How to Migrate from Trainerize Without Losing a Client

To migrate from Trainerize without losing a client, export your client list as a CSV, save reference copies of your programs, record each client's current numbers by hand, rebuild everything in the new platform, then move paying clients onto new subscriptions before you cancel the old ones. Trainerize's own help center says client-specific data such as workout history, progress stats, body measurements and program adherence cannot be exported, so the record-keeping step matters more than most coaches expect. Done in that order, a solo coach can plan on about four weeks, with clients training the whole time.

This guide walks through why coaches leave, exactly what Trainerize lets you take with you, a data map from each Trainerize object to its Coachful equivalent, a week-by-week timeline, paste-ready client emails, how Stripe subscriptions really move (they do not move on their own), and a cutover checklist. We make Coachful, so we have a stake in where you land. Every Trainerize fact below comes from its public pricing page or help center as listed in October 2026, and we say plainly where Coachful does less than Trainerize.

Why do coaches migrate from Trainerize?

The factual case for leaving is structural: on Trainerize, scheduling, selling, in-app payments, video calls and advanced nutrition are separate paid add-ons below the Studio tier, and there is no course builder, website, funnel or email marketing at all. So the business side of a practice ends up spread across add-ons and other tools, even when the training app itself does its job.

ABC Trainerize is a personal training app built around workouts, habits, nutrition tracking and messaging, priced by client seats. As listed in October 2026, its plans run from a free Basic plan for 1 client, to Grow at $10 a month for 2 clients, to Pro starting at $25 a month for 5 clients, with Pro tiers at 15, 30, 50, 75, 100 and 200 clients. Studio Plus, for 500 or more clients and "5+ locations", starts at $275 a month and is sold through sales. Annual billing takes about 10% off.

The add-ons are where a solo coach's bill grows. As listed in October 2026:

• Business (scheduling, referrals, selling products, premium content): $25 a month.
• Stripe Integrated Payments: $10 a month, plus Stripe's own processing fees.
• Video Coaching: $10 a month for 50 hours of video calls and 100 hours of streaming.
• Advanced Nutrition Coaching: $20 a month on Grow, Pro 5 and Pro 15; $45 a month on Pro 30 to 200.
• Custom Branded App on Pro: $169 one-time setup.
• FitMetrics: from $6 per client.

Three more factors are worth weighing:

• Seat-based pricing punishes growth. Each new client tier raises the base price, and the higher Pro tier prices were no longer printed on the pricing page when we checked in October 2026. The page also contradicts itself in places: plan cards show $9, $23 and $248, while the FAQ says Grow "starts at $10", Pro "starts at $25" and Studio Plus "starts at $275". The difference is monthly versus annual billing, but you have to work that out yourself.
• The rest of the business runs on other tools. With no website, funnels, courses or email in Trainerize, many coaches pay separately for a site builder, an email tool, a booking tool and a contract tool.
• Review scores. Trainerize held a Trustpilot score of 3.1 from 100 reviews on October 25, 2026. That is a small sample for a large product, so read the reviews themselves rather than relying on the number.

If you are still deciding whether to leave, our Trainerize review and Trainerize pricing breakdown go deeper, and Trainerize alternatives compares the other options. This guide assumes you have decided to move.

How does the monthly cost compare after you switch?

For a coach who uses Trainerize for training plus scheduling, payments, video and nutrition, the add-on stack typically costs more than the base plan, so the useful comparison is the full stack against one flat plan. The table below uses Trainerize's listed prices and shows Coachful's current plan for the same client count.

The Trainerize figures are monthly-billing examples built from the listed prices, not quotes. Stripe processing fees apply on both sides and are not included. The branded app adds a one-time setup fee on Trainerize Pro.

Cost is only half the case. The other half is what you stop paying for elsewhere: if you also run a website builder, an email tool and an e-signature tool, add those to the Trainerize column before you compare.

What can you export from Trainerize?

You can export your client list as a CSV file, and that is the main export. According to Trainerize's help center article "How to export client lists to a CSV file", you select clients from the Pending, Active or Deactivated lists under the Clients tab and click export; the file includes first name, last name, email, phone number and assigned trainer.

The same help center is clear about the limits, as described when we checked in October 2026:

• No client history. Client-specific data such as workout history, progress statistics, body measurements and program adherence cannot be exported.
• No account-to-account transfer. Its article "Can I Transfer Programs or Other Data from one Account to Another?" says there is currently no way to move data from one Trainerize account to another, and points to the CSV export as the workaround.
• Messages, photos and attachments were not included in the client export in our earlier review of the product (September 2026 profile).
• Transactions can be exported for tax reporting. The help center has an article titled "How to Export Transactions for Tax Reporting". Do this before you close anything; your accountant will want the full year.
• Workouts can be printed. There is also an article on how to print workouts or a training phase. Printing to PDF gives you a reference copy of each program to rebuild from.

Exporting the client contact list is also a permission that business owners can set per role, so if you are a trainer inside someone else's Trainerize business, you may need the owner to run the export. Check this early.

The practical consequence: plan your migration around a clean contact list plus a manual snapshot of each active client's current state. You are not going to carry six months of logged sets across, and you do not need to. What a client needs on day one in a new app is their current program, their current targets and their latest numbers.

How does each Trainerize object map to Coachful?

Almost everything a Trainerize coach uses has a direct home in Coachful; the exceptions are wearable sync and stock exercise videos, which Coachful does not have. Use this map to decide what gets exported, what gets rebuilt and what gets recorded by hand.

Two rows deserve a straight answer. If a meaningful share of your clients rely on a Garmin or Fitbit sync for steps or workouts, Coachful will feel like a step back for them; tell them before the switch, not after. And Coachful has no stock exercise videos: the exercise library is illustrated, and you attach your own demo videos. If you filmed custom videos for Trainerize, you already have what you need.

A note on scope, since nutrition targets move across in this step. Coaching is not medical treatment. If a client's intake mentions a medical condition, an injury, medication that affects training or eating, or a history of disordered eating, refer them to a physician or registered dietitian before you load new targets, and keep your plan within what your qualifications cover.

What is the step-by-step migration timeline?

A four-week plan is a realistic example for a solo coach with up to about 50 clients: one week to export and set up, one to rebuild, one to move clients, and one to close out. The weeks below are an example schedule; compress or stretch them around your billing dates.

Step 1: build your migration spreadsheet

Open the Trainerize CSV and add columns: current program and phase, current week, training days, nutrition targets, latest bodyweight and key measurements, two or three key lifts, subscription price, next billing date, and a notes column. This is the one place the manual work pays off. Every client you move gets the same row, and the row becomes their first note in Coachful.

Step 2: save what cannot be exported

Print each active program to PDF. Screenshot anything you want to keep from long message threads, such as injury notes or agreed modifications, and paste the text into your spreadsheet. Ask clients to save their own progress photos from the app if they want them; you will take a fresh baseline at the first check-in in Coachful.

Step 3: rebuild programs, habits and check-ins

In Coachful, a program is a multi-week structure with weekly goals, daily tasks, habits, morning and evening check-ins and goals with progress bars. With the Fitness & Nutrition pack, workouts inside the program support supersets, circuits, AMRAP, EMOM, intervals and tempo, and clients log sets with history and PRs. Build each template program once, then assign it and adjust per client.

Here is a short walkthrough of building a program in Coachful:

Check-ins deserve their own pass. Coachful's coaching flows let you set a welcome flow plus daily morning and evening check-ins, and the client record pulls goals, check-ins, habits, notes and payments into one view with a status of thriving, active, quiet or at risk. That status is what replaces scrolling through message threads to see who has gone silent.

Step 4: set up booking and video

If you paid for Trainerize's Business add-on for scheduling, set up booking pages with availability rules, buffers, minimum notice and time-zone detection. Two-way sync with Google, Apple/iCloud or Outlook keeps your personal calendar honest, and sessions get built-in video or auto-created Zoom, Meet or Teams links. Reminders go by email, plus SMS 24 hours before and WhatsApp 1 hour before once messaging is enabled. See scheduling software for coaches for the full setup.

Step 5: run a test client end to end

Before you tell anyone, create a test client using a second email address. Book a session, pay with a real card and refund it, sign the agreement, open the program in the app and log a workout. Every failure you find here is one a client does not find on switch day.

Step 6: move clients in batches

Move your most engaged clients first; they forgive small rough edges and tell you what to fix. Then move the rest in groups of five to ten, timed so each client's new subscription starts when their Trainerize billing period ends. Keep Trainerize open, unchanged, until the last client has moved.

What should you tell clients? Paste-ready emails

Send three short emails: a heads-up about two weeks before, a switch-day email with the new link, and a payment email for anyone on a subscription. Clients mainly want to know that their program continues, nothing is charged twice, and what they need to do. The templates below say exactly that; replace the bracketed parts.

Messages about an existing paid coaching relationship are generally treated as transactional or relationship email under CAN-SPAM, which is exempt from most of its provisions, but anything that promotes a new offer is commercial and needs an opt-out and a postal address. The FTC's CAN-SPAM compliance guide sets out the rules; keep these emails purely about the switch.

Email 1: the heads-up (about two weeks before)

Subject: Your coaching app is changing on [date]

Hi [First name],

A quick heads-up: from [date], your training, check-ins and our messages will move from Trainerize to a new app. Your program stays the same. You will keep training on [current program] from week [current week], with the same targets.

What changes for you: one app for workouts, check-ins, booking sessions and payments, instead of several. What you need to do now: nothing. I will send your login on [switch date].

One thing to know: the new app does not sync with Garmin or Fitbit, so you will log workouts and measurements in the app directly. If you would like to keep your old progress photos, save them from Trainerize before [date].

Questions? Just reply.

[Your name]

Email 2: switch day

Subject: Your new coaching app is ready

Hi [First name],

Your new home for training is ready: [link]. It takes about five minutes:

1. Open the link and set your password.
2. Download the app on your phone and log in.
3. Complete your first check-in so I have your starting numbers.

Your program, [program name], is already loaded at week [current week]. Please log this week's workouts in the new app from [date]; Trainerize stays open until [end date] if you need to look anything up.

[Your name]

Email 3: payment (subscription clients only)

Subject: Your coaching payment is moving, no double charges

Hi [First name],

Your current payment of [amount] renews on [Trainerize billing date]. That will be your last payment through Trainerize; I have set it to stop after that.

To keep your coaching going, please set up your new payment here: [checkout link]. Your first payment there will be on [new start date], so you are never charged twice for the same period. The price stays [amount] per [month].

If anything looks wrong, reply before [date] and I will fix it.

[Your name]

Email 4: the nudge (for anyone who has not logged in)

Subject: Quick one: your new app login

Hi [First name], I noticed you have not logged in to the new app yet. Here is your link again: [link]. If something is stuck, reply with a screenshot and I will sort it today. Trainerize closes on [date].

[Your name]

How do payments and Stripe subscriptions move?

They do not move by themselves: a Stripe subscription created through Trainerize is not transferred to Coachful, so each paying client starts a new subscription in Coachful and the Trainerize one is cancelled to end at its current period. Plan on every paying client entering a card once at your new checkout.

The reason is how subscriptions work. A subscription is a billing schedule created by the platform that set it up, inside the Stripe account that platform uses, with that platform's product and price attached. In Trainerize, in-app payments run through its Stripe Integrated Payments add-on. In Coachful, payments run through your own Stripe Connect or Razorpay account, and Coachful creates the products, prices and subscriptions there. Even when the same person owns both, there is no switch that moves a live Trainerize subscription into Coachful's checkout.

The safe order, per client:

1. Note the next billing date in your spreadsheet.
2. Create the matching offer in Coachful: subscription, payment plan or one-time package, at the same price. Coachful handles subscriptions, payment plans, order bumps, coupons, refunds, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and Stripe Tax.
3. Send the payment email with a checkout link whose first charge starts the day after the Trainerize period ends.
4. Cancel the Trainerize subscription at period end, not immediately, so the client keeps the access they paid for.
5. Check both dashboards the day the new charge runs: one charge, right amount, right date.

Two edge cases. Clients on prepaid packages need no new payment until the package runs out; add their remaining sessions as session credits in Coachful and note the balance. Clients on annual plans keep their Trainerize access until the year ends, or you agree a pro rata switch and refund them the difference yourself. In both cases write the decision down in the client note.

From switch day, Coachful issues an invoice per transaction, and you can add manual invoices. Coachful charges a 0% platform fee, so the only fees are Stripe's or Razorpay's processing. Keep the Trainerize transaction export for this tax year; your accountant needs both halves of the year. If you also want signed terms in place before anyone pays, Coachful sends coaching agreements with e-signature before the first call and stores them on the client record. See coaching payment software and coaching contracts.

What does the cutover checklist look like?

Use this list on the week you move clients; every line should be true before you cancel Trainerize.

Before you close, check whether downgrading to Trainerize's free Basic plan, rather than deleting the account, keeps read-only access to old records. Its rules can change, so confirm it in your own account settings.

What does Coachful's white-glove import and build cover?

Coachful imports your clients, programs and content during onboarding, and its white-glove build service, free on every plan, builds the pieces Trainerize never had: your website, funnels, sales pages, email sequences and more. Together they remove most of the rebuild work from weeks one and two.

Why Coachful stands out: a free white-glove service. From Create, you pick "We'll build it for you", describe what you want, and attach up to 8 reference links and up to 10 files such as your logo, photos, brand guide or existing copy (no video files). The Coachful team builds it inside your own account, usually within about 24 hours. You can ask for a website, a funnel, an offer or sales page, a program, a course outline and written material, a coaching flow, a form, an email sequence, a link-in-bio page, a lead quiz, an event or an automation. Nothing gets invented: no fake credentials, testimonials or prices; any gaps are left for you to fill. It does not include recording your videos, logo design, ad management or ongoing marketing.

For a Trainerize coach, the useful requests are usually: a website with a clear "apply for coaching" path, a funnel for a starter program, the welcome email sequence your Trainerize welcome emails used to cover, and an intake form. Recent anonymized builds give a sense of scope: a menopause and midlife health coach starting from nothing got a five-page site in sage and cream with every button leading to a no-cost 20-minute consultation; a business mentor for beauty professionals got a 12-week mentorship sales page, a start-up-guide lead funnel and rewritten follow-up emails; a leadership coach with a Squarespace renewal days away got one clean homepage with a repeated "talk with me" button.

If you want to start from a design instead, the website builder has 30 designed homepage templates, including performance designs that suit fitness coaching, plus blog, custom domain and SEO settings. Read more in how the white-glove service works and the coach website builder.

What is Coachful, and who is it for?

Coachful is a coaching platform where one subscription covers booking, payments, contracts, program delivery with habits and check-ins, courses, a community, a website with funnels and email, and an AI assistant, with one login for the coach and one branded app for the client. It is built for coaches who deliver programs, not just sessions; solo coaches growing into a small team; and coaches replacing four to six tools. For fitness coaches, the Fitness & Nutrition pack adds the workout builder, client workout logging, nutrition targets, meal plans, recipes, progress photos, form-check video with timestamped coach comments and challenges. More on fit at Coachful for fitness coaches.

What it does not do, so you can judge the switch honestly: no Garmin, Fitbit, Whoop or Oura sync, and Apple Health sync is not available publicly; no stock exercise videos; no PayPal; no permanent free plan. The client app ships under the Coachful listing with your branding, not under your own App Store account. It is not HIPAA-certified and is not for clinical record-keeping or insurance billing.

Two extras matter after a move. Michelle, the built-in AI assistant, works from your live practice data: it can build programs, draft emails, summarize recorded sessions and brief you before a session; questions and planning are included in your Coachful membership, while confirmed builds and changes use AI credits. And Coachful is GDPR-ready, with a full client data export as a ZIP (roster, notes, check-ins, goals, habits, sessions, form responses), so your client records stay portable if you ever move again. Monthly plans cancel in one click.

How to start: open a free trial, request the white-glove build from Create, and send the onboarding team your Trainerize CSV. Current plans: Lite: $29/month for up to 5 clients; Solo: $49/month for up to 20 clients; Pro: $99/month with unlimited clients; Studio: $199/month with unlimited clients.

What mistakes cause clients to drop off during a migration?

The biggest risks during a move are a surprise charge, a lost program and a week with no contact. Each of these is avoidable:

• Cancelling Trainerize first. Clients lose access mid-week and payments stop before new ones exist. Always close last.
• Moving everyone on one day. One login problem multiplied by 40 clients becomes a support day. Batches keep it manageable.
• Restarting programs at week one. A client in week 9 who is reset to week 1 feels the move cost them progress. Load them at their current week.
• Not mentioning wearables. A client who finds out after the switch that their watch no longer syncs feels misled. Say it in the first email.
• Quiet first week. Send one personal message per client in the first seven days in the new app. The client status view shows who has gone quiet.

If your migration also involves changing how you deliver coaching, for example moving from one-to-one plans to a group program, do it as a separate step after the move. Our guide to scaling from 1-on-1 to group coaching covers that, and the Paperbell switching guide and Kajabi migration guide show the same order of steps for other platforms.

Frequently asked questions

Can I export my clients from Trainerize?

Yes. Trainerize's help center describes a CSV export from the Pending, Active and Deactivated client lists that includes first name, last name, email, phone number and assigned trainer. If you are a trainer inside someone else's business, the owner may need to grant that permission.

Can I move workout history and progress photos from Trainerize?

Not through an export. Trainerize's help center says workout history, progress statistics, body measurements and program adherence cannot be exported, and our earlier profile found photos and messages were not in the client export. Record each client's current numbers by hand and take a fresh baseline at the first check-in.

Do Stripe subscriptions move from Trainerize to Coachful automatically?

No. Each paying client starts a new subscription through your Coachful checkout, and you set the Trainerize subscription to cancel at the end of its current period. Time the new first charge for the day after the old period ends so nobody pays twice.

How long does it take to migrate from Trainerize?

About four weeks is a realistic example for a solo coach with up to about 50 clients: export and set up, rebuild, move clients in batches, then close out. The onboarding import and the white-glove build shorten the rebuild week.

Will my clients need to download a new app?

Yes. Clients download the Coachful app and see your branding inside it. It is not published under your own App Store account, so if you paid for Trainerize's custom branded app, tell clients the app name will change.

Does Coachful sync with Garmin, Fitbit or Apple Health?

No. Coachful has no Garmin, Fitbit, Whoop or Oura sync, and Apple Health sync is not available publicly. Clients log workouts, sets and measurements directly in the app, which works well for strength programs but is a real change for clients who rely on step or run data from a watch.

What is Coachful's free white-glove service?

It is a build service on every plan: you describe what you want, such as a website, funnel, program or email sequence, attach links and files, and the Coachful team builds it inside your account, usually within about 24 hours. It does not record videos, design logos or run ads, and it never invents testimonials, credentials or prices.

Should I cancel Trainerize before or after moving clients?

After. Keep Trainerize running until every client has logged in to the new app and every old subscription has reached the end of its paid period. Cancelling first cuts off access and payments at the same time.

Does Coachful include exercise videos?

Coachful's exercise library is illustrated and has no stock exercise videos. You attach your own demo videos, so any custom videos you filmed for Trainerize can be re-uploaded from your original files.