You built a client a meal plan in a spreadsheet. Then they told you they don’t eat fish, are travelling Thursday and hate oats. Forty minutes later you’re re-adding protein in column F, and you still haven’t sent it.
Meal plans take a long time to make by hand. Software should do the arithmetic and leave the judgment to you. For a tour of the features themselves, see meal planning in Coachplan; for a day in the life of a nutrition coach, see Coachplan for nutrition coaches.
First: meal plans or just macros?
It depends on the client.
- Macros or a calorie target suit clients who already cook, like flexibility and can track. They learn more, but it’s more work for them.
- A specific meal plan suits busy clients, beginners and anyone who says “just tell me what to eat”. Less freedom, less thinking.
- A hybrid is common: a calorie target plus a few sample days.
Good software lets you do all three without changing tools.
A note on scope: personal trainers should stay within their qualifications and local rules on nutrition advice, and refer clients with medical conditions to a dietitian or doctor.
What to look for in meal plan software
- Automatic calorie and macro totals. Type grams, see the totals. If you have to add it up yourself, it isn’t meal plan software.
- Calorie targets. So you can see straight away whether each meal lands where it should.
- A food database and your own recipes. Saved recipes are what make the second plan faster than the first.
- Templates. Build a plan once, copy it, adjust it for the next client.
- A clear client view. Clients should see their meals and totals on their phone, not a PDF in their downloads folder.
- Daily follow-up. A way for clients to log whether they hit the target, so you know if the plan works in real life.
- No surprise add-on. On some platforms nutrition is a paid extra. Check before you commit.
What nutrition costs on other platforms
Read from each platform’s own pricing page on October 29, 2026, monthly billing. Coachplan’s prices include tax; the others are shown as listed.
| Platform and plan | Plan price | Nutrition add-on | Together | Coachplan, nutrition included |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everfit Pro 10 (10 clients) | $29 | Meal Plans & Recipe Books: from $39 | from $68 | Starter: $39 |
| Everfit Pro 35 (35 clients) | $75 | Meal Plans & Recipe Books: from $39 | from $114 | Grow: $69 |
| Trainerize Pro 30 (30 clients) | $79 | Advanced Nutrition: $45 | $124 | Grow: $69 |
Payments, automation and a branded app can be extra on those platforms too, and none of that is counted here. Coachplan takes a small fee on client payments, which the table leaves out for both sides. See the full price comparison in our personal training software pricing guide, or the side-by-side pages for Everfit, Trainerize and Coachway.
What a feature includes isn’t always clear from a pricing page, and plans differ in how many recipes, plans or clients they cover. Try each tool with a real client’s plan before deciding.
How meal plans work in Coachplan
- Set a calorie target for each meal, and watch the plan’s totals add up as you build.
- Calories, protein, carbs and fat are calculated from the grams you enter.
- Food database and recipe library to build from, plus your own recipes.
- Copy a plan to start the next client from it.
- Scale a whole plan to a new calorie target: pick the number, check the preview and confirm. You can also fit a single meal to its own target.
- Clients see their plan in the app, with the meals and the plan’s total calories, protein, carbs and fat.
- Daily tracking with tasks: add a task like “Hit your calorie target?” so clients tick it off each day, and you see the answers in their task log.
Where Coachplan isn’t the strongest: if a very large built-in recipe library is the core of your offer, compare recipe counts directly. Our Coachway comparison is one example.
A worked example: a new client’s plan
Example (fictional): a new client with a 2,100 kcal target who doesn’t eat fish and has busy weekdays.
- Start from your “busy professional” plan and copy it.
- Scale the copied plan to 2,100 kcal: pick the target, check the preview and confirm.
- Replace the fish meals yourself with chicken or tofu recipes from your library.
- Choose batch-cook-friendly lunches for Monday to Thursday.
- Check the plan’s totals against the target and adjust portions.
- Add a daily “Hit your calorie target?” task and send the plan.
The second, tenth and fiftieth plan should each take less time than the one before. Pair it with a weekly check-in routine so you can see whether the plan works in real life.