How to Build a Coaching Marketplace in 2026 (No Code)

The admin of a coaching business (0:00)

If you run a coaching business with a few coaches, you know the admin. Parents paying by bank transfer, waivers on paper, a spreadsheet of who taught which lessons, and paying each coach by hand at the end of the month.

In this video, I'll build a coaching marketplace that does all of this on its own. Coaches get vetted. Every coach has a calendar for their own lessons. Customers book a package of four at a discount. They tick a waiver on every booking. And the coach gets paid after the lesson, not before.

Why coaching is a good marketplace (0:31)

Coaching is one of the easiest marketplaces to start, because coaches already have clients. A good swimming coach or tennis coach usually has a waiting list at peak times and empty slots at other times. So you're not creating demand from nothing. You're just filling the gaps and making the admin disappear.

Secondly, it's local and small. Five to ten good coaches in one city is already a real marketplace.

And thirdly, if you're already running a swimming school or a tennis academy, this replaces the admin. Each coach connects their own Stripe account to the marketplace, the customers pay through the site, your commission stays with you, and all the coaches are paid out automatically. Now let's build this.

Pick the template and name it (1:12)

I'm on Prometora and I'm about to create the new marketplace. For a coaching marketplace, we pick the service marketplace template and click next. For the name, I'll call it PeakCoach. And in the description, under what will be sold on your marketplace, we add "Book vetted private coaches in Denver - tennis, swimming, running and fitness, one lesson or a package". And now let's create the marketplace.

So we have the first version here. There are a couple of demo listings already, and there is a "Browse by Sport" section with tennis, swimming, running and fitness. On the all listings page you can see the different listing types. Front-end wise, we're going to leave it like this for now, so let's go to the store settings and set up the back-end flow.

Listing types, coach hours, packages and group classes (2:09)

We're in the store settings, on the listing form. Right now we have four listing types, but no custom fields in the create listing process. We're just asking for the title, description and price, and I want to ask a couple more questions.

So I changed it. Instead of listing types by sport, I changed them to private lesson, group class and online session. In the custom fields there's a field for the sport, where you choose tennis, swimming, running or fitness, and it's required. We're also asking for the level and the age group, and coaches can add multi-session prices and price options. The coaches then set up their availability in their seller dashboard, which I'll show in a second.

Coach signup, vetting and approval (3:22)

The signup form has athlete and coach, but for the coach we're only asking for the first name, last name and email. I think it's good to ask for a few more things.

For the athlete, we're still just asking for the first name, last name, email and an optional phone number. For the coach, I added these seller fields: phone number (optional), business name (optional), which sport or discipline do you coach, coaching certifications, years coaching, do you coach under-18s, have you completed a background check, current first aid, do you carry liability insurance, where do you coach, and an "anything else" field.

Under sellers and buyers I toggled on "Require Seller Account Approval". So whenever a coach creates an account, the marketplace owner, me in this case, has to approve or reject it. The same with listing approval: I go through all the listings too. That's the process we want for this coaching marketplace.

Just a quick one. If you want to copy what I make in this video, go to the ready-made templates and pick "Coaching & Lessons". Then you get the whole setup from this video.

On seller profiles I also added three badges: ID Verified, First Aid & CPR, and Background Checked, each in its own color. The ID Verified badge is granted automatically when Stripe verifies the seller. And on the signup form there's a badge rule on the current first aid and CPR question: if the answer is yes, the badge is shown. That's how the coaches get these badges on their profiles.

Booking settings, waiver and payout after the lesson (4:15)

Under bookings, I enabled bookings, of course. I'm using 12-hour time, and I added the time zone where the sessions take place, Denver, because this marketplace is Denver-based. But I also let coaches set their own time zones, so a coach in another time zone just adds theirs.

For rescheduling, customers can request a new time, but the deadline is 24 hours before the session starts. After that they can't reschedule.

The payout is set to after the session. The customer gets an email asking how it went, and if the customer does nothing, the payment is released to the coach automatically 3 days after the session.

Then the booking terms. We require the customer to tick a box for the liability waiver, and the waiver text shows here: "I understand that sports and fitness sessions carry a risk of injury. I confirm the participant is fit to take part and I will tell the coach about any medical condition before the session."

Stripe Connect setup (7:20)

Before we sign up on our own marketplace, we go to the payments tab and add our Stripe test keys, so we can test everything before switching to production keys. I copy the publishable key and the secret key from my Stripe sandbox, paste them into the Prometora back office and save. For the webhook, I just click here and it's set up in test mode too.

Coach availability setup (8:07)

Now I go to the marketplace and sign up as a coach. I add first name, last name and my email, answer all the questions, and send the magic link.

When I click sign in from the email, I land on a waiting page, because this marketplace has seller account approval. I also got an "Application received" email, and as the marketplace owner I got a "New seller application" email. So I go to sellers and buyers in the store settings, look at the new coach's details, and approve him. Back on the marketplace, after a refresh, I'm signed in.

In the availability area I set my hours as the coach. I'm available Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in these time slots. Sessions can start every 15 minutes, there's a 15-minute break between sessions, and I'm bookable 60 days ahead. If I had a week of holiday coming up, I could block it here too.

Then I create a listing. A title and description, and a price with two price options: 30 minutes for $45 and 60 minutes for $80. Then multi-session prices: book four sessions and get 10% off, eight or more and get 15% off. The sport is tennis, all levels, adults only. I add an image, and the availability is already set, so nothing to do there. Because the marketplace has listing approval, the listing is pending, so I approve it in the store settings and it's live.

Then in the dashboard I connect Stripe, so I can receive money as a coach. I pick United States, add test data because we're in test mode, and agree and submit. Now money can be paid out to my bank account whenever I've completed a session.

Making a booking as an athlete, payment and rescheduling (11:57)

Now I sign in as an athlete and find the listing. I book 60 minutes on the 20th and also the 24th, so that's $160. I add a message, "Can you do these?", tick the liability waiver and send the request. In my dashboard I see the two requests pending approval, and that I accepted the waiver.

As the coach I get an email with the two session requests. In manage bookings I approve the first one with a note, "This is good, looking forward". The other time slot doesn't fit anymore, so I reschedule it to the 27th, 6:30 to 7:30, and write "Can you do this instead?". I can also see the bookings in the calendar view.

The athlete gets two emails: "Booking approved", and one for the rescheduled booking with the new time. As the athlete I could request another time, but I pay for both at once instead, with a test card because we're in a sandbox.

The coach gets a "Payment received" email saying the slots are booked and the customer accepted the liability waiver. The athlete gets a receipt as a PDF and a "Payment confirmed" email. Signed in as the coach, both bookings show as paid, and the calendar view shows when they happen. That's the payment flow.

Build your own (15:05)

If you have an idea for a coaching marketplace, I really encourage you to test out Prometora. There's a 14-day free trial. A coaching marketplace is one of the easiest ones to start, so go ahead, make your dream marketplace and show it to the world. If you liked this video, please give it a like and maybe subscribe. See you in the next one.

Intro (0:00)

In the last video I built a coaching marketplace. Now, the money. What do you, as the marketplace owner, make on a lesson? What does the coach get? And what happens when someone books a package of four? Then the two things coaching owners actually worry about: paying coaches after the lesson instead of before, and what to do with no-shows. Plus the Stripe settings and how you decide who pays the card fees. Let's do it.

Setting the commission and who pays the Stripe card fees (0:25)

I'm in the store settings, under Payments. In the last video we added the Stripe sandbox keys, because we're still testing. Down here are the commissions and fees. It's set to 20% from the seller. So every time a buyer pays $100, you as the marketplace owner keep $20, and the seller receives around $76: the $100 minus the $20, minus the estimated Stripe card fee. Those fees differ from country to country, so it's an estimate, but it's around $2 to $3.

To make it cleaner for the seller, I can click here so that the seller receives exactly $80 and we take the card fees out of our commission. We earn a little less on each booking that way. I'll keep it like this, because marketing-wise it's easy to tell our coaches that they receive their price minus 20%.

We can also push our coaches towards package discounts, so the overall card fee is lower, because there's just one checkout. In this example Chris Coach has two package deals: buy four or more lessons and get 10% off, buy eight or more and get 15% off. That's very normal for a coach to offer, and it's nice for them too, because they get more bookings at once.

Making a test package booking (1:39)

So let's make four bookings. We'll go for the 30-minute ones, and I pick four slots. The price is $162, and you can see I save $18. I agree to the liability waiver and request them. As the athlete I'm sent to my dashboard, and the request is pending approval, because the coach has to approve before I can pay.

Logged in as Chris Coach, I see the package waiting and approve all of them at once. They're confirmed and awaiting payment. Back as the athlete, I pay for all of them in one go, with a test card because we're in a sandbox.

We received a receipt with a PDF attached. The coach received a payment received email with the payout information: the payout is after completion, so the earnings are released three days after the session. As the coach I can see the lessons are paid, see exactly when they happen in the calendar view, and message the athlete here if I need to, maybe to bring a tennis racket.

The difference between 3 ways to pay (4:02)

At the start of the video I set it up so that we, the marketplace owner, pay the card fee. That's up to you, and it depends on how you want to market it. Usually it's easiest to tell coaches that you take the fee, because then they get their price minus your commission and nothing extra on top.

Let's look at three examples. Four checkouts, no discount. One checkout at full price. And the one we did: one checkout, 10% off. With four checkouts the total card fee is the highest, above $6, whereas with one checkout it's only $5. That's because in the US Stripe takes 2.9% plus 30 cents on each transaction, and this differs from country to country. With four checkouts you keep around $30. Same with one checkout at full price, $30. With the package the customer pays $162 instead of $180, so you receive a little less and the coach receives a little less. But it's still really nice for the coach to get four bookings in one go. They want to fill up their calendar.

So who pays for the customer's discount? In this example the coach got $14 less, you as the marketplace owner got about $2 less after the smaller card fee, and Stripe got $1.44 less in fees. And the coach is still paid lesson by lesson: the $129 is held, and it's released after each session.

No-shows and cancellations (6:14)

A lesson is booked and paid. What happens on the day? Both show up: the lesson happens, the customer gets the "how did it go?" email, and after three days, which is up to you, the coach is paid. The customer doesn't show up: the coach keeps the slot, there's nothing for you to do, and the coach is paid after three days.

But what if the customer reports a problem anyway? Then it's up to you as the marketplace owner to decide: a full refund or a partial refund, depending on what the customer says, and whether you release the full amount to the coach or just some of it. If the coach doesn't show up, the customer reports a problem, the payout waits, and you're back at the same decision. You don't release any money to the coach, because the coach didn't show up, and you probably refund the customer in full.

If a session is cancelled in advance, it depends on who cancels and when. Say your policy is 24 hours' notice and the customer cancels closer than that: you probably do a partial refund, maybe half, maybe a quarter, and your commission and the coach's share shrink in proportion. If the customer cancels in time, or you cancel it yourself as the marketplace owner, you cancel that lesson only. That lesson is refunded, the other lessons in the package are untouched, and the slot is free again.

The marketplace revenue calculator (8:06)

So how much can you earn as the owner of a coaching marketplace? Your commission is 20%, though 25% is also fairly normal. Say your average order value is $75, and to begin with you have three coaches, so maybe 50 orders a month, on the Professional plan. Then you break even at around 14 orders and make around $420 a month. The revenue calculator shows where each sale goes, and it's linked in the description so you can put in your own numbers.

Say that after three months you have ten coaches with around 30 orders a month each. Now you make around $3,000 as the marketplace owner, still on the Professional plan. After six months, say you reach 500 orders a month. That's 50 orders per coach with ten coaches, which isn't that much. Your coaches are busy and happy, and you make about $5,500 a month. Please put in your own numbers and make your own projections.

Setting your commission per listing type and per coach (9:28)

On the listing form we have three listing types, and you can set a commission on each one that differs from your overall commission. For private lessons, set it to 15%, and now you only take 15% on private lessons.

And say you have a really good coach, Chris Coach, who you want to keep because he brings in so much money. You might give him a lower commission, say 12%, meaning you earn 12% on all the lessons he does. You set that in the Managed Sellers area. So for Chris's bookings you now earn 12%, for the other coaches you still earn 20%, unless it's a private lesson, which we just changed to 15%.

Outro (10:43)

I hope this shows that there are many ways to set up commission on a coaching marketplace, and gave you some inspiration about how much you can earn relatively fast. If you've been thinking about starting a coaching marketplace, test Prometora, there's a 14-day free trial. And if you'd like to talk to me before you start building, use the link in the description to schedule a call. If you found it interesting, give it a like and maybe subscribe. See you in the next one.

Coaches already have clients (0:00)

In the first video I built my coaching marketplace, and let's say it already has two coaches. This video is about getting to 10 coaches and bringing in the first clients.

A coaching marketplace has one huge advantage over other marketplaces: coaches already have clients. So it's about getting 10 coaches over to your marketplace, and their clients with them. Here's how you do it.

One city, one or two sports (0:23)

The mistake is launching a coaching marketplace for everyone, everywhere. A parent looking for a swim coach doesn't care that there are 40 yoga teachers in another state. So it's one city at a time, and only one or two sports that you understand. Ten swim and tennis coaches in Denver is a real marketplace. Ten coaches spread over ten sports in five cities is just empty pages. Online coaching is the exception, but even there it's best to start with one discipline.

Where coaches come from, and the pitch (0:59)

Let's start with the pitch. First, coaches keep their own prices and hours. They only manage one calendar for all their lessons. They can sell packages at their own discount to fill their calendar. Every client signs their waiver when they book, so they're covered if something happens. They're paid after each lesson, so there's no chasing payments, and some coaches are used to waiting a long time to get paid, so that's a good one to mention. And you can tell them you'll set everything up for them, so they don't have to do anything. I'll show you how in a second.

The last line you should always use is "I'm starting with 10 coaches, and you're one of them." That creates exclusivity, and it's usually a good selling point.

Where do they come from? First, coaches you already know. If you're starting a coaching marketplace in your niche, you probably know some. Next, clubs and facilities: you can help them fill their off-peak slots. Then coaches who already teach privately and want less admin and fuller weeks. The pitch there is that you fill their week and take away the admin, so they just teach. And lastly, newly qualified coaches. They're keen because they want customers, but they don't bring any clients, so you have to bring them customers, whereas the other groups bring customers with them.

Set up a coach and a listing (Managed Sellers) (3:04)

Say one coach was happy for you to set everything up, maybe because they're not technical or don't have the time. All you need is their name, their email and their country.

I'm in PeakCoach, in Store Settings, on the Managed Sellers tab, and I add a seller. Email and country are mandatory, because the coach needs them later to onboard on Stripe Connect and get paid out. The tagline, bio and social links don't really matter, because the coach can adjust them afterwards. I add a profile URL, which becomes the URL of the coach's profile, a tagline and a bio, and an internal note: "Watched a lesson Sep 30, great with nervous kids. Certified since 2017, first aid current. Referred by Chris." I also send the welcome email, so the coach knows I've created the profile.

Then I create a listing on their behalf: a private lesson, "Private swim lesson - kids and beginners", with a description that mentions you save with packages. The price is $70, with multi-session prices: four or more lessons get 10% off, eight or more get 15% off. Sport is swimming, level is beginner, age group is kids, and the session length is 30 minutes. Bookings use the coach's own calendar for availability.

It says the seller account isn't active, because this marketplace has an approval process and we haven't approved the new coach yet. We still have to do that with Managed Sellers. So I approve the coach under Sellers and Buyers, go back, and the listing is created and published.

We still need the coach to onboard on Stripe at some point. They don't have to do it immediately: they can take their first bookings without it, but to get their money they have to go through it. In Managed Sellers I click Connect Stripe, and I can send them an email with the link or copy the link and send it myself. The email says "Set up your payouts" and links to Stripe. Imagine the coach has done a few lessons and has $500 waiting. They'll do the onboarding then, because they want their money.

Usually the coach sets their own availability, because they know their hours better than we do. They log in with a magic link and set it. But we can do it for them: in Sellers and Buyers, I click the icon that logs me in as that coach and go to the Availability calendar. The coach is available Tuesday to Friday in these slots, sessions can start every 15 minutes with a 15-minute break, bookable 60 days ahead. On the listing, the coach is now bookable in those slots.

Moving their existing clients over (10:04)

This is the part that decides whether your coaching marketplace works. If you get 10 coaches to bring their 20 or 30 clients over, your marketplace makes money from the beginning. Two things work well. One is package deals: clients get a discount when they book a package, like four lessons for 10% off. The other is a lower commission for coaches who bring their clients with them, maybe for the first three to six months.

Two things to be honest about. A coach's lower commission applies to all of that coach's bookings, for instance 15% instead of 20%. And some clients will stay off the platform and pay in cash. You can't prevent it completely, and I wouldn't police it. Make the site the easier option. On Prometora you can limit it a bit, for instance by flagging certain words in messages, but most regulars move on their own within a few months if your marketplace is the easier option.

Say Priya has 20 regular clients. They move only if there's a reason, not just a please. First, the package discount, which they only get by booking on the site. Second, they can book at any hour instead of texting the coach. And for Priya, no more chasing payments. It's one message with her profile link: four lessons are $63 each instead of $70. Once one coach moves over with her clients, that's 10 or 20 customers on your marketplace, and you already have a working marketplace.

To set a different commission for a coach, go to Managed Sellers and set it, for instance 15%. You then earn 15% on all of that coach's bookings.

How you help with getting them more customers (13:16)

There are things you need to do as the marketplace owner to bring your coaches new customers. First, the basics. Tell your own network there's now a marketplace for booking these coaches, and set up a Google Business Profile, so "swim lessons near me" in Denver finds you.

Then work on new customers together with your coaches. Ask coaches to set up a free intro session, a 20-minute listing at $0. It books like any lesson, but there's no payment and no commission. The coach meets new customers and offers the discounted package at the end.

Second, a cheap group class, up to six people in the same slot. The coach sees it as one class, so it only costs one hour. It's an easy first step before an $80 or $90 private lesson, and it's six potential private clients in one hour.

Third, partners who already see your customers: schools and parent groups, physios and sports clinics, or clubs with a waiting list. One partner can fill a coach's whole week.

Supply and demand, and reviews help (15:13)

As you grow, always ask whether you have a demand problem or a supply problem right now. It's normal to switch between the two. Would your coaches notice if the site disappeared next week? If your coaches have empty slots, you need more customers, not more coaches. That's a demand problem. Can a customer get a lesson this week? If they can't get a slot, you have a supply problem and need more coaches. If both are fine, you add the next sport, and only after that the next city.

Reviews help you grow too. Review requests go out after the lesson. After each coach's first few lessons, ask those customers personally for a review, because the first reviews are the ones that matter on the coach's profile. The more reviews your coaches get, the easier it is for them to get their next customers.

Recap (16:59)

I hope this was helpful. If you have an idea for a coaching marketplace, try Prometora. There's a 14-day free trial, and you can always reach out to me first if you want to talk, the link is in the description. If you liked this video, please subscribe and maybe give it a like. See you in the next one.