CoachUp

CoachUp Review:

CoachUp connects athletes with private coaches in pretty much any sport. In addition to creating the forum where coaches can advertise their services, the site covers coaches (and kids booking through them) with $1 million liability insurance policy.

Coaches are paid by direct deposit within a week following a coaching session. Coaches set their own rates. The site says that their average coach charges $45 per hour. All good.

Fees and commissions

The bad part is how much CoachUp charges. The site hits each new client (the person you’re coaching) with a $20 “placement” fee.

In addition, coaches pay a $50 registration fee (which pays for the coach’s background check), $10 annually, plus commissions on each gig they book. The commission schedule is graduated, with those who have earned the least money paying the highest commissions.

Specifically, on the first session booked with any individual athlete, you take home just 57% of the gross. The site takes the rest. However, the CoachUp commission drops with each subsequent booking with that same athlete. After five sessions, the site takes just 6% of the booking amount.

Recommendations

If you’re confident of repeat business, this site’s fees drop into a reasonable range pretty quickly. In fact, after the fourth lesson, the fees charged by this site are among the lowest in the industry. You can also mark up your service to make up for the CoachUp commissions.

However, you may also list your coaching services with tutoring giant Wyzant. Wyzant charges no upfront fees and just 25% of every tutoring sessions.

What their coaches say (from Yelp):

I’ve received over 50 new clients via Coachup over the past 3 years and they handle all promotion, payments, and background checks. I have the ability to set my own rates and accept/decline any clients requesting my services. This is really a great service for any private coach who enjoys 1 on 1 training or group training.

From Indeed

CoachUP does the marketing and handling of the finance, but the coach responds, schedules and works out with the player. Once the workout is completed, the coach completes it online and CoachUp pays you within a few days. So, the coach just needs to find a gym and establish their workout days and times. If you do a good job and the parents give you a good star rating, then you move up in the coaching ranking. The goal is to get to the top, so that you are the first coach they see.

One of the better companies for coaches to offer their services through. They take a good chunk of your fees, but they do handle the payment, provide liability insurance and allow you to edit your information on their site as you see fit. They require background checks. Some of the newer private coaching sites are not doing that yet.

From the Better Business Bureau:

Coachup does not understand what their own policies are. They falsely accused me of manipulating their system to get a higher percentage of a coaching session. And blamed me for offering an incentive that they have on their website. Their program allows people to invite new clients into Coachup so that you would have more clients for sessions. As an incentive, it clearly states that Coachup allows the client’s initiation fee to be waived. It also gives the coach a higher percentage from their session fee, provided that the new client signs up with them. That is what happened. I recruited a new client and she signed up. Coachup proceeded to restrict my account, without notifying me. According to Coachup, I violated their terms of agreement.

I am a sports coach in Baltimore, MD. and use CoachUp as a registration platform to collect payments from parents. As long as my event was private (not publicly listed via their website) and parents registered via my direct link, I was told they’d only take 3%. When I… received my payout, it was short $306, because they did not stay true to the 3% that was promised.

Staff are all incredibly rude and unorganized. Their pricing is ridiculous for essentially being a third party messenger platform.