What: CoachUp connects athletes with private coaches and trainers for virtually any sport. 

Expected pay: $15 – $75 per hour

Husl$core: $$$

Commissions & Fees: graduated, from 43% – 6%; $50 registration; $10 annual fee.

Where: Nationwide

Requirements: Be over the age of 18 and have some coaching credentials

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.

High fees

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. You can also mark up your service to make up for the CoachUp commissions.  However, you may also consider free local referral services such as Craig’s List and Nextdoor.

You also can post your coaching availability on Fiverr, where you pay just 20% on every gig. But, Fiverr’s commissions don’t decline with repeat business. 

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 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. There pricing is ridiculous for essentially being a third party messenger platform.