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Become a coach

There are two doors into coaching. Both end in the same state: a coach account with portal access, your athlete subscription intact, an empty roster, and an activation checklist on the dashboard.

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The two entry paths

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Every coach is also an athlete

Every coach has a Saturday athlete account and completes athlete onboarding. You coach fueling better having used it, and the on the Accounts page switches between Coaching and My Training without logging out.

• Portal-first sign-up: Saturday creates your athlete account and subscription. You can finish athlete onboarding in the app whenever you like.
• Have an app account: it is kept. Same login, now with coaching.
• Signed up twice (app identity does not match portal identity): Saturday detects the mismatch and offers Link my accounts, keeping the account with more training history. Linking is the recommended path.
• Want them separate? Keep them separate is offered alongside linking, and you can link later from Settings. A few account shapes cannot be linked self-serve, such as an account that is an athlete on another coach’s roster; Saturday support completes those, and you keep coaching in the meantime.

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Your first 30 days

Every new coach account starts on a 30-day Head Coach trial, no card required, so the roster, alerts, team roll-up, org hierarchy, and custom roles are all open from day one. During the trial you can switch it to Business and back without resetting the window. When the trial ends without a plan, you continue on the free Coach plan: API keys, webhooks, and assistants pause until you upgrade, and any athlete the trial covered moves to self-pay through the relinquish flow, with the 14-day grace and the 20%-off annual offer. A paid Head Coach can also take a one-time, 30-day free Business tryout from Coach Subscription. Head Coach billing continues unchanged during the tryout, and nothing is charged unless you choose Keep Business before it ends.

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Your activation checklist

An empty dashboard opens with a Get started card and four steps, each with a button:

1. Invite your first athlete from your roster. See Invite your first athlete.
2. Set up billing, whose Choose a plan button opens Coach Subscription. See Who pays.
3. Finish your athlete setup in the app, about 5 minutes. Show QR displays a code that hands your athlete onboarding to your phone.
4. Read the coach docs, which lands here.

The card tracks progress, collapses to a Setup complete strip when all four are done, and can be dismissed. Once dismissed, a Setup guide link reopens it.

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Choosing a plan

You can start without paying. Plans live on Coach Subscription, which the checklist’s Choose a plan button, your Account Settings, and the command palette all open. (The $ Earning item in the nav is Stripe Connect payouts, not your plan.) Included means covered by your plan fee, so the athlete pays nothing. The free Coach tier is the exception: it lets you coach one athlete, but that athlete pays for Saturday themselves. Covering an athlete yourself starts at Pro Coach. See Who pays. Beyond the assistants your plan includes, you can buy extra assistant seats at $10/seat/month and release them at any time. Business and Enterprise have no assistant cap, so the seat add-on does not apply to them. Coach plans are billed monthly. Upgrade, downgrade, or cancel from Coach Subscription. An upgrade takes effect immediately; a downgrade or cancellation takes effect at the end of your paid period, and both can be undone before then. Before a downgrade or cancellation is scheduled, you decide per athlete above the new plan’s included seats whether they move to self-pay or stay coach-paid; the self-pay ones go through the relinquish flow on the effective date.