With capabilities for scheduling, payments, contract signing, and all the other administrative bits of the business side of running a coaching practice, Paperbell is one of the most popular choices for coaching software. But if you’ve reviewed Paperbell’s offerings and want some other options—or just a second opinion so you can make a sound decision—we’re here to help.
We’ve rounded up the best Paperbell alternatives and summarized them so you can pick what’s right for you. Particularly when considering pricing, we recommend you read our Paperbell review and consider what’s included in your investment when you’re deciding where to put your money.
Table of Contents
Paperbell vs Calendly
Calendly’s name recognition and popularity are appealing, and it does a great job as a simple scheduling tool—but many coaches find they need a wider array of features.
- Limited Features – Calendly is a scheduling tool and nothing else. There are no features for signing contracts or keeping track of client progress.
- Designed for Single Sessions – Sessions are booked one at a time, so if you sell a four-pack of sessions, the client will need to schedule them one by one.
- Inflexible Payment System – While it’s great that Calendly now integrates with Paypal and Stripe to accept payments, those payments are still restricted to the one-at-a-time scheduling limitation. If a client wants a series of sessions with you, they’ll repeat the purchase and scheduling process four times. Also, there aren’t options for selling a subscription with repeating payments or accommodating a payment plan.
Calendly Pricing: Free basic plan; Paid plans start at $8 per seat per month
Paperbell vs Acuity
Similarly to Calendly, Acuity’s strength is in scheduling, but it also offers billing and invoicing. However, without the option for selling and delivering digital downloads and contract signing, it’s far from an all-in-one solution.
- Limited Features – Acuity lacks contract signing and the ability to track client progress or keep notes on sessions.
- No Session Tracking – After purchasing a series of sessions, you or the client will need to keep careful track of how many have been used and when it’s time to purchase more.
- Single Payment Structure – Acuity accepts one-time payments, and that’s about it. If you want installment plans, pay-in-full discounts, or subscriptions, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
Acuity Pricing: Starts at $14 per month
Paperbell vs Honeybook
Honeybook is a client management software mainly designed for creatives, not coaches. It does offer more core features than the scheduling tools above—such as CRM (customer relationship management), invoicing, online payments, and automated workflows. However, it still lacks many important features for a coaching business.
- Limited Features – Honeybook doesn’t include contract signing, note keeping, or group coaching, and there’s no capability to offer coupons or discount codes.
- Designed for Individual Projects – With Honeybook, you need to create a new project and invoice for every client as you can’t offer the same package to multiple clients.
- Single Payment Structure – You can only send custom invoices and limit your clients’ options to one-time payments. This can be repetitive and time-consuming as you’ll need to send an invoice whenever a client books a session.
Honeybook Pricing: Starts at $14 per month
Paperbell vs Coaches Console
Coaches Console is an all-in-one software solution for coaches that includes a website builder, email marketing, course delivery, appointment scheduling, client management, reporting, and billing solutions. The downside is that the fee is on the pricier side.
- Course Creator – Coaches Console has a nifty tool that allows you to build and sell coaching courses with ease and control how clients access them.
- Multiple Levels of Security – Your data will be protected by numerous security methods (HTTPS-protected pages, username, and password protection, and 256-bit encryption technology).
- No Group Sessions – While you can open session slots for automated booking, there’s no option that allows several clients to sign up for a group session.
- Inflexible Payment System – Coaches Console integrates with your existing PayPal, DirectPay, and Stripe account, but there are no options for installment plans.
Coaches Console Pricing: Starts at $147 per month
Paperbell vs Satori
Since this is a tool that’s designed with coaches in mind, you’ll find in Satori all the basics, like package setup, session scheduling, client management, and revenue tracking. What gives Paperbell some advantage over Satori is that it’s a more modern and elegant solution with more features.
- No Content Delivery – Despite the variety in features, Satori missed out on allowing coaches to personalize content delivery (for example, you can’t schedule sending different types of content at different times).
- No Website Builder – If you’re starting from scratch and you want a tool that’s a one-stop shop, you should consider that Satori lacks website building, which is the number one step when starting a coaching business.
- Different Payment Options – One of the benefits of Satori is that you can offer clients different payment plans and methods of payment.
Satori Pricing: Free basic plan; Paid plans start at $32 per month
Paperbell vs Dubsado
Dubsado is a robust project management tool designed for freelancers of all kinds. Its many features offer great potential—if you can overcome the steep learning curve to learn how to make the program ‘play nice.’
- Built on the Premise of Proposals – The workflow in Dubsado relies on a lengthy series of steps: offering a custom proposal to a client, then a contract, then an invoice, and finally the payment is made. This extraneous back-and-forth can get tedious for coaches, most of whom offer set packages at fixed prices.
- Contracts Aren’t Legally Binding – Signatures in Dubsado are created by the client simply typing their name.
- Lacking Calendar Integration – When a client schedules a session, they’ll need to input the session details into their calendar manually.
- Powerful but Complex – Many coaches end up hiring a specialist to set up their Dubsado account or spend hours trying to do it themselves.
Dubsado Pricing: Starts at $20 per month
Paperbell vs CoachAccountable
The extensive list of CoachAccountable’s features covers all the coaching necessities. However, unless you want to keep your business small, the charge-per-number-of-clients type of payment is a huge nuisance.
- Different Payment Options – What deserves praise is CoachAccountable’s payment feature which includes recurring billing, subscriptions, installment billing, and packages. It also integrates with Stripe and PayPal.
- No Discounts – Offering clients discounts and coupon codes are good marketing tactics, but you won’t find that in CoachAccountable.
- Pricing Based on the Number of Clients – The biggest drawback is that the CoachAccountable charges are based on the number of clients, so as your client list grows, the cost will go up as well.
CoachAccountable Pricing: Starts at $20 per month for up to 2 clients
Paperbell vs 17Hats
17Hats is a business management tool that can streamline your payments, scheduling, record keeping, and contract signing, but there’s nothing there that presents a special benefit for coaches.
- Limited Features – 17Hats won’t help you with delivering content or promoting your business since it’s more focused on helping with organization.
- No Group Sessions – The scheduling options are limited, and there’s no group sessions functionality.
- Single Payment Structure – With 17Hats you won’t get installment payments, discounts, or any similar payment option, as one-time payments are the only way to go.
17Hats Pricing: Starts at $13 per month (paid annually)
Paperbell vs Simply.Coach
This comprehensive tool is created with the intention to help you digitize your coaching business through a diversified library of handy features, including session scheduling, invoicing, and payments, content sharing, and digitized contracts. It’s more suited for beginners since the cost rises with the number of clients.
- Easy-to-Buy Online Packages – You can create and offer your clients customized subscription and session packages.
- No Group Sessions – Even though its session scheduling automation is streamlined and you can allow clients to book recurring sessions, what you won’t have with this tool is booking for group sessions.
- Inflexible Payment System – You can use Simply.Coach for sending invoices, accepting and tracking payments, and storing invoices, but one-time payment is the only available form of payment.
- Pricing Based on the Number of Clients – Just like CoachAccountable, Simply.Coach charges according to how many individuals you’re coaching.
Simply.Coach Pricing: Starts at $19 per month for up to 5 clients for solopreneurs; Pricing for businesses starts at $99 per month + $39 per month per additional coach
Paperbell vs Doodle
If you’re only looking for an affordable, easy-to-use calendar and scheduling tool, Doodle can be the one, but if you want more, you’ll need to combine it with other tools.
- Limited Features – Doodle is a scheduling tool and nothing else, so to streamline your coaching practices, you’ll need to go out shopping for additional tools.
- Designed for Single Sessions – While you can create group polls to check the clients’ availability for group sessions, they can’t book a group session on their own.
- No Payment Option – This tool only works as a scheduling tool, so you can’t accept payments or do anything else with it.
Doodle Pricing: Free basic plan; Paid plans start at $14.95 per month (or $6.95 per month when paid annually)
More Alternatives
If you’ve scrolled through the list and haven’t found the perfect program for your coaching business, here are a few others you can check out:
Summary & Recommendations
Passion for coaching is only one part of a successful business. How you organize it also greatly affects your clients’ satisfaction, which is why automatization tools are so important.
With such a variety of coaching software, you can definitely find the one that meets your criteria. However, if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution at an affordable price, our top pick without a doubt is Paperbell.
This article was written by the Life Coach Magazine staff. We cover everything from personal development, to coaching tips, to how to grow your coaching business.
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