Life coaching intake form: the questions to ask, and what happens to the answers before session one

A life coaching intake form is the set of questions a client answers before session one. Personalise it with one open question in the client’s own words. Then quote the answer back in the first minutes of the call. One coach on r/lifecoaching runs the exploratory call off the form, “so I can initially address some things that they mentioned.”

Every tool below files those answers. None of their pages, read on 4 October, mentions reading them back before session one. Call that the reading step.

What questions go on a life coaching intake form?

Seven, and the first four sit on every published form I read.

• Contact. Name, email, phone, time zone, and how you prefer to be reached.
• What brings you here. In your own words, why look for a coach now?
• Goals. What should be different by the end, and how will you know?
• What gets in the way. What stopped you before, and what will stop you now?
• What support looks like. When stuck, what helps: a question, a plan, a deadline?
• The write-up. After a session: a summary, the agreed actions, or nothing?
• Recording. May I record our sessions, who may hear it, and for how long?

The first four are my wording for what the ranking forms ask. Luisa Zhou’s list asks what will get in your way, getperspective.ai asks for readiness for change, and Content Snare runs 30 questions across six areas, reviewed 16 June 2026. Five and six do the personalising: they ask how the client wants to be worked with.

Question seven belongs in your paperwork too. A commenter on r/lifecoaching lists “Agreements around recordings of the session” among a coach’s documents, and the International Coaching Federation publishes a sample agreement. Consent rules vary by jurisdiction, so ask your client and keep the clause in your contract. Not legal advice.

How do you automate a manual coaching intake?

In five steps, and the fifth is the one no tool does.

1. Write the questions down before you pick a tool.
2. Put them in a builder the client opens without making an account.
3. Add signing separately if your builder cannot sign.
4. Send the form with the booking confirmation, then one reminder.
5. Read the answers before the call, and bring two into the opening.

Two things go wrong, by coaches’ own accounts. The client never returns the form, the subject of an r/psychotherapists thread about reminders sent days ahead and ignored. And the platform that also signs and takes payment gives the client a login, which the coach recommending CoachAccountable in a forms-and-signatures thread calls the point, not the cost.

Where does an intake form live, and who reads the answers?

In one of five places, and in all five the reading step is yours.

Where it lives	What its page says (pulled 4 October)	Who reads the answers
Google Forms, Typeform	Typeform publishes an intake form template	you
Content Snare	”automate your data collection process”	you
Paperbell	a 30-day money-back guarantee	you
CoachAccountable	one pricing plan for everyone since 2012	you, after the client logs in
Ember	the session report, in your template, from the recording	nothing stated about intake answers

I build Ember, the last row, so treat that as an interested party’s claim. It takes the session recording and writes the report in your template, and its published facts do not mention an intake answer. It is in closed beta.

The same question returns one session later, for the record of what a client agreed. So send the seven questions, then book the reading step before the call. The form is the filing. You are the reader.

Questions people ask next?

Is there a free coaching intake form template?

Several. Typeform, Jotform and Co-Active’s intake post each give one away. Pick by where the answers end up and who has to log in to read them.

Should the client fill the form in before the discovery call or after?

Both happen. One r/lifecoaching coach uses the form for the exploratory call; another dropped forms and opens by asking why the client is seeking coaching. Two accounts, not a rate.