ABC Trainerize is the default app for online and hybrid personal training: workout programming, habit tracking, in-app messaging, and a client experience built for coaching at a distance. Mako is the business platform underneath a training business — booking, payments, memberships, and the financial reporting that tells you which clients and services actually pay. These solve adjacent problems, and the honest answer for a lot of trainers is not one or the other.
ABC Trainerize: Published and scaled by active client count. It starts around $9/month for a couple of clients, sits in the low $20s through the small-roster tiers, and rises to roughly $248–$275/month at 500 to 1,000+ clients. Check the current ladder against your own roster size — the bands move.
Mako: Pulse is free. Basic at $139/month — the complete platform with three team members. Team at $249/month — fifteen team members, advanced reporting, QuickBooks sync. Enterprise at $999/month — unlimited members. Roughly 20% off annually, no contract, and no charge based on client count at any tier.
For a solo online coach with thirty clients, Trainerize is far cheaper and does the thing you need. For a studio with several trainers, a facility, retail, and a few hundred members, the comparison changes shape entirely — and Mako's tiers stop moving while Trainerize's keep climbing with the roster.
Trainerize delivers coaching. Mako runs a business. Concretely:
Trainerize does workout programming, exercise libraries, video demonstrations, habit and nutrition tracking, progress photos, and client messaging.
Mako does booking and class scheduling, memberships and credits, payments and a customer portal, trainer pay and commissions, retail and inventory, and profit reporting per service.
If you coach online only, Trainerize plus a payment link may be your entire stack, and adding Mako would be paying for a facility you do not have. If you run a physical space with staff, Trainerize is your coaching layer and something has to run the business — that is the gap Mako fills.
Workout building, exercise video, and progression tracking are mature and genuinely good. Mako does not do programming.
Clients live in the app between sessions. For online coaching, that daily contact is the product.
Under fifty clients, it is a fraction of any business platform's cost.
Built in, and a real retention driver for remote coaching.
Profit per service after trainer pay, cash-flow forecasting, unit economics, LTV. Trainerize tells you clients are training; it does not tell you which parts of the business make money.
Session rates, splits, tips, timesheets and payouts — native, and calculated at the rate that applied on the day. Essential the moment you employ anyone.
Class scheduling, room and resource booking, memberships, retail and inventory with margin — the whole physical-space layer.
Adding clients does not raise your bill. At 500 clients Mako Team is still $249.
Pulse compares your retention against market averages and names who is drifting — free, and it imports from other platforms.
Pick Trainerize if:
Pick Mako if:
Run both if: you are a hybrid business — Trainerize for programming, Mako for booking, payments, pay and financials. That is a common and entirely sensible stack.
Your training business is a business. Not a hobby, not a side project, not a calendar with a cash register. It deserves software that treats it accordingly. If your platform cannot tell you whether you are financially healthy, it is not doing its job. And in 2026, you have better options.
See Mako in action — no sales call required
Mako is built for independent trainers and studio owners who would rather spend their time on clients than on demo calls. Open the live demo, poke around, and see exactly how booking, payments, and financial intelligence come together in one place.
Try the demo: https://app.makocrm.so/demo
Self-serve. Instant access. No forms, no calendars, no "talk to sales."
