Build a Membership App for Your Coaching Business

The problem

• Session credits live in a spreadsheet, so when a client insists they still have two sessions left and you think they used them, there is no ledger to settle it — and the client usually wins.
• Your membership is duct-taped across a payment link, a scheduler, a course platform and a chat group, so a new client gets four logins, four emails, and still slips through a gap on day one.
• A card quietly fails and nothing is connected, so the member keeps booking sessions and streaming your content for weeks before you notice you have been coaching for free.
• Tiers leak: the client on your $49 content plan finds the booking link and grabs a premium 1:1 slot that was supposed to be reserved for your top tier.

A day in the system

1. You set up the ladder once — a $49 content tier, a $199 group tier with two live calls a month, and a $600 premium tier that adds two private sessions — each with its price and session allotment.
2. A prospect lands on your own domain, picks the premium plan, e-signs your coaching agreement, and pays; the subscription goes active and this period’s two session credits drop into their wallet.
3. The client logs into their portal and sees only what their tier unlocks — the modules dripped to their current week, the replay library, the next group call, and a Book a session button showing 2 credits.
4. They book a 1:1 in one of your open slots; the app renders your availability in their timezone, holds the slot, and spends one credit when they confirm.
5. You run the session, mark it completed, and write private notes on the client’s record; a client who cancels inside your window is marked late-cancel and forfeits the credit per your policy.
6. Renewal day arrives — the card is charged, the period rolls over, the session wallet resets per the plan’s rollover rule, and the next week of dripped content unlocks automatically.
7. A different client’s card fails: their subscription flips to past_due, their portal collapses to an Update payment screen, and their history and session notes are preserved, not wiped.
8. At month end you open the dashboard — active versus past_due members, credits about to expire unused, and everyone up for renewal — and send a nudge to the ones at risk of churning.

Where AI trips up

• Access must follow the live subscription status, not a flag set once at signup. The naive build unlocks everything on the first payment and never rechecks, so a member who cancels or whose card failed keeps your content and booking for free — every content view and booking attempt has to read the current subscription state.
• Session credits are a ledger, not a single number you overwrite. Store only credits_remaining and a double-tapped booking, a refund, or a mid-cycle plan change silently corrupts it — and that balance is exactly what clients dispute. Record every grant and every spend as an append-only row and derive the number from them.
• Tier gating belongs on the server, not in the UI. Hiding the premium Book button from a $49 member is decoration, not a rule — the booking endpoint itself must reject any client whose plan includes no sessions, or people will simply find the URL and book anyway.
• Every session and group call is in the client’s timezone, and coaching clients are often scattered across continents. Store times in UTC, render them in each person’s zone, and account for daylight-saving shifts, or you will no-show a client who logged on exactly an hour off.
• Coaching records are confidential and frequently sensitive — health, careers, relationships, money. Private session notes must never cross the portal or tier boundary, a signed coaching agreement should be on file before the first session, and card details must run through a PCI-compliant provider so you never store them. Health and wellness coaches should also keep a visible not-medical-advice scope line.

FAQ

Can one app handle both a cheap content membership and high-touch 1:1 coaching?

Yes — that is exactly what tiers are for. Each plan carries its own price, session allotment and content level, so your $49 self-serve members and your $600 private clients live in one system but see completely different portals. Access is driven by the plan on their active subscription, hosted on ybuild on your own domain.

How do session credits and packages actually work?

Each plan grants a number of sessions per period into the client’s wallet. Booking a confirmed slot spends one credit; a late-cancel or no-show forfeits it per your policy; and at renewal the wallet resets or rolls over based on the plan’s rule. Because credits are tracked as a ledger of grants and spends, the balance is always provable when a client asks.

What happens when a client’s card fails or they cancel?

The subscription flips to past_due or canceled and the portal immediately gates to an update-payment or reactivate screen — no more free bookings or content. Crucially, their session history, notes and progress are preserved, so when they fix billing or come back, nothing is lost.

How do I stop lower-tier members from reaching premium content or booking sessions?

Gating runs on the server against the tier of the client’s active subscription, not just in what the interface shows. A content page or booking request from a plan that does not include it is rejected outright, so members cannot get in by guessing a URL.

Is my clients’ coaching data kept private?

Private session notes stay on the client’s record and never cross the tier or portal boundary, you can require a signed coaching agreement before the first session, and payments run through a PCI-compliant provider so card numbers are never stored on your system. Everything runs hosted on ybuild on your own domain.