New for personal trainers and coaches: payments, booking and check-ins

Coaching in Liftsmith started with seeing your clients' workouts and knowing who needs you this week. Today it covers the rest of the job: getting paid, booking sessions, checking in between them and setting what your clients eat. Everything is part of Liftsmith Pro for the coach, and free for the people you coach.

Personal trainer or coach: pick how you work

Personal trainers and coaches don't work the same way, so Liftsmith now asks. Under Settings › Coaching › Your clients, choose Personal trainer if you mostly work one-on-one and in person, or Coach if you run groups, teams or remote programs. Your clients see the right word next to your name, and the tools you use most come first: sessions and a price per session for trainers, check-ins and a monthly fee for coaches. Every tool stays available either way.

Take payments through your own Stripe account

Tap Set up payments with Stripe and Stripe walks you through your details and bank account on its own pages. Then set each client's price on their report, per session or monthly. Your client sees it under Coaching and pays on Stripe's secure page, and the money goes to your Stripe account. You're the merchant, so receipts, refunds and payouts are yours to manage in your Stripe dashboard. Liftsmith never sees a card number.

Monthly plans renew on their own, and either of you can stop one at the end of the paid month. If a monthly payment doesn't go through, it shows at the top of that client's report with a nudge to send a quick message, the same way a client going quiet does.

Booking and scheduling sessions

Open the times you're free with a few taps: a day, the start time, a length, and once or the same time every week for up to twelve weeks. Leave them open and your clients book them under Coaching, or book a client in yourself from their report. You both get a notification, a session coming up in the next day shows on Today, and Add to calendar puts it in the phone's calendar. If two clients reach for the same time, only one gets it, and nobody sees who else booked what.

Check-in forms and questionnaires

Start a form from a template (a weekly check-in, or an intake questionnaire for new clients) or from blank, and change any question. Send it now or every week. Clients answer with taps: 1 to 5, yes or no, or a number. Only questions that ask for words need typing. Their answers sit on their report, and a score of 1 or 2, or a check-in left unanswered for three days, goes under What to do first. Our guide to weekly check-ins has the questions worth asking.

Nutrition targets

Set a client's daily calories and protein on their report. They see the targets under Coaching, and their coach's notes judge their food week against your numbers instead of our estimate. Liftsmith still doesn't log food. When a client logs in a food app that writes to Health Connect or Apple Health and chooses to share body data with you, you see how their week compares, and a week well off target shows up on their report.

Where it works

All of it is on Android, iPhone and the web app, in all six of the app's languages. Being someone's client is always free. Read how to track your clients' workouts for the habits that make coaching in an app work, or see everything on the features page.

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