How to Start an Online Coaching Business in 2026 (Simple Setup)

Most people starting an online coaching business end up with Squarespace for their website, Teachable for course content, Stripe for payments, Zoom for calls and WhatsApp for messaging clients. None of them talk to each other, half of it breaks when something updates, and you've spent hundreds on subscriptions before your first sale.

There's a much simpler way to start an online coaching business. I walk you through the five elements I think every professional coaching business needs, and how I run all five under one roof in Kajabi.

Key Takeaways

• A professional online coaching business needs five things: a website, email, a coaching product, a way to book and run sessions, and a checkout.
• Running all five on one platform avoids a tangle of tools that don't talk to each other and costs that add up before you've made a sale.
• Start with 1:1 coaching, get one person a specific result, and build courses and memberships later.

Why a Simple Setup Beats a Pile of Tools

I get it. The simplest way to start coaching someone online is to have a call, agree a price, send them a PayPal link and book some calls. In my book, that's a little amateur.

A professional setup means your own domain, emails that come from your brand, everything packaged in one place and an easy way to pay. I use Kajabi for all five elements below, because it gives me exactly what I need without stitching tools together.

1. A Website on Your Own Domain

Start by securing a domain that's you or your brand. Everything on timpeakman.com, including my homepage, about page, blog and coaching products, is built in Kajabi.

In the page editor, you click any element and edit it on the left-hand side. You can add call-to-action buttons that lead to an opt-in page, along with social links, copy and images. The aim is to show who you are, who you serve and how people can get help from you.

You can build more pages over time, but I'd start with a homepage, or even just an opt-in page to capture leads so you can follow up with them. I show how quickly you can get this up in my post on the Kajabi website builder.

2. Email Marketing From Your Own Brand

I send all my emails through Kajabi too. Once someone has been through my new subscriber sequence, I add a simple tag, and from then on they receive my broadcast emails.

Every email comes from my own domain, so people know who it's from, and anyone on my list can hit reply and reach me directly. A typical broadcast has a subject line, preview text and a short message, such as a link to my latest YouTube video. I cover how I write these in my guide to Kajabi email marketing.

3. Start With a Coaching Product

Kajabi lets you create courses, podcasts, communities, coaching, newsletters and downloads. You don't need all of them. If you're starting a coaching business, start with the coaching product.

I always recommend coaching first. Help one person get one specific result, showcase that result, then repeat. Courses and memberships come later, once you know exactly what people need. I explain why in my post on creating your first digital product.

4. Booking and Running Your Coaching Sessions

Inside the coaching product you get a programme description, a template to design from and a built-in scheduling tool. You can connect Calendly if you like, but I just use Kajabi's own scheduler.

What's built into the coaching product:

• Scheduling: clients pick a day and time for their next call.
• Video calls: one-to-one or group sessions hosted in Kajabi, so you don't need Zoom.
• Recordings: session recordings are uploaded straight into the product.
• Extras: upsells, notifications for you and your client, and automations.

From the client's side, they log in, click schedule and choose a slot. I walk through the setup in my guides to the Kajabi coaching product and the Kajabi scheduler.

5. A Checkout to Take Payment

The last element is a way to turn a subscriber into a paying client. In Kajabi, that's a checkout linked to an offer. For example, one of my checkouts is linked to a single product, my YouTube List Builder.

You can edit the checkout's look and feel, add order bumps, and add upsells on the next page. Kajabi Payments is essentially Stripe built in, so you don't need a separate Stripe or SamCart account. Everything stays under one roof.

Conclusion

To start an online coaching business professionally, you need five things: a website on your own domain, email from your brand, a coaching product, a way to book and run sessions, and a checkout.

Keep them on one platform rather than a pile of disconnected tools, start with 1:1 coaching, and build courses and memberships once you've helped a few people get results.