The work you put into a coaching app lives in the client data: the check-in history they filled out, the programmes built week by week, nutrition targets, measurements, progress photos and consent records. Leaving the app means trying to take that with you. Most platforms hand back almost none of it.
The lock-in is documented
TrueCoach reviewers describe feeling trapped by the amount of work they have invested in the platform while reliability and support decline. Coaches say plainly why they stay: moving clients is harder than paying for software they dislike. The migration problem has been documented since 2022, and none of the major platforms ships a structured export.
The handouts at the door
What the incumbents offer instead of an export tells the same story. Trainerize's analytics are thin enough that its business metrics require a CSV export. Kahunas reviewers report lost tracking data between gym sessions and workouts stuck as "ongoing" after completion. My PT Hub sells the check-in workflow itself as a paid add-on called Check-Ins AI.
None of this is an accident. The export is a business decision before it is a technical one: the data is the asset these platforms monetise, and returning it in a usable form undercuts the model that pays for the subscription.
The export button is the real terms of service. Everything else is marketing.
What "your data" actually is
The export that matters covers the ten collections a coach actually accumulates: check-ins with every answer, workouts with set-by-set history, programmes and blocks, nutrition plans and targets, measurements, progress photos, the consent record and the coaching decisions made client by client. The consent record matters most, because it is the data-processing record of the coaching itself.
What taking it with you means
PTToolBox's answer is a button on the client page and a button on the roster page. One client exports as a single JSON file carrying all ten collections. The roster button downloads everything as one zip: a workbook with fifteen tabs, the same tables as csv files, one machine-readable JSON and a manifest that names every sheet and its row count. The manifest is the point: completeness is checkable without opening the files.
Two rules decide what travels. Progress photos leave as references, because an image link is a permission to view while a file is something to send. Internal fields and bearer tokens stay behind. The export contains the coaching, and nothing that would leak if the file were forwarded.
What to ask before you sign up
Ask any coaching platform one question before you pay: what is the export format? The honest answer from the incumbents is a screen to copy from, or nothing usable at all. Then ask whether the export still exists after you stop paying, because the software you own your data in should not be the one you have to fight on the way out.
The coaching is the asset. Software either hands it back or it does not, and that difference shows up in the export button long before it shows up in the marketing page.