Most coaches do not need more software. They need one good tool for each job and nothing doubled up. We grouped the tools coaches use most by the job they do, checked every price on the official pricing pages in October 2026, and named the catch for each one, so you can build a stack that fits where your business is now.
A new coach can run a business on free tools: Cal.com for booking, Kit or MailerLite for email, Systeme.io for pages and checkout, Stripe for payments and Google Meet or Zoom for calls. As you grow, add a CRM (HubSpot or GoHighLevel), Skool or Kajabi for delivery, and Zapier or Make to join it up.
Who this is for: New and growing coaches choosing software for booking, email, pages, courses, payments and follow-up.
Start with the jobs, not the tools. Every coaching business needs the same handful of things: a way for people to book, somewhere to keep track of leads, email, a page that sells, a place to deliver the work, a way to get paid and a video call. Pick one tool for each job and stop there.
We chose the tools below because coaches use them widely and each one has a free plan or a clear entry price. For each we say what it does for a coach, the price it starts from and the catch. Prices are from each vendor's official pricing page at the time of writing (October 2026) and are in US dollars.
| Job | Tool | Free plan | Price from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booking | Calendly | Yes, 1 event type | $10 a seat a month (yearly) |
| Booking | Cal.com | Yes, 1 user | $12 a user a month (yearly) |
| CRM | HubSpot | Yes, 2 users, 1,000 contacts | Check current pricing |
| CRM and follow-up | GoHighLevel | No, 14-day trial | $97 a month plus usage |
| Kit | Yes, up to 10,000 subscribers | $39 a month | |
| MailerLite | Yes, up to 250 subscribers | $12 a month | |
| Funnels and pages | Systeme.io | Yes, 2,000 contacts | $17 a month |
| Community | Skool | No | $9 a month plus 10% fee |
| Courses | Kajabi | No, free trial | $143 a month (yearly) |
| Payments | Stripe | No monthly fee | 2.9% + 30 cents per US card payment |
| Clients and contracts | Paperbell | No, free trial | $97 a month |
| Video calls | Zoom or Google Meet | Yes, with time limits | $7 to $14.16 a user a month |
| Automation | Zapier | Yes, 100 tasks a month | $19.99 a month (yearly) |
| Automation | Make | Yes, 1,000 credits a month | $12 a month |
Calendly gives leads a link to book a discovery call in the times you choose. It is the name people recognise, and almost every CRM and email tool connects to it. The free plan allows one event type and one calendar, which is enough for a single discovery call. Reminders, Stripe and PayPal payments and integrations such as HubSpot and Zapier start on Standard at $10 a seat a month billed yearly. The catch: routing forms and round robin need Teams at $16 a seat a month, so a small sales team pays more here than elsewhere.
Cal.com does the same job with a much wider free plan: one user, unlimited event types, Stripe and PayPal payments and email and SMS notifications. For a solo coach who wants a free discovery call and a paid session from day one, it is the easiest free pick. Teams costs $12 a user a month on yearly billing and adds round robin, routing forms and removing Cal.com branding. The catch: fewer outside tools put it first, so check your CRM connects before you commit. Our Calendly vs Cal.com vs TidyCal comparison goes deeper.
A CRM is where every lead lives, with notes on what they said and what happens next. HubSpot's free CRM covers two users and 1,000 contacts with no time limit, and connects to Gmail and Outlook. For a coach who mostly needs to stop leads slipping through the cracks, that is plenty. The catch: automated follow-up sequences and more contacts mean moving to paid Starter seats, and HubSpot shows different rates for monthly and yearly billing, so check current pricing. It also takes some setting up before it feels useful.
GoHighLevel puts CRM, pipelines, email, SMS, booking, forms and funnels in one account, which is why many coaches who want texts and automated follow-up end up there. The Starter plan is $97 a month with a 14-day free trial, and includes unlimited contacts and users. The catch: email and SMS carry usage-based charges on top of the plan, and it is built for agencies, so it takes real time to set up well. If it feels like too much, our list of GoHighLevel alternatives covers simpler options.
Kit (formerly ConvertKit) is email built for creators and coaches. Its free plan allows up to 10,000 subscribers with unlimited forms, landing pages and broadcasts, tagging and digital products. That makes it a strong free home for a newsletter. The catch: email sequences and visual automations, the very things that nurture a lead towards a call, need the Creator plan, which starts at $39 a month for up to 1,000 subscribers and rises with your list.
MailerLite is a simple, low-cost email tool with a tidy editor. The free plan covers up to 250 subscribers and 2,500 emails a month, with automations, signup forms, one landing page and one digital product or booking included. Paid plans start at $12 a month. It suits a coach who wants a welcome sequence running from day one without paying. The catch: 250 subscribers goes quickly, and once you pass it campaigns and automations are locked until you upgrade.
Systeme.io is an all-in-one builder for funnels, sales pages, email, courses and checkout. The free plan includes 2,000 contacts, three funnels and one course, and the pricing page says no transaction fees on any plan. Paid plans start at $17 a month. For a new coach who wants an opt-in page, a sales page and a checkout without stitching tools together, it is the cheapest complete option. The catch: the design tools are more basic than dedicated page builders. See our list of the cheapest funnel builders for others.
Skool combines a community feed, a classroom for courses and a calendar for live calls in one simple app. Coaches who run a group programme or paid community like it because members actually post. Hobby is $9 a month and Pro is $99 a month. The catch: Hobby takes a 10% transaction fee, and Pro takes 2.9%, so once you sell anything meaningful Pro is usually cheaper. It also has no email marketing of its own.
Kajabi is for coaches who sell courses and coaching and want the website, email, funnels and checkout in one place. Basic is $179 a month, or $143 a month billed yearly, with 2,500 contacts and five products. Kajabi says it takes no revenue share. The catch: it is the most expensive tool on this list, and a lot to pay before you have buyers. Our Skool vs Kajabi comparison helps you choose between the two.
Stripe takes card payments for one-off sessions, packages and payment plans, through payment links, checkout pages or invoices. Most booking, course and funnel tools connect to it. There is no monthly fee; standard US card payments cost 2.9% plus 30 cents, with extra for international cards. The catch: Stripe takes the money but does not handle contracts, scheduling or client notes, and invoices on the Starter plan add 0.4% per paid invoice.
Paperbell is built only for coaches: packages, scheduling, contracts, payments and a client portal in one place. A client can pick a package, sign the contract, pay and book their first session in one go. It costs $97 a month or $970 a year, with no extra transaction fees and a 30-day money-back guarantee. The catch: there is no free plan, and it does not do email marketing, so you still need a tool like Kit or MailerLite to get people to the point of buying. It pairs well with clear coaching packages.
You need one reliable video call tool for sessions and discovery calls. Zoom's free Basic plan allows meetings of up to 40 minutes with 100 participants; Pro is $14.16 a user a month billed yearly or $16.99 monthly. Google Meet on a free personal account allows 60 minutes for calls of three or more people, and Google says one-to-one calls run far longer. Google Workspace Business Starter is listed at $7 a user a month. The catch: Zoom's 40 minute limit cuts paid sessions short, so most coaches pay for one of them.
Zapier joins your tools so you do not copy details by hand. A new booking can add the lead to your CRM, tag them in your email tool and post a message to you. The free plan gives 100 tasks a month on two-step Zaps. Professional starts at $19.99 a month billed yearly, or $29.99 monthly, for 750 tasks. The catch: costs climb with tasks, so a busy setup gets expensive, and every link is one more thing that can break without you noticing.
Make does the same job as Zapier with a visual canvas that handles more complex flows. The free plan includes 1,000 credits a month, and Make's pricing page lists Core at $12 a month, with a lower rate on yearly billing. Coaches with a few multi-step automations often find it cheaper than Zapier. The catch: it takes longer to learn, and some actions use more than one credit, so check your usage in the first month.
Two of our own free tools are worth a mention too, because they cost nothing and need no account. The hourly rate calculator for coaches works out your rate and how many clients and calls you need each month. The funnel leak calculator shows which step loses you the most clients. Neither runs your business, but both tell you where to spend before you buy more software.
New coach, close to free. Cal.com for booking, Kit or MailerLite for email, Systeme.io for an opt-in page, a sales page and checkout, Stripe for payments and Google Meet for calls. Your only cost is card fees when someone pays. If you already have a Google Workspace account, Meet comes with it. Keep leads in a simple spreadsheet or HubSpot's free CRM until you have more than you can remember.
Growing coach. Once you have steady leads and a few clients a month, the gaps move. You need faster follow-up, reminders that cut no-shows and a place to deliver the programme. A typical step up is a paid booking plan with reminders, a paid email plan for sequences, Skool or Kajabi for delivery, a paid Zoom account and Zapier or Make to join it all up. Coaches who want CRM, SMS and booking in one place often move to GoHighLevel instead of joining several tools.
Whichever stage you are at, add tools only when a real problem shows up. A new tool will not fix an unclear offer or an empty calendar.
Every tool here can be set up by a coach in a weekend. The hard part is not the tools; it is how they work together. Does a new lead get a reply in minutes? Does a booked call get reminders? Does someone who did not buy hear from you again next week? Those gaps cost more clients than any choice of software.
If you would rather spend your time coaching, a done-for-you studio fits. At Unbury we look at where your marketing loses people, build the fix across your pages, email and follow-up, and run it week to week. It starts with a free audit, so you can see what is leaking before you spend anything.
Five things cover most new coaching businesses: a booking tool, an email tool, a page with a checkout, a way to take payments and a video call tool. All five can be free to start, with Cal.com, Kit or MailerLite, Systeme.io, Stripe and Google Meet. Add a CRM once you have more leads than you can track in your head.
It depends on what you sell. Systeme.io is the cheapest all-in-one for pages, email, courses and checkout. Kajabi suits coaches selling courses who want more polish, and GoHighLevel suits coaches who want CRM, SMS and booking together. Paperbell is the all-in-one for client admin: packages, contracts, payments and scheduling.
Yes. Cal.com, Kit, MailerLite, Systeme.io, HubSpot's CRM, Zapier, Make, Zoom and Google Meet all have free plans, each with limits. Stripe has no monthly fee and only charges when you get paid. Our own consulting rate and funnel leak calculators are free with no account.
Not on day one. A spreadsheet works while you have a handful of leads. Once you are losing track of who you spoke to and who needs a follow-up, HubSpot's free CRM or GoHighLevel will pay for itself in clients you would otherwise forget.
There is no fixed rule, but a new coach can spend close to nothing and a growing coach often spends a few hundred dollars a month across tools. The safest approach is to pay for a tool only when it solves a problem you already have, and to cancel anything that doubles up.
Send us your setup and we will tell you honestly where it is leaking customers and what to fix first. Free, no pitch.