When it comes to online personal training software, there's no one-size-fits-all platform. Online training software can suit a variety of personal trainers and clients based on their needs. Our series of online PT app comparisons aims to show you the main choices and how they compare against PT Distinction.
Last time we reviewed TrueCoach, and in this article, we look at Trainerize vs PT Distinction. We break down each app in terms of the features and how they can provide an excellent foundation for your personal training venture.
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User Reviews
We start with an independent review comparison to assure you that we aim to provide a fair, factual and respectful comparison, so we looked at Capterra's comparison of the two software from a customer review perspective.
You can see that while both software perform well, PT Distinction has the edge over Trainerize in all four areas and in the likelihood to recommend as well.
When we look at independent comparisons, like the one Origym has done for personal trainer software in 2022, you can see that both software perform well and are highly recommended for personal trainers.
We are also proud that PT Distinction is rated on TrustPilot, GetApp and Software Advice as the highest-rated personal trainer software with multiple industry awards.
Program/Workout Builder
Trainerize
The Trainerize workout builder is set up with the novice trainer in mind, trainers create a single workout at a time making it easy to create a workout but hard to plan programs with multiple workouts. It features a drag and drop system to search for an exercise and drag it in to the workout. You then write in sets, reps etc... including the words sets, reps which seems more time consuming than it should be. You can make circuits and supersets by selecting your exercises and pressing superset or circuit.
You can add your own custom exercises but can't edit the Trainerize exercises from within the workout builder. The workout builder allows you to duplicate exercise but doesn't have a way to copy and paste workouts, or sections within the builder. It also doesn't allow you to take from your templates once in the workout builder.
Once a workout is built you can group it with other workouts to make a personal or master program, this is how workouts are put together and scheduled as a program phase, this process is more cumbersome than it needs to be.
Overall the Trainerize program building process is fine for a novice fitness instructor who's focussed on a single workout at a time but falls short for trainers who have a little more experience and knowledge of program design.
You may believe we're being harsh here but you can see we rated TrueCoaches program builder highly in our comparison with them.
PT Distinction
The program builder in PT Distinction is comprehensive and can help you map out detailed training regimes for your clients, including warm-ups, cooldowns, and exercises with the number of sets, reps, length of time, tempo, rest, and intensity. You can create supersets, giant sets and circuits by dragging a link across the exercises you'd like to include. Adding your own exercises is simple and you can edit any of the PT Distinction exercises if you wish to.
Depending on your offerings, you can easily assign a program and its workouts to a single client or group of clients in an instant.
You can create multiple workouts on the same page making cohesive programs easy to deliver. Exercises are easy to add by simply typing the name of your exercise in the program and selecting the one you want. You can can copy / paste workouts and take from your template library. PT Distinction also allows you to copy and paste sections of workouts i.e a warm up, or finisher to increase flexibility and save even more time.
A nice feature in PT Distinction is the ability to add sets, reps etc. for all exercises in a section at the same time which can save a lot of time with many program styles. There's the flexibly to then edit for any individual excise.
Nutrition Coaching / Tracking
Trainerize
Trainerize focuses on meal plans, goals, habits and the ability to track meals and macros through MyFitnessPal or their own app, it doesn't include a smooth way for trainers to coach clients nutrition but does have some pre done lessons in their pre made habits. Much like the program builder, the Trainerize nutrition tools are well set up for the novice fitness instructor but may not be suitable for trainers with a sound knowledge of nutrition coaching.
PT Distinction
PT Distinction includes the ability to coach clients nutrition through video, PDF, Document, pre scheduled messaging and more. The software has many nutritionist made coaching documents you can share with your clients to coach them on nutrition and habit change without having to do the work of creating the lessons yourself. These documents are editable and unbranded so you can customise if you wish to and your clients will see them as your coaching documents.
Clients can track their food intake with the in app food tracking, a MyFitnessPal integration, habit tracking, written/ photo food diary, or a simple adherence chart for the more clued up client.
PT Distinction includes the basic nutrition elements of Trainerize but adds more functionality and flexibility, which can be a big advantage helping clients achieve transformational results.
Habit Coaching
Habits are an integral part of developing healthy lifestyles and can form an important part of the coaching process.Let's see what these two personal trainer software offer to help your clients adhere to their habits.
Trainerize
Trainerize breaks down pre-set habits into four key areas: Active Lifestyle, Nutrition, Sleep, and Mindfulness. Within nutrition, you'll find portion guide habits and other advice you can assign to your clients. If you'd like to add a habit that isn't in the list of pre-set ones, you can create a new folder and add new habits with a single written coaching document attached. You'll be able to manage the habits of each client on their client dashboard.
PT Distinction
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PT Distinction has great flexibility for trainers who know what habits their clients need to track. Creating and scheduling habits has never been easier, which you can do within each client or group profile. Whether you want to track sleep, daily gratitude, water intake or specific nutrition goals, you can add them individually and schedule how often clients need to report. PT Distinction also has nutritionist made coaching documents all set up to use with any habit.
Group Coaching
Many personal trainers are utilizing group training online with great success. However, for online group coaching to be efficient, there needs to be a system to assign clients to a group, activate training plans, set goals, and the appropriate coaching tools to track your clients' results.Trainerize
In Trainerize, the Group Coaching feature is effectively a big message feed for each of your groups. You can interact with group members, send messages, add photos, and video instructions, attach files, etc... . You can then connect a Master Program to the group for everybody to follow. You can choose the start date. However, there aren't refined scheduling or individualization options as you find in PT Distinction.
PT Distinction
PT Distinction has the most powerful groups functionality in the industry. PTD Groups include a wide range of tools for you to work with a group, including group programs, assessments, nutrition, habit coaching, leaderboards, group messaging and more. In simple terms, everything you can add for a client can be added to a group.
PT Distinction allows you to edit group programs for individuals and train groups with ease. There's also the option to turn on group chat so group members can send messages, add photos, videos etc.. to communicate together.
Messaging and Communication
You want your clients to feel cared for and supported all the way. Great communication can make this happen. Lets compare Trainerize vs PT Distinction for communication.Trainerize
We've already mentioned that Trainerize has a group message feature within the group training option where you can message the whole group and address members by using the @ symbol in front of their name. When it comes to individual clients, you can communicate with them via the in-app messaging option or, if they added their ID, then via Skype. That's the extent of communications via Trainerize. Pretty engaging but less comprehensive and requires more of your time than with PT Distinction.
PT Distinction
We believe we created a communication hub for PT Distinction that isn't matched in other personal trainer apps. You can send in-app messages, SMS messages, and emails to your clients or groups and schedule them in advance so they can go out without you having to constantly remember to send them manually. There's also a chat feature and group chat, which both include text, photos, and video.
Exercise Library
Both Trainerize and PT Distinction have an extensive library so personal trainers can assign different movements to their clients' workouts and programs.Trainerize exercise library covers machines, gym equipment, and resistance bands. Exercises include videos and coaching points. You can filter for various details, including muscles worked, equipment, movement type, mechanics and level. You can also add your own video files or attach a YouTube video link to make custom exercises.
PT Distinction also has an extensive library of videos, descriptions and cues to help clients achieve correct form. PT Distinction incorporates home and outdoor exercises as well as regular machine, band, and gym-based ones, so you can create programs and plans flexibly for any training environment.
You can also add your own videos or import them from Vimeo or YouTube. An important differentiation on the YouTube integrations is PT Distinction will remove any adverts, annotations and links from your YouTube videos that could distract your clients whereas Trainerize doesn't.
Automation
Trainerize
There are some automation options on Trainerize, you can send clients automated welcome messages or encourage them to track their workouts. Prospects will be automatically added to your Trainerize account if they contact you through your Trainerize.me profile. Lastly, you can also opt-in to Trainerize Pay to automate your sales funnels for an added fee. It's currently available in 30 countries across the globe.
PT Distinction
PT Distinction was designed and developed to include as high a level of automation as you need. You can automate everything from delivering workouts, coaching items, documents, forms, assessments, etc.
You choose how much repeated work you want to do manually. Still, we typically see personal trainers looking to offload at least the things that are the same for every client such as delivering assessments, forms, welcome message, intro video, progress photos, and food diary which can save a huge amount of time. You can also automate the sales process by creating website integrations with pre-set packages and a sales funnel that includes PayPal payments.
Results Tracking
Trainerize
Trainerize has a fairly comprehensive result tracking feature where you can keep an eye on your clients' goals. These goals and habits fall into several categories: progress photos, biometrics like weight, BMI, body circumference measurements, body fat, nutrition, sleep, individual exercises and workouts, daily step count, weekly compliance, and habit progress. Viewing clients results and activity is smooth on a base level and you can click anything to view the results history, sadly the history is opened up in a new tab and takes you to a new page. Each page is quite different in setup making it difficult and quite time consuming to view results history for multiple items.
PT Distinction
Tracking your results with PT Distinction is incredibly flexible and can be tailored to each client or group you coach. Clients can track all training results, assessment results, nutrition, body composition, exercise technique, progress photos, forms, and anything else you wish to set up for them such as sleep, or daily activity. This all comes through to you in our live dashboards and is summarised for all clients, groups, and individual clients. You can see everything at a glance then click any item to see it in full detail. Viewing your clients results in PT Distinction is a smooth and easy process.
Branding
Both apps offer fantastic ways to get your app branded, so when clients look at their phones, they see your logo and brand colours every time.Trainerize
If you'd like a customized app for your online fitness business with Trainerize, you can choose from three levels of customization. You'll pay a $99 one-time fee for your branded app if you're an independent trainer. If you run a studio or an enterprise-level fitness business, your plan will include the branded app.
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PT Distinction
With PT Distinction, you get a basic level of branding with the Novice package and fully branded Android and iOS apps from the Pro package and up. We like to keep this simple and accessible to all our members, so we figured it needs to be an included feature rather than an opt-in.
Customer Support
Both platforms offer help via a helpdesk, and both have support groups on Facebook to help members make the most of their online training business.Trainerize
Trainerize has a knowledge base in their help centre where the most commonly asked questions and guides are organized in categories. Trainerize also offers regular and on-demand webinars which can help you get set up moving with the software.
PT Distinction
PT Distinction has video guides in the help section for all main features. We also offer live Masterclasses most days to guide you on everything and help you set up on the call. These are recorded so you can view it anytime if unable to make a live class. Added to that the PT Distinction University, which is free for all PT Distinction members, includes sales and marketing training while you can get extra help from PTD Ninja who can create your plans, coaching, and funnels with their done for you services.
According to Capterra trainers in the last year have rated PT Distinction 97/100 for support and Trainerize 80/100 for support.
Pricing
While each has their nuances the pricing of these two personal trainer software is quite similar. Trainerize is lower cost if you have a small number of clients whereas PT Distinction represents better value if you aim to help more clients.Trainerize
Trainerize targets freelance trainers, studios and big-box gyms, and their pricing reflects that. Independent fitness professionals can choose from three tiers depending on the number of clients. If you have 1 client, it's free. The Grow tier is $5 a month for up to 2 clients. The Pro tier starts at $20 per month for up to 5 clients, 50 clients will cost you $90 per month, with 75 clients included for $125 per month.
PT Distinction
PT Distinction is more focussed on personal trainers and has a simpler pricing structure to match. We aim to keep it commitment-free for all our members, so there's easy movement between the packages if needed.
The Novice tier for 3 clients costs $19.90 per month, the Pro tier, which includes 25 clients, is $60 per month, and the Master tier, which allows 50 clients, is $80 per month. Once you exceed the client limit in your package, you'll pay just $1.60 for additional clients rather than be jumped up to the next tier, for comparison this means 51 clients on PT Distinction is $81.60 a month whereas Trainerize would jump up to $125 a month.
Both PT Distinction and Trainerize offer a month free trial to play around with the app and figure out which one suits your goals and user experience needs better.
Conclusions
Both apps are built for the same purpose, but as you can see, they're vastly different in how they function. Both are very useful for personal trainers and clients alike.When looking deeply at Trainerize vs PT Distinction, Trainerize appears to be designed for trainers in the early stages of their career, however, once you get used to interacting with an online personal training software, you should demand more of it, which is why PT Distinction has a lot more to offer both personal trainers and clients alike.
Save time, and build your fitness business with the #1 rated personal trainer software. Find out why today!
You can join the highest rated software on Trustpilot, Capterra, Software Advice, and Get App here - www.ptdistinction.com/free-trial
