Fitsly vs PT Distinction

Most platform comparisons come down to price, because the feature lists all read the same by the third tab. This one is closer than most: at a full roster the two platforms are about $20 apart. The differences that matter are what each one includes for that money, what "your own branded app" actually means on each side, and how much of the coaching you can do from your phone.

This compares the two on what each costs at a real client count, how the two pricing models behave as you grow, what each platform's branded app is, and which coach each one suits. All PT Distinction prices are list prices from their pricing page as of 9 September 2026. The branded-app detail is from PT Distinction's own blog, checked 11 September 2026.

Pricing at 50 clients

Fifty clients is roughly a full-time online roster, so it is the fairest single comparison point.

Without a white label app, Fitsly is $20.90 a month cheaper at this roster, and that $69 is the whole product: the workout builder and exercise library, meal plans and a food database, habits, check-in forms, progress photos, payments and packages, messaging, a community feed, a content vault, automations, Apple Health sync and sub-coaches. There is no tier where any of those appear, so the number on the pricing page is the number on the invoice.

The "not published here" row is deliberate: we only state competitor facts we have verified from the source. Fitsly's side of that row is plain: there is no in-platform video calling in Fitsly, and coaches who run calls use Zoom or Google Meet alongside it.

How the two pricing models behave as you grow

The models are different enough that "which is cheaper" has no single answer. Fitsly buys you a block of client slots. PT Distinction buys you a smaller block and then meters everything above it.

At 25 clients, PT Distinction Pro is $59.90 with no extras to add. Fitsly's 20-client tier does not cover you, so you are on the $69 tier. PT Distinction is about $9 cheaper.

At 30 clients, PT Distinction Pro is $59.90 plus five extras at $2.40, or $71.90. Fitsly is $69. That is roughly the crossover point.

At 75 clients, PT Distinction Master is $89.90 plus 25 extras at $1.60, or $129.90. Fitsly is $99.

At 200 clients, PT Distinction Master is $89.90 plus 150 extras, or $329.90. Fitsly is $229.

So the metered model is kinder when you are just under a Fitsly tier boundary and less kind once you are well past one. The other difference is what happens when your roster moves: a metered bill follows it up and down every month, a tiered bill stays put until you cross a line. If you would rather your software cost be the same number every month, tiers do that. Hevy Coach, which prices in client bands, is a third shape again.

Starting out on a handful of clients

With three clients, PT Distinction is $19.90 a month and Fitsly is $39. With five, PT Distinction Basic is $19.90 plus two extras at $6.00, or $31.90, still under Fitsly's entry tier. The Basic per-client rate is steep enough that the maths turns around quickly — by seven clients you are at $43.90 and Fitsly is cheaper — but for a coach with a handful of clients testing whether online coaching works, PT Distinction costs less to start on.

What the $39 buys is the full product from day one: a coach with three clients has the same nutrition, forms, payments and automations as a coach with 500, and only ever changes plan for headcount. Basic on PT Distinction does not include custom branding, so a coach who wants their own name in front of clients is on Pro at $59.90 from the start.

Both platforms let you try before you pay. PT Distinction gives a one-month free trial with extra clients free for the first month, and you can cancel in that month and pay nothing. Fitsly's trial is 14 days with every feature switched on; a card is taken at signup and charged when the trial ends.

Branded apps: what each one actually is

"Custom branded app" covers two different products, and it pays to know which one you are being sold.

Custom branding is your logo, colours and name inside the vendor's app. Clients still download the vendor's app from the store. White label is a standalone app in the App Store and Google Play under your own name, with no vendor branding anywhere.

PT Distinction's Pro and Master plans include what its pricing page calls "your own custom branded Android and iOS apps" at no extra charge; Basic does not. What that means in practice is in PT Distinction's own blog. On iOS, the app is named "Online Personal Training" in the App Store and takes on your logo, icon and colours once a client downloads it and logs in. On Android, the app carries your own name and store placing, published by PT Distinction. So on iOS it is custom branding, and on Android it is an own-name listing. There is no own-name App Store listing on offer at any PT Distinction price, as of 11 September 2026.

Fitsly splits the same idea into two levels. Custom branding is included on every plan, including the $39 one: your business name, colours and logo carry through the client app, the automated emails and your invite links. White label is the $199 a month add-on, on any plan from 20 clients up. Fitsly builds and submits a standalone app to the App Store and Google Play under your own name and your own developer accounts, with no Fitsly branding in it. Once live, updates to a newer Fitsly version are $100 each, one every 60 days. The developer accounts are yours — Apple at $99 a year and Google Play at $25 once — and that is true of any platform that publishes an app in your name.

If what you want is your brand on the client's phone, both platforms include it — Fitsly on every plan, PT Distinction from Pro — and the like-for-like price at 50 clients is $69 against $89.90. If you want your own name on Google Play and can live with "Online Personal Training" on the App Store, PT Distinction includes that on Master where Fitsly charges $199. If you want your own name on both stores, Fitsly's white label is the only option of the two, and $199 is the mid-point of the market: Kahunas bundles store listings into a $99 plan, and My PT Hub ($225 a month on top of Premium) and Trainerize ($275 a month with a 500-seat minimum) are dearer, as of September 2026.

For the same trade against platforms that do publish the coach's own app, see FitBudd, which does it on its top tier, and Kahunas, which bundles it into an unlimited-client plan.

What both platforms include

The overlap is larger than the marketing on either side suggests.

PT Distinction includes selling packages and taking payments, integrations and pre-made templates on all three plans, including Basic. Fitsly includes every feature on every tier: the training and workout builder, exercise library, meal plans and nutrition tracking, recipes and food database, habits, check-in forms, progress photos and measurements, client management, lead capture, payments and packages, one-to-one and group messaging, community feed, content vault, automations, Apple Health sync and sub-coaches. Neither platform charges your clients anything.

Where the two part is how much of that you can do away from a desk. Fitsly's coach app does everything on iOS and Android — build and assign a program, write a meal plan, review a week of check-ins, take a payment, set up an automation, message a client — rather than a summary that sends you to a laptop for the real work. Coaches who train in person all day tell us this is the thing they notice first: the admin that used to wait for the evening gets done between sessions. Open both trials on your phone and try to get through a full week without a computer.

Nutrition and check-ins

If macros are part of what you sell, check how deep the nutrition side goes, because "nutrition included" covers everything from a macro target field to a full food database.

On Fitsly, nutrition is a verified food database with barcode scanning and custom foods, a recipe library, multi-day meal plans, and per-client macro targets with a variance band and date overrides. Clients log by search, barcode or straight from the meal plan you assigned, and calories, macros and micronutrients roll up on both sides. PT Distinction includes nutrition tools on all plans; the specifics are not something we state here, so compare them in the trial against the way you actually write a plan.

Check-ins are the other place to spend trial time. Fitsly's form builder covers twelve question types — text, numbers, ratings, progress photos, signatures and body metrics among them — and produces a recurring weekly check-in, a one-off questionnaire, and a public link you can put on a website to capture leads who do not have an account yet. Body-metric and photo answers write straight to the client's profile, so a weight logged in a check-in appears on the weight chart without you re-entering it. Coaches who have moved across tell us the review is what changes their Sunday night: the form, the photos, the week's training and the food log are on one screen, so the reply takes the time it used to take to find the data.

Where PT Distinction suits a coach

• Fewer than about seven clients. Basic is $19.90 a month for three clients, against $39 for Fitsly's entry tier.
• A roster just under a Fitsly tier boundary. At 25 clients Pro is $59.90 and Fitsly is $69, because Fitsly's $39 tier stops at 20.
• A bill that follows the roster. Per-client pricing goes down when a client leaves. Tiered pricing does not, until you drop a whole tier.
• Your own name on Google Play without an add-on. Master includes an own-name Android listing at $89.90; the same thing on Fitsly is part of the $199 white label.

Where Fitsly suits a coach

From roughly 30 clients up, if you are not buying a white label app, Fitsly is the cheaper platform at most roster sizes, and the gap grows from a few dollars at 30 to $100 a month at 200. The exception is the stretch just past each Fitsly tier boundary, where the metered bill is lower until the tier fills. At every rung the Fitsly price includes everything, so a coach who adds nutrition or automations to their service next year adds nothing to the bill.

It suits a coach who does most of their admin from a phone, because the coach app does all of it on iOS and Android. It suits a coach who wants their brand in front of clients without a separate app project, because that is included on every plan. And it is the only one of the two that can put your own name on the App Store as well as Google Play, for coaches who want a standalone app.

Coaches who have moved from platforms with a per-client meter tell us the thing they stop doing is checking the invoice. Annual billing at two months free is the other thing PT Distinction's monthly-only model does not offer.

Switching between them

If you do move in either direction, the work is not the export. It is the clients. Programs and templates have to be rebuilt, and every client needs to download a new app and set up a new login, which is where a switch usually loses people.

Move between program blocks, tell clients a week before, and rebuild your three most-used templates before you invite anyone across. The longer version is in how to migrate clients to a new coaching platform.

Both platforms let you test properly first — a full month on PT Distinction, 14 days on Fitsly. The pricing page will tell you the number; only rebuilding one real program and running one real check-in cycle will tell you whether the tool fits.