Coachway vs Exercise.com: the honest comparison.
Coachway and Exercise.com get compared a lot, and this piece treats it fairly. Exercise.com is a powerful, broad, US-built all-in-one for the whole fitness business, gyms, studios, CrossFit boxes, multi-location and multi-staff operations, with online coaching as one part of a much larger suite. Coachway is a European-built platform focused purely on the online fitness coaching workflow. Both are real software. The honest difference is fit, not flaws: Exercise.com goes broad across every kind of fitness business, while Coachway goes deep on one job, handling everything around a single client from one tab instead of six, while raising the value and experience for that client. The short version and a side-by-side table are right below.
By Markus Evers · Updated September 2026
How this comparison is made: we check every competitor's pricing and features against their live websites and re-verify them on a recurring basis. We build Coachway, so we flag it wherever it appears, we credit real competitor strengths, and we say who each platform fits better than us. Browse all platform comparisons.
the short version
Both Coachway and Exercise.com are capable platforms, so choose by your situation. Pick Exercise.com if you run a broad fitness business, a gym, studio, box, or multi-location operation, and you want one all-in-one suite spanning member management, scheduling, access control, payments, and online training, with quote-based pricing and a custom-branded app. Pick Coachway if you are an online fitness coach who wants a tool focused purely on the coaching workflow, a client app written and reviewed by native speakers across six languages, transparent per-client pricing, deep built-in nutrition, and your own Stripe. Exercise.com wins on breadth and business-management scope. Coachway wins on fitness-coach focus, a native-language Nordic and DACH client app, transparent pricing, nutrition depth, and your own Stripe. The full side-by-side, with where each one wins, is below.
Coachway vs Exercise.com, side by side.
| Coachway | Exercise.com | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Online fitness coaches scaling in Europe | Gyms, studios, and broad multi-staff fitness businesses |
| Pricing model | Per-client: EUR 69/mo up to 5 clients + EUR 9 each additional | Quote-based / on request; no prices published on its own page |
| Payments | Your own Stripe, included on every plan | Integrated PCI Level 1 merchant solution; fee not publicly disclosed |
| Branded client app | Client app included, 6 languages | Custom-branded iOS and Android apps, a flagship feature |
| Native-language UI | Client app: EN, DA, NO, SV, FI, DE, reviewed by native speakers | US-built; supported UI languages not publicly listed |
| Nutrition | Deep built-in: 1,100+ recipes, 3,900+ ingredients, 1,800+ exercises | Broad workout and business suite; nutrition depth not stated here |
| Support | Same-day human support from a team that has run coaching businesses | Standard platform support |
| Breadth vs focus | Focused on the online fitness coaching workflow | Broad all-in-one across the whole fitness business |
Pricing and features change. Confirm the current numbers with each provider before you commit; Exercise.com is quote-based, so request a current quote directly. If you would rather weigh several replacements side by side than read a straight head-to-head, our roundup of the best Exercise.com alternatives ranks the focused picks for online coaches, and our guide to switching from Exercise.com covers the exports, the Stripe Express account and the 15-day notice rule. For the wider field beyond these two, see our ranked list of the best online coaching platforms for fitness coaches.
Two capable tools, built for different jobs.
It is worth saying this plainly before the detail: Exercise.com is a genuinely powerful platform, and a lot of fitness businesses are very well served by it. This is not a teardown. Coachway and Exercise.com overlap on the things online coaches care about, training, check-ins, payments, and a client app, so on that slice they look similar. The difference is one of design intent. Exercise.com is built to run an entire fitness business, member management, booking and scheduling, staff management, e-sign waivers, multi-location, remote door access, and reporting alongside online training, which is exactly why its breadth is so valuable to gyms and studios. Coachway is built around one buyer, the online fitness coach, and one job, handling everything around a single client from one tab instead of six, no jumping between WhatsApp, spreadsheets, a workout app, Stripe, and email, while raising the value and the experience for that client. We have also published a standalone Exercise.com review.
This comparison is built from years of operational experience working with online coaches and running real coaching businesses rather than reading spec sheets. That is the lens for everything below. If you want the full feature checklist behind these criteria, our online coaching platform guide walks through the entire stack, and if your decision is mostly about the admin and CRM side, the companion piece on personal trainer client management software goes deeper there.
where exercise.com wins
Exercise.com
Exercise.com is one of the broadest tools in the category, and there are real reasons a fitness business chooses it. Its biggest strength is scope. Member management, check-ins, booking and scheduling, staff management, e-sign waivers and contracts, multi-location support, remote door access, and reporting all sit alongside workout programming, online training, marketing and CRM, and an integrated payment stack, so a single platform can run the gym floor and the online side at once. Its custom-branded iOS and Android apps are a flagship feature, putting your brand front-and-center in the Apple App Store and Google Play. Its payment infrastructure is PCI Level 1 compliant with integrated merchant services, instant payouts, trainer commission splits, payment splitting, and POS, and the platform also offers done-for-you data migration from competitor tools. If your business is broad, a gym, a studio, a CrossFit box, or a multi-location operation, Exercise.com is purpose-built to hold all of that under one roof.
Choose Exercise.com if: you want one all-in-one that runs the whole fitness business, gym floor, scheduling, access control, and online training together, you value an integrated merchant stack, and quote-based enterprise pricing is not a blocker. None of this is a weakness in Coachway, it is simply a different design target.
where coachway wins
Coachway
Coachway trades Exercise.com's breadth for depth on one specific buyer. Where it pulls ahead is for the online fitness coach who lives entirely in the 1:1 coaching workflow. Because the product is focused on that single job, the path from a new client's intake to a delivered program, a meal plan, and a weekly check-in is built to move in as few steps as possible. The nutrition layer is built in and deep, with 1,100+ recipes, 3,900+ ingredients, and 1,800+ exercises, so meal planning lives in the same place as the rest of the coaching. The client experience reflects the focus too: the client app is included at no extra cost and carries the coach's own plans, check-ins and prices, while the whole app, the part your clients actually see and use, is written and reviewed by native speakers across English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and German. For a coach in the Nordics or DACH, that native-language client app is the difference between an interface that feels local and one that feels translated. Pricing is transparent and per-client, EUR 69 per month for up to 5 active clients plus EUR 9 per additional active client, with all features included from day one and cancel anytime, so cost tracks the clients you actually carry, and you can see the price before you ever talk to sales. Payments stay in your own Stripe account, and support is same-day, answered by humans who have run coaching businesses. Coaches across the Nordics, the UK, and Germany run their businesses on it today.
Choose Coachway if: you are an online fitness coach scaling a 1:1 client base, you want everything around a client in one tab instead of six, deep built-in nutrition, a native-language client app for Nordic or DACH clients, transparent per-client pricing, your own Stripe, and same-day human support. If you also need to run a gym floor, scheduling, and access control under one roof, Exercise.com's breadth may serve you better.
Which should you choose?
The decision really comes down to one question: how broad does your business need the tool to be? If the answer is broad, the whole fitness business under one roof, Exercise.com is built for that. If the answer is one focused coaching workflow done as well as possible, Coachway is built for that. Here is the fair way to land it.
- You run a broad business: a gym, studio, box, or multi-location operation. Exercise.com. Its breadth across member management, scheduling, access control, and online training is designed to hold all of that, and its pricing is quote-based, so request a current quote for your scope.
- You are a solo online fitness coach scaling a 1:1 client base. Coachway. The workflow is built for exactly that, with transparent per-client pricing that tracks how many clients you carry.
- You coach in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or German. Coachway. Its client app is reviewed by native speakers in those languages. Exercise.com is US-built and does not publicly list its supported UI languages, so we do not claim a count for it.
- Nutrition and meal planning are central to your coaching. Coachway. The nutrition layer is built in and deep, with 1,100+ recipes, 3,900+ ingredients, and 1,800+ exercises in the same workflow.
- You want a client app included at no extra cost, and your own Stripe. Coachway. The client app is included on every plan in six languages, and payments flow through your own Stripe account.
- You want a single integrated merchant stack and a price quoted to your business. Exercise.com. Its integrated PCI Level 1 payments and quote-based model are built for exactly that.
Still weighing it up? Our walkthrough on choosing an online coaching platform turns this into a step-by-step shortlist, and you can sanity-check the per-client math against current Coachway pricing.
Frequently asked.
Is Coachway or Exercise.com better for online fitness coaches?
It depends on your business. Pick Exercise.com if you run a broad operation, a gym, studio, box, or multi-location business, and want one all-in-one platform covering member management, scheduling, access control, and online training. Pick Coachway if you are a European online coach who wants a tool focused purely on the coaching workflow, a native-language client app across EN, DA, NO, SV, FI, and DE, predictable per-client pricing, deep built-in nutrition, and your own Stripe.
How does Coachway pricing compare to Exercise.com pricing?
Only one is published. Exercise.com's pricing is quote-based: its pricing page lists no monthly prices and asks you to request a quote. Third-party aggregators cite a starting figure around USD 239 per month, but that is not vendor-confirmed, so treat it as indicative only. Coachway uses transparent per-client pricing: EUR 69 per month for up to 5 active clients plus EUR 9 each, all features included. If you want a price you can see before talking to sales, Coachway is published. Your own Stripe carries no Coachway fee; its built-in payment system adds an optional 2.4% fee.
Do I keep my own Stripe account on Coachway and Exercise.com?
This is where they diverge. Coachway connects to your own Stripe account, so the billing relationship stays yours, with its built-in payment system carrying an optional 2.4% fee only if you use it. Exercise.com provides an integrated, PCI Level 1 compliant merchant solution with instant payouts, subscription billing, commission splits, and POS, rather than routing through your own external Stripe. Its fee structure is not published. If keeping your own Stripe matters, Coachway is the clearer fit; for an all-in-one merchant stack, Exercise.com is built for that.
Which platform is better for coaching in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or German?
Coachway is the natural fit for non-English European markets. Its client app is written and reviewed by native speakers across English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and German, so it reads naturally rather than machine-translated. Exercise.com is US-built and lists no verified interface-language set on its public pages. For Nordic and DACH clients, Coachway's native-language depth is the safer bet; if you want sheer translation breadth instead, the Finnish platform Trainero advertises a client app available in a wide range of languages including the Nordics (see trainero.com).
Is the branded client app included on Coachway and Exercise.com?
A client app is included on both, but only Exercise.com sells custom branding. Exercise.com describes custom-branded iOS and Android apps as a flagship feature, with your brand front-and-center in the App Store and Google Play; its page does not specify the exact ownership model. Coachway includes its client app on every plan, on iOS and Android in six languages, built specifically around the online coaching workflow, but it does not sell custom app branding or a store listing under the coach's name. If a store listing under your own name is a must, that points to Exercise.com; otherwise the real difference is breadth versus focus.
Features are not the deciding factor. The workflow is.
Exercise.com may match or beat Coachway on raw feature count, and that is fine. It is not the question that decides your week. What decides it is how fast you can run the actual work, week after week: following up a client, sending video feedback, and reviewing a weekly check-in. Coachway is built from working hands-on with online fitness coaches scaling past 1,000 clients, where shaving minutes off every client interaction is the whole game.
The entire product is tuned for one outcome: handle more clients, at a higher satisfaction rate, in less time. A smoother workflow is not just cheaper for you, it is a better experience for the client, and that is what keeps clients paying for longer.
check-ins
Review a weekly check-in in 3 to 5 minutes, with notes, data, photos, and exercise history in one view.
follow-up
Messages, video feedback, and plan tweaks happen from one tab, not six different tools.
automation
Automatic reminders run the cadence, and smart send asks you to confirm before a message goes out, so the experience stays personal.
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