Best software for coaching progress: 2026 comparison
Best software for coaching progress: 2026 comparison
The best software for tracking coaching progress does three things at once. You see, per coachee, which goals are active, which actions have been completed, and where things are getting stuck. Your coachee sees that same picture in their own portal. And you don't have to retype anything from spreadsheets, emails, or chat messages. In this article, we compare the well-known options on exactly those points. We also show why we built Exantur for solo coaches and small practices that value structure and privacy.
In brief
- Good progress software links goals, action items, check-ins, and session notes to the same coachee and the same journey.
- A progress chart only becomes useful once the numbers beneath it are sound: fixed moments to measure, the same questions, and notes that explain why a score changes.
- Accountability (the agreement that your coachee does what they say they'll do) works best with short check-ins between sessions, not just one conversation a month.
- If you work with coachees' personal data, you need a data processing agreement with your software provider, with specific commitments about security.
- Exantur combines all of this in one workspace, with EU hosting in Frankfurt, starting at €19 per month for the Mini plan.
Table of contents
- What tracking progress in coaching really requires
- How a progress chart works in coaching
- The well-known options side by side
- Check-ins and accountability between sessions
- Privacy and the GDPR: what you control
- Which plan fits your practice
- Our perspective
- Frequently asked questions
- Sources
What tracking progress in coaching really requires
Many coaches start with a spreadsheet. A tab per coachee, a column for goals, a column for actions. That works with three coachees. With fifteen, you lose the overview. The agreement from the session is in your notebook, your coachee's reply is in WhatsApp, and the completed Wheel of Life is in an email.
Coaching progress software solves this by linking everything to one place. When choosing, watch for these points:
- Goals per journey. You want to be able to record goals per coachee and per program. Not just a list, but a goal with a starting point, a direction, and a moment to review.
- Action items from the session. What your coachee commits to in the session should immediately become an action item that stays visible until it's done.
- Check-ins between sessions. A short questionnaire or update your coachee completes in between. That way, before the next session you can already see where things are going and where they aren't.
- Session notes you can find again. Notes are the memory of a journey. It helps to be able to organize them, for example as observation, insight, breakthrough, or action item, and to be able to search through them.
- Assessments. A DISC profile or a Wheel of Life gives you a baseline measurement. If you repeat the same measurement later, you see the difference in black and white.
- A dedicated portal for the coachee. Progress becomes stronger when your coachee sees it themselves. A portal where they can find goals, check-ins, and assignments makes them a co-owner of the journey.
- Privacy. Coaching conversations cover work, health, relationships, and doubts. That's sensitive data. You want to know where it's stored and who can access it.
A tool that only manages a calendar or only invoices helps you with the practical side, but not with your coachee's progress. That distinction is the heart of this comparison.
How a progress chart works in coaching
A progress chart shows how a score develops over time. In coaching, it's usually about scores the coachee gives themselves, and sometimes a score from the coach alongside them.
An example. A career coachee wants more calm in their work week. In the first session, they rate their workload a 3 out of 10. Every two weeks, they complete a short check-in with the same question. After ten weeks, you see a line going from 3 to 6, with a dip in week six. In your session notes, you read what happened then: a reorganization in their department. That dip isn't a failure, but something to talk about.
What you can track with such an overview:
- Scores per goal, given by the coachee and by you. The difference between the two is often a good starting point for a conversation.
- Completed and open action items, so you can see whether agreements are being kept.
- Check-ins over time, so you see patterns instead of isolated moments.
- Repeated assessments, for example a Wheel of Life at the start and end of a journey.
Three tips to keep the numbers reliable:
- Ask the same question every time, using the same scale.
- Measure at fixed moments, for example every week or after each session.
- Write a short note whenever there's a notable change. A number without a story says little.
In Exantur, you track goals with scores from both the coach and the coachee. Read more about how that works on our page about tracking coaching goals.
The well-known options side by side
On English-language comparison sites, you keep seeing the same names, such as CoachAccountable, CoachVantage, Simply.Coach, Paperbell, Quenza, Delenta, and Nudge Coach. In the Netherlands, you'll also come across local names, such as Trackler, Focus Coachee, and Blooom. Each tool has its own starting point. That starting point determines where the tool is strong.
| Starting point | Examples | What you track with it | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built around the entire coaching journey, with EU hosting | Exantur | Goals, scores, action items, check-ins, accountability, session notes, assessments, coachee portal | Solo coaches and practices with 1 to 6 coaches who want structure and privacy |
| Accountability and follow-up | CoachAccountable, Nudge Coach | Actions and follow-up between sessions | Coaches who focus mainly on follow-up |
| Practice management and client relationships | CoachVantage, Simply.Coach, Delenta | Clients, sessions, and programs | Coaches who want to organize their business |
| Selling and scheduling packages | Paperbell | Sold packages and appointments | Coaches who want to sell mainly online |
| Exercises and journeys for coaches and care providers | Quenza | Exercises and assignments the client works through | Coaches and therapists who work with fixed exercise paths |
Don't compare the options on the number of features, but on one question: can I see at a glance how this coachee is doing? For that, goals, notes, check-ins, and assignments need to be connected to each other. A tool built mainly around selling or scheduling puts the emphasis on a different part of your work.
Do you also sell standalone products alongside coaching journeys, such as an e-book or an online course? Then it's useful to know how platforms for selling coaching compare to one another. Selling and the coaching itself are two different tasks.
Why Exantur comes out on top
Exantur was built from the start around the coaching relationship and the entire coaching process. It's not a client database (CRM) retrofitted for coaches, and it's not a project tool. Specifically, this means:
- You record session notes as observations, insights, breakthroughs, and action items, and you can search through them.
- Goals, progress, accountability, and check-ins between sessions are kept with the right coachee and the right journey.
- Intake forms, assessments such as DISC and Wheel of Life, documents, assignments, courses, and reports stay linked to that journey.
- Your coachee gets their own portal with goals, progress, check-ins, accountability, session preparation, and shared documents.
- Online booking with automatic reminders, two-way calendar sync with Google Calendar and Outlook, and a Zoom integration.
- You send invoices through your own Stripe account, and Exantur takes no commission.
If you work with check-ins between sessions, take a look at our check-in software and how accountability for coaches works in Exantur.
Check-ins and accountability between sessions
Most change doesn't happen in the session, but in the weeks between. That's also where the risk lies. A coachee leaves enthusiastic, and after ten days the action item is forgotten. You only notice it in the next session.
A check-in prevents that. Keep it short:
- What did you do this week with your action item?
- How do you rate your goal now, on the same scale as last time?
- What did you run into?
Three questions are enough. Your coachee completes them in two minutes. Before the session, you already see who's on track and who needs extra attention. You then don't start your session with "How did it go?" but with a concrete conversation.
Accountability here doesn't mean checking up. It means your coachee sees for themselves what they've committed to and what they've already achieved. Making that visible in their own portal creates ownership. You can read what such a portal looks like on our page about the coaching portal for coachees.
Privacy and the GDPR: what you control
The GDPR is the General Data Protection Regulation, the European privacy law. As a coach, you store personal and often sensitive information about your coachees. If you use software, the provider processes that data on your behalf. In that case, you need a data processing agreement: a contract that states what the provider may do with the data and how they secure it.
The Dutch Data Protection Authority examined data processing agreements and looked at whether they include specific commitments about security. A general phrase like "we take appropriate measures" is too little. You want to know what those measures are.
For every tool you compare, ask about these points:
- Is there a data processing agreement? And does it include specific commitments about security?
- Where is the data stored? Storage within the EU makes it clearer for you.
- Who can access it? A good tool strictly separates your practice's data from that of other practices.
- How do you log in? MFA (two-step login, for example with a code on your phone) protects your account if your password leaks.
- What happens with AI? If a tool uses AI, ask which data is sent to the AI model.
Exantur hosts data in the EU, in Frankfurt. Each practice is shielded from other practices, data is secured at the row level, you log in with MFA, and there's a data processing agreement. The AI assistant is optional. It creates session summaries, session preparations, and final reports based on your own notes, with your own Anthropic key, and without data that could identify a coachee.
One caveat we also make ourselves: software helps you handle data consciously, but it doesn't automatically make your practice fully GDPR-proof. You remain responsible yourself for things like your privacy statement and how long you keep data. If you're unsure about your own situation, consult a privacy lawyer. Our free GDPR checklist for coaches helps you lay out the obligations. You can read more about our approach on the page about secure coaching software.
Which plan fits your practice
For a solo coach with a handful of coachees, a small plan is enough. As your practice grows, or if you work with multiple coaches, you choose a larger plan. The plans differ in the number of active coachees and coaches. These are Exantur's published prices:
| Plan | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Mini | €19 | €190 |
| Starter | €49 | €490 |
| Growth | €99 | €990 |
| Practice | €199 | €1,990 |
| Enterprise | On request | On request |
With an annual subscription, you pay the equivalent of ten months. There are also monthly add-ons: an extra coach for €25, 50 GB of extra storage for €29, custom branding for €39, and Agreements for €19.
A few examples to help you choose:
- You're just starting out as a coach and are handling a few journeys at once. Start with Mini and switch over as your practice grows.
- You're an established solo coach with a full calendar. Starter or Growth gives you room for more active coachees.
- You work with a small team. Look at Practice, the largest plan with a fixed price. You add coaches for €25 per month per coach.
- You work for organizations. For larger practices, there are teams and roles, 360-degree feedback, insight into the return for the client organization, logs of who did what, custom branding, and connections via APIs and webhooks. Read more on our page for organizations.
Want to see for yourself how it works? Exantur has a free trial period. You set up your first coachee, their goals, and a check-in, and immediately see what progress looks like in the portal. Check out the plans and prices and choose what fits your practice.
Our perspective
We see many coaches who do their work well, but hold their administration together with duct tape. A spreadsheet here, a note-taking app there, the check-in in an email. It works, until a coachee asks: "What have we actually achieved?" Then you spend an evening searching.
That's why we built Exantur around the coaching journey itself. Not around a sales funnel or a calendar. A goal belongs to a session, a session to an insight, an insight to an action item, and an action item to a check-in. When that line is visible, for you and for your coachee, progress becomes something you look at together.
We also believe that confidentiality is not an optional extra. Your coachee tells you things they don't tell their manager. That data belongs in the EU, shielded from others, with a clear data processing agreement. We set it up that way from day one.
Martijn
Frequently asked questions
What is the best software for tracking coaching progress?
It's software that links goals, action items, check-ins, and session notes to the same journey, and that gives your coachee their own portal. For solo coaches and small practices in the Netherlands, we recommend Exantur. It's built around the coaching journey and hosts data in the EU.
Can my coachee see their own progress?
Yes. In Exantur, your coachee has their own portal. There they can view their goals and progress, complete check-ins, track accountability, and prepare for sessions. Shared documents, assignments, and courses are available there too.
How often should I have a coachee complete a check-in?
That depends on your journey. For sessions every two weeks, a short weekly check-in often works well. Keep it to two or three questions, so your coachee actually completes it.
Do I need a data processing agreement with my coaching software?
Yes, if the software processes your coachees' personal data on your behalf. Make sure it includes specific commitments about security. Exantur offers a data processing agreement.
What does Exantur cost?
The Mini plan costs €19 per month or €190 per year. Starter costs €49 per month, Growth €99, and Practice €199. There's no fixed price listed on the site for Enterprise.