Personal trainers
Booking and client management for personal trainers
The awkward part of personal training is not the training. It is chasing money for sessions that have already happened, and having the conversation about someone cancelling at eight in the morning for a nine o'clock slot.
This week
11 sessions · 24 hr cancellation policy
An illustration of the kind of screen this builds towards - yours is built around how your personal trainer actually runs.
The reality
Where the time and money goes in a personal trainer
Chasing payment after the fact
Sessions get done, invoices get sent, and some of them get paid a fortnight later after two reminders. It is the least enjoyable part of the job and it damages the relationship.
Late cancellations you feel bad enforcing
You have a 24-hour policy. Somebody cancels at seven in the morning with a good reason. Enforcing it face to face feels petty, so you do not, and then it happens again.
Recurring slots managed by text message
Most clients are on a standing weekly slot, and every change to it becomes a message thread. Multiply that by fifteen clients and it is a part-time admin job.
PAR-Q forms in a folder
Health screening on paper, signed once, filed somewhere. If anyone ever asked you to produce it, you would be looking for a while.
Programmes live in spreadsheets and WhatsApp
Clients get a plan as a photo of a page or a spreadsheet they cannot open on their phone, so they do not follow it between sessions.
The approach
How we'd fix it
Session packs solve most of the money problem at a stroke. A client buys ten sessions, pays for them up front, and the balance counts down as they train. You stop invoicing, you stop chasing, and your income arrives before the work rather than after it. Clients generally prefer it too, because it feels like a commitment they have made rather than a bill that keeps arriving.
The cancellation policy becomes the system's job rather than yours. Inside the notice window, a cancellation deducts the session. Outside it, it does not. Nobody has to have that conversation, because it was agreed at the point of booking and applied consistently to everyone. Recurring weekly slots hold themselves in the diary, and clients move their own sessions within the rules.
What we build
Built for personal trainers
Prepaid session packs
Blocks of five, ten or twenty sessions paid for up front, counting down automatically with the balance visible to both of you.
Recurring weekly slots
A standing Tuesday at seven that repeats until somebody changes it, with holidays and breaks handled properly.
Cancellation rules applied automatically
Your notice period, enforced by the system rather than by you, consistently and without a conversation.
PAR-Q and health screening online
Completed and signed digitally before the first session, stored, searchable and easy to produce if ever needed.
Programmes clients can actually use
Workouts on their phone with sets, reps and weights logged as they go, so you can see what happened between sessions.
Small group and semi-private sessions
Capped group slots with their own pricing, which is often the difference between a full diary and a profitable one.
What changes
The difference it makes
- You are paid before the session rather than chasing after it
- Late cancellations stop costing you money and stop being awkward
- The diary looks after itself for regular clients
- Clients train between sessions because the plan is on their phone
In practice
A worked example: fifteen clients, one phone
A trainer with fifteen regular clients was spending an hour or more a day on messages - rescheduling, reminding, sending plans, and chasing two or three people for payment at any given time. All of it happened in WhatsApp, which meant nothing was ever properly recorded.
Moving to session packs and recurring bookings changed the shape of the week rather than the number of sessions. Payment arrived up front, cancellations inside the window deducted a session without anyone having to argue about it, and plans went out through the app instead of as photographs of a notebook. The training stayed the same; the two hours a day of admin around it mostly disappeared.
The systems behind it
What this is built from
Everything on this page is put together from the same handful of systems, shaped around how personal trainers actually work.
Questions
Personal Trainers - the questions I get asked
How do prepaid session packs work?
A client buys a block - ten sessions, typically - and pays for it in one go through the site. The balance sits on their account and comes down by one each time they train. When they are getting low, both of you can see it, and the top-up prompt goes out automatically. You stop invoicing entirely.
Will it enforce my cancellation policy for me?
That is one of the better reasons to have one. You set the notice period; cancellations inside it deduct the session, cancellations outside it do not. Because it is applied to everybody automatically and was agreed when they booked, it stops being a personal conversation and starts being just how it works.
Can I run small group sessions as well as one-to-one?
Yes, with their own capacity, pricing and waiting list. Semi-private and small group work is often what makes the difference between a busy diary and a profitable one, since you are earning from four people in the hour it used to take to train one.
Do I need my own app for this?
Almost certainly not. A well-built web app works on any phone, needs no download, and does not involve app store approval every time something changes. Clients open a link, add it to their home screen if they want, and it behaves like an app. It is a fraction of the cost and it is easier to keep updated.
I train in a gym I do not own. Does that matter?
Not to the system. Your availability is your availability, wherever you are training. If you work across two or three sites you can set different hours and travel gaps for each, so nobody books you into a nine o'clock at one gym and a ten at another twenty minutes away.
Similar businesses I work with
All industries →Gyms
Members join and pay online, classes book themselves with waiting lists, and the paperwork around freezes and cancellations stops landing on the desk.
Massage Therapists
Health forms completed before arrival, block bookings that sell themselves, and a diary that copes with clinic days and mobile visits.
Physiotherapists
Assessments and follow-ups timed properly, insurer details captured up front, treatment blocks sold online and exercise plans sent automatically.
Run a personal trainer? Let's have a look at it
Tell me how things work at the moment and I'll come back with a clear, fixed quote - and an honest view on whether it's worth the money. No pressure and no jargon.