Coaching program templates: what a multi-session program needs written down, and where each part lives

A coaching program template is five written parts: the outcome the client is buying, the session sequence, the work between sessions, the review points, and the record after each session. Write those five down and you have a program.

Coachinow’s six-stage structure names the same ground, from the agreement through milestones, between-session practice and review, to completion. Four of the five parts get written once, before session one. The fifth gets written again after every session, and that is the part that picks your tool.

What are the key components of a coaching program?

Five parts, and each one is a document you can write today. Here is the template, plain enough to paste into a text file:

1. Outcome. One sentence on what is different when the program ends.
2. Session sequence. How many sessions, how far apart, and the job of each one.
3. Between-session work. The single thing the client does before the next call.
4. Review points. The dates you stop and ask whether the outcome still fits.
5. The record after each session. What was agreed, dated, in the client’s words.

Pabau’s coaching plan template asks for the same fixed four: goals, action steps, review dates and outcomes. Coaching plan templates takes part one apart.

Coaching program design, in the r/lifecoaching threads behind this piece, means arguing about session count. One commenter sets twelve weeks as a floor: “I offer 12 weeks as a minimum too for new clients.” I have no source that ties the number of sessions to how well coaching works, so set the sequence yourself and do not sell it as a finding.

Where does each part of a coaching program template live?

The four fixed parts fit in a shared document and a calendar. The fifth gets produced once per session for as long as the program runs, so the tool only has to be good at one thing.

I build Ember, which is the last row.

Tool	The part it holds	Who fills it in	Price, pulled 2026-10-06
A shared Google Doc	all five, as plain text	the coach, by hand
Kajabi	the sequence, as courses and cohorts	the coach, once per program
Paperbell	not stated on the page I pulled		$970 a year, listed against $1,164
Simply.Coach	programs, action plans, session notes	the coach, per client	US$9 to US$69 across four plans
Ember, closed beta	the record after each session	the AI the coach already uses, then the coach in the editor	Free, 4 reports a month; Individual $8 a month billed yearly

I pulled three vendor pricing pages for this piece, and one of them names the recurring document: Simply.Coach lists Session Notes and Reflection under Core Coaching. Kajabi’s feature table runs through products, courses, cohorts and contacts and stops there. Document by document, online coaching platforms compared has the rest.

So write the five parts into one document this afternoon and hand it to the client. Then pick the tool for the one part you will write again next week, and judge it on whether the client can find the last session’s record without asking you.

Questions people ask next?

How do you structure a coaching program?

As a sequence set before session one: the outcome, the number of sessions and their spacing, the work between them, and the dates you review. Coachinow’s last stage is completion, renewal or referral, so the ending is a decision rather than the default.

Do I need a platform to run a coaching program?

No. A shared document and a calendar do for the four parts written before session one. A platform is for the fifth part, when something other than you has to produce the per-session record.

What does an online coaching program template add?

The same five parts, plus where each one is hosted. Simply.Coach caps programs at 1, 3, 10 or unlimited; Kajabi caps products at 5, 50 or unlimited. What the price buys is the hosting limit. The session template covers part five.