How to Migrate Your Clients to a New Coaching Platform in 7 Steps

To migrate clients between coaching platforms, first export everything you have in open formats (CSV for data, PDF for documents), import your contacts into the new platform, tell your clients, and keep both platforms running for a few weeks before closing the old one. Order matters: cancel before exporting, or move payments before clients, and you lose information or income.

If you are still choosing where to go, start with our guide on what to look for in coaching software. This article is for when you have decided and it is time to move.

Why do coaches switch platforms?

The reasons are usually the same: the platform puts its price up, stops improving, lacks a feature you now need, or your clients are spread across five tools and you want them in one place. Whatever the reason, the move carries the same risks: losing history, denting a client's trust with a badly explained change, or going a month without getting paid.

You can avoid all three if you do things in the right order. Here's the order.

What data do you need to take with you?

Before exporting anything, take stock. This table sums up the most common kinds of information in a coaching practice and what to do with each.

Look at that last row. It causes the most trouble, because your clients' payment methods are usually stored in the old platform's payment gateway and cannot always be moved.

What does the law say about your clients' data?

If you work with people in the European Union, the GDPR affects you in two ways. Article 20 gives each person the right to receive their data "in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format". And Article 28 requires a provider processing data on your behalf to delete it or return it to you, at your choice, when the service ends. In other words, you can require your old platform to hand over the data and then delete it.

If you do not work with the EU, check your own country's data protection law and what it says about handing over and deleting data. Either way, the ICF Code of Ethics (item 2.4) asks coaches to maintain, store and dispose of records, including electronic files, in a way that protects confidentiality, security and privacy. A migration is exactly when that gets tested. We go deeper in confidentiality and data protection in coaching.

How do you migrate, step by step?

1. Export everything before touching anything

Download every export your current platform offers: contacts, notes, documents, invoices, contracts. Keep a copy somewhere safe and encrypted, outside both platforms. That copy is your safety net if something goes wrong.

2. Clean the data

Open the contacts CSV in a spreadsheet. Remove duplicates, standardise phone and date formats, and mark which clients are active and which are archived. Do it now. If you import messy data, you just move the mess to the new platform.

3. Import contacts first

Contacts are the foundation: everything else (sessions, documents, payments) hangs off each client's record. Run a test with five clients, check every field landed in the right place, and only then import the rest.

4. Attach documents to each record

Upload each active client's signed contracts, assessment results and, if they could not be imported, their exported notes to their record. For archived clients, the backup from step 1 is enough.

5. Rebuild your calendar and payments

Connect your calendar, set up your appointment types and booking page, and move future appointments across. Then prepare recurring payments on the new platform, but do not cancel the old ones yet.

6. Tell your clients

A personal message, not a mass email that reads like a press release. There is a template below.

7. Run both for a few weeks, then close

Keep both platforms active until every client has logged into the new one and the first new payment has arrived. Then cancel the old subscriptions, request deletion of the data in writing and close the account.

Before closing, go through this list:

• Every active client is on the new platform and has logged in at least once.
• Every active record has its signed contracts and documents.
• No future appointments or scheduled payments remain on the old platform.
• Your invoice numbering continues with no gaps or duplicates.
• You have the backup from step 1 stored, and you have opened it to check it works.
• You have written confirmation that your data has been deleted.

How do you tell your clients about the change?

Clients do not need to know why you are changing tools. They need to know what changes for them, what stays the same and what they have to do. A template:

If you charge on a recurring basis, send a second message just about payment, with the link to authorise it and the date the old payment method stops being charged. Mixing both topics in one email tends to raise questions.

Which mistakes should you avoid?

• Cancelling before exporting. Depending on the platform, your data may stop being available once you cancel.
• Importing everything at once. A five-client test catches column errors before they affect a hundred records.
• Cutting old payments too early. A month without income is the most common cost of a rushed migration.
• Not requesting deletion. Your data and your clients' data should not stay on a service you no longer use.
• Moving to another closed platform. If the new one does not let you export your data, the next move will be just as hard.

What should you look for in the new platform so this never happens again?

Before you move, check three things: that you can import clients from a file, that you can export all your data whenever you want, and that it connects with other tools so you are not dependent on it for everything. If your goal is to bring together what is currently scattered, see our guides to an online coaching platform and to centralizing your coaching practice.

In CoachPro Tools, for instance, clients are imported from a CSV file based on a template, and from your profile you can export all your data as CSV and JSON. To connect with other tools there is a client API with webhooks, Zapier and the GoHighLevel integration, plus the Google Calendar connection for your diary.

Frequently asked questions