect. TrainedBy never holds your clients' money, never settles through a TrainedBy account, never sits in the middle of your payouts. You connect your own Stripe account during setup; from there, every client payment — first payment, renewal, upsell, recovery — lands in your bank on Stripe's standard schedule. You keep full control of your Stripe dashboard: refunds, receipts, disputes, tax exports. TrainedBy handles the coaching-side orchestration (signups, renewals, dunning, grace periods, recovery) — the money flow itself is Stripe to you, with no stop in between.

How do payments, renewals, and failed cards work?

Clients sign up on your coach page, pay through Stripe Connect, and get app access instantly. Renewals run on whatever cycle you set — weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual. When a card fails, TrainedBy retries automatically and notifies the client. A grace period keeps app access working while recovery runs, so an active client isn't locked out over a temporary card issue. If recovery fails, the client is flagged in your Weekly Cockpit as an at-risk revenue signal before access lapses. Revenue that would be quiet churn on manual Stripe stays recoverable in plain sight.

What currencies can I take payments in?

Your coach subscription bills in GBP, USD, or INR at checkout — /pricing auto-detects your region and lets you switch manually. Your clients' payments go through your own Stripe account, which supports the currencies your Stripe is set up for — Stripe Connect handles conversion where needed. UK coach with UK clients: charge in GBP. US coach with international clients: Stripe handles it. If your region isn't at checkout yet, reach out. The client-payment side is as flexible as your Stripe account already is.

See payments in detail

04 · Client experience

Client experience

Your clients never experience TrainedBy as a software layer between you and them. They see a clean app that feels like it belongs to a serious coach — because it does.

Is it easier for clients?

Yes. Logging a workout, a meal, a habit, a photo, or a check-in takes seconds. Meals are photo-first through Snap — the client takes a photo and confirms macros rather than typing them. Workouts run in a progression-aware session with the previous week's lifts surfaced automatically. Habits and photos sit in one journal, not four apps. Check-ins follow the structure you set, not a generic form. Messaging is in-app, not spread across WhatsApp and email. Friction is low enough that logging becomes a habit, not a chore.

Do my clients have to pay anything to use TrainedBy?

No. Your clients never pay TrainedBy. They download the free TrainedBy client app on iOS or Android, log in with the invite you send them, and use it with no platform fee of any kind. What they pay you — your coaching fee — is the only money moving, and it goes through Stripe Connect direct to your bank. TrainedBy is paid by you, not by your clients. On Studio, clients don't even see the TrainedBy name — they use your branded app, with TrainedBy running invisibly underneath.

What do my clients actually see and do inside the app?

A clean home screen with today's training, today's nutrition target, today's habits, and today's check-in if one is due. Workouts run as a progression-aware session — last week's lifts, set-by-set logging, PR auto-detection. Nutrition runs through Snap — photograph the meal, AI extracts macros, the client confirms. Progress photos live in a Photo Journal with side-by-side comparisons. Check-ins follow the structure you set. Messaging is in-app. Your coach page at trainedby.fit/@you is the signup front door for new clients. No ads, no content feed, no marketplace — just your coaching, in your name.

Will my clients actually use it and stick with it?

Adoption depends on two things: how frictionless the app is, and how you onboard. Snap means clients aren't counting macros by hand. Session-based training means they aren't rebuilding programs themselves. Check-ins are short enough to finish in one sitting. Clients onboarded inside TrainedBy from day one settle in fast. Clients migrated mid-relationship from another stack take longer — habit shifts. Either way, the Weekly Cockpit flags clients who stop logging before they disappear, so you can intervene the same week instead of at the cancellation email.

Will my coaching look more premium to clients on TrainedBy than what I'm using now?

A client who currently gets a PDF plan, a WhatsApp message, and a Stripe link sees a freelancer. A client who lands on a clean coach page, signs up in one flow, and lands in a real coaching app with their training, nutrition, check-ins, and progress in one place sees a coach running a real practice. On Studio, the client app ships under your brand. Premium isn't a marketing layer — it's what the client experiences every week. See /features/coach-page for the page itself.

See the client surface

05 · AI, tracking & coaching depth

AI, tracking & coaching depth

TrainedBy's AI exists to feed real coaching decisions, not to replace the coach. Each AI surface is named, scoped, and does one specific job.

How real is the AI-backed part?

Shipped, in production, doing one specific job per surface — not a single GPT wrapper rebadged six ways. AI Body Scan reads three client photos. Snap reads a meal photo. Check-in anomaly detection compares this week's answers against the client's baseline. Plateau detection watches for stalled progress. PR auto-detection catches new lifts. Weekly summaries compress seven days into a coach-readable brief. None of these coach the client. AI surfaces the signal; you remain the head coach. See /features/ai-body-scan and /features/snap for two of these in detail.

What does TrainedBy actually track?

Per client: workouts set-by-set, nutrition with macros and adherence, habits, weight, progress photos, check-in answers, messaging, session notes. Across the roster: at-risk clients, PRs this week, check-ins due, photo drift, cards about to fail. On the business side: coach-page signups, payments, renewals, lifetime value, churn signals. Tracking isn't a data museum — every signal routes into the Weekly Cockpit and becomes a coaching or business decision the same week. See /features/weekly-cockpit for the cockpit itself.

What does the AI in TrainedBy actually do?

Six jobs, each scoped to feed a coaching decision. Check-in anomaly detection compares this week's answers against the client's baseline and flags quiet deterioration. Plateau detection watches training and body signals for stalled progress. PR auto-detection logs personal records as they happen. Weekly summaries compress seven days of client data into a one-paragraph coach-readable brief. Body Scan and Snap each get their own answer below. AI isn't a chatbot your clients talk to — it's a coaching lens you use; you remain the head coach.

How does the AI Body Scan work?

The client takes three photos — front, side, back — inside the client app. The model returns per-region muscle definition scoring, circumference estimates, a symmetry read, and posture notes. Clients can re-run it regularly; the comparison view shows change over time. Treat the output as a trend tool and coaching lens, not a DEXA substitute — the signal is strongest for regional imbalances, tracking definition through cuts and builds, and giving clients a concrete visual anchor for progress. Included in every tier.

How does Snap photo meal logging work?

The client photographs the meal. TrainedBy's AI identifies the food, estimates portion, and returns macros — protein, carbs, fat, calories. The client confirms or adjusts, and the meal lands in the log in seconds. Accuracy is reliable for standard meals and weaker for novel dishes or ambiguous portions, which is why the client can edit before saving. Snap is included on every tier. It replaces the 'did you actually count that?' conversation — coaches get macro-level adherence without interrogating clients meal by meal.

What does the Weekly Cockpit show me?

Your entire roster on one screen, sorted by what needs your attention. Who's slipping. Who hit a PR this week. Whose check-in is overdue. Who's ready for a progression. Whose card failed. Who just signed up from your coach page. Who's a month from renewing. Clients are surfaced in the order your week should handle them, not alphabetically. The Cockpit is the difference between 'I have 40 clients and I'm drowning' and 'I have 40 clients and my week is structured.' Included on every tier.

See the intelligence layer

06 · Switching & migration

Switching & migration

Migrating coaching software always has some friction, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something. Here is how TrainedBy handles it honestly.

How does TrainedBy compare to Trainerize, TrueCoach, Everfit, and similar coaching apps?

The shortest honest comparison: many coaching apps help you deliver programs; TrainedBy is built to run the coaching business too. The differentiators that matter commercially are the 0% TrainedBy platform fee on what your clients pay you, photo-first meal logging through Snap, the Weekly Cockpit sorting your roster by who needs you instead of alphabetically, AI Body Scan, and a coach page wired into the same account that runs the coaching. Start with /vs/trainerize; more competitor comparison pages are coming.

Can I move from Trainerize, TrueCoach, My PT Hub, or Kahunas to TrainedBy?

Yes. Pro includes bulk migration tools and import paths for major coaching-platform exports, then reconnects payments through new signup links on your coach page. What moves cleanly: rosters, contacts, and core profile data. What doesn't move cleanly: messaging history and platform-specific plan content — those usually need rebuilding in the new system, and any tool promising full fidelity there is overstating. Most coaches plan the move as a single week and onboard highest-revenue clients first. Dedicated migration guides are in progress.

Can I replace WhatsApp, Google Sheets, Stripe, and Notion with TrainedBy?

Yes — that's the exact scenario TrainedBy is built for. WhatsApp becomes in-app messaging. Google Sheets becomes Training, Nutrition, and the Weekly Cockpit. PDF plans become the programming library. Notion dashboards become your roster view. Stripe stays — TrainedBy sits on top of Stripe Connect, so your payments infrastructure doesn't change; it gains orchestration (signups, renewals, dunning, grace periods, failed-card recovery) that Sheets-and-Stripe can't do. Coaches stop carrying the operational tax of running the stack. A dedicated /vs/google-sheets-whatsapp guide is in progress.

How long does switching take, and what carries over?

A working week for most rosters under 50, spread across two or three evenings if staged well. Client roster and basic profile data: bulk imported. Payments: reconnected through new signup links; your Stripe account stays yours. Programs: you rebuild the templates you actually use — most coaches realise half their old library was dead weight. Check-in structures: rebuilt in TrainedBy's format. Messaging history: does not transfer — clients pick up fresh conversations in-app. Progress photos: clients re-upload or start fresh. The honest version: fast for things that are yours, harder for things the old platform owned.

See what switching replaces

07 · Growth & retention

Growth & retention

TrainedBy is sold on more clients, better results, and better retention. These are the questions about how the product actually delivers on that.

How does TrainedBy help me get more clients?

Three surfaces built into the product. Your coach page at trainedby.fit/@you is the signup front door — a clean, branded landing page with your offer, your plans, and a direct Stripe checkout. Proof cards turn real client results into one-tap Instagram-ready before/after composites in your brand, with no TrainedBy watermark on Pro. Referrals are wired into the client app — happy clients get prompts to share, routing leads back to your coach page. Together, these make the growth loop part of the product, not something you bolt on with Linktree, Canva, and a prayer.

How does TrainedBy help me keep clients longer?

By catching churn signals before the client tells you. The Weekly Cockpit surfaces at-risk clients — adherence drops, missed check-ins, skipped workouts, photo silence — before the cancellation email lands. Check-in anomaly detection flags the week a client is quietly slipping. Card retries and grace periods recover renewals that would be silent churn on manual Stripe. Follow-up automation on Pro keeps lapsed clients in a structured re-engagement flow instead of disappearing into your inbox. Retention isn't one feature here — it's where the Cockpit, AI, and payments layer meet. The coach still intervenes; TrainedBy makes sure you notice in time.

Can I run 50+ clients without coaching quality dropping?

Yes — that's the specific problem the Weekly Cockpit solves. At 50 clients, the bottleneck stops being programming and starts being knowing where to focus each week. The Cockpit sorts your roster by who needs you now, who needs you soon, and who's running clean. Check-in anomaly detection, plateau detection, and weekly summaries compress your decision space. Pro is built for this volume and unlocks the automation layer — retention follow-ups, renewal recovery — that makes 50 manageable. Coaches running 50+ seriously often move to Studio, where white-label apps take the business past the single-practice ceiling.

See how the growth loop works

08 · Ownership, data & trust

Ownership, data & trust

Your clients are yours. Your data is yours. You can take both with you. These are the questions every serious operator asks before committing to a platform.

What happens if I ever leave?

Your clients and their data stay yours. At any point — before, during, or after your subscription ends — you can export your roster, client profiles, training history, nutrition logs, progress photos, check-in responses, and payment records. Your Stripe account stays in your control regardless of what happens to your TrainedBy subscription. Your coach page and trainedby.fit/@you URL become inactive when the subscription ends, but everything else — the commercial relationships, the data, the Stripe payouts — is yours. No hostage data. No export fees. No lock-in games. The product should earn renewal, not extract it.

Can I export my client data if I leave?

Yes — at any point, including the day you decide to go. Roster, profiles, training logs, nutrition logs, progress photos, check-in history, habit data, messaging history, and payment records all export in standard formats. No export fee, no sunset window, no final-chance pressure. Exports are structured to make import into the next platform as clean as the destination allows.

Who owns my clients and my content inside TrainedBy?

You do — the commercial relationship and the content. TrainedBy does not market to your clients, does not run a client-side marketplace, and does not route your clients to other coaches. Programs you build, check-in structures you design, proof cards you create, and your coach page content all belong to you. TrainedBy is the infrastructure; your practice is your practice. On Studio, it's even more explicit — the client-facing app is your brand, and clients may never see the name TrainedBy. The platform is ours; everything running on it belongs to the coach running it.

Where is my data stored, and is TrainedBy GDPR compliant?

You can access, correct, delete, and export your data at any time through the support route on /privacy. Data is protected with encryption in transit and at rest. TrainedBy does not sell client data, does not market to your clients, and shares only the minimum needed for services like authentication, payments, and AI analysis. The current legal terms live on /privacy and /terms. Stricter procurement requirements — residency, DPA terms, audit — belong on a Studio conversation before rollout.

Read the legal pages