An even-handed look at the main options for grassroots football (soccer) coaches and clubs: what each one is actually for, what it costs, and who it suits. Including the free options and AI session generators.
Quick answer: there is no single best app. If you want ongoing coach education between formal qualifications for every coach at your club, learning from expert coaches delivering full sessions on video from U5 to elite, look at The Coaching Manual. If you mainly need registration and payments, look at coachbetter. If you want to design your own sessions in 3D, look at Sport Session Planner. If budget is the deciding factor, start with your national association's free resources, Sportplan's free tier or MOJO (US).
Written by The Coaching Manual. Facts checked against each provider's own website in October 2026.
Yes, we make one of these. We've tried to be fair anyway: every fact about another product comes from that provider's own website or app store listing, and we've said where each one does something better than we do. Prices change, so check the provider's site before you buy. If we've got something wrong, email help@thecoachingmanual.com and we'll fix it.
The products below do quite different jobs. Pick the job first.
What each one includes, based on what the provider publishes. "Not stated" means we couldn't find it on their site, not that it doesn't exist.
| Product | Mainly for | Content | Video | Planning tools | Club accounts | Price from (Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Coaching Manual | Ongoing coach education for clubs and coaches, from U5 to elite | 2,000+ full sessions and 6,000+ pieces of content: team, small-group and 1-1 sessions, individual technical practice, and S&C. Includes sessions filmed with Southampton FC and Rangers FC academies | Yes, sessions filmed being coached, so you see and hear how the coach runs them | Session planner, season plans | Yes | Free Basic plan; Premium £60 / $84 a year; clubs from £950 / $1,250 a year |
| coachbetter | Club management plus coaching tools | 700+ drills with video; Manchester City content as an add-on | Yes (drills) | Timed training plans, templates | Yes, with registration, payments and messaging | Coach app from $6.99 a month; clubs on request |
| Sportplan | Low-cost drill library, many sports | 500+ football drills (15,000+ across all sports); hundreds of session plans | Yes, plus animations | Session planner, drill designer, animator | Yes, shared club area | Free tier; £79.99 a year (one sport); clubs by quote |
| Soccer Coach Weekly | Written drills and plans, weekly magazine | 2,500+ drills and games, 650+ practice plans, 750+ articles | Not stated | Not stated (save, download, print) | Team and club plans | £9.95 / $12.50 a month; £99.50 a year; clubs by quote |
| Sport Session Planner | Designing sessions in 3D | Mostly sessions shared by users, plus templates | You can attach video | Advanced 3D planner and animation | Yes | $85 a year (individual); clubs on request |
| Coaches' Voice Academy | Elite insight and courses | Masterclasses, courses, session plans, academy sessions (Arsenal, Everton) | Yes | Via Sport Session Planner (owned by Coaches' Voice, priced separately) | Club enquiries | £11.99 a month or £119.99 a year |
| Touchtight | Animated tactical sessions | Animated session plans by A and Pro Licence coaches | Animated | Session planner, animation tool | Not stated | $133.99 a year (US App Store) |
| MOJO | US youth rec coaches | 500+ activities; US Youth Soccer National Grassroots Curriculum | Yes | One-tap practice plans | Club tools | Free core app; MOJO+ paid |
| Coerver Coaching | Individual skills and ball mastery | 99+ video tutorials, PDF drills and practice plans | Yes | Season planning in the app | Not stated | App subscription (see app store) |
Prices are the lowest published paid price for a coach, before any offers. US App Store prices can vary by country. Club prices usually depend on the number of coaches.
What it does well, and where it might not be the right fit.
Coach education and planning for clubs and coaches, for over 15 years.
Describes itself as an operating system for grassroots soccer.
A drill and session-plan library with drawing tools, covering many sports.
A membership with a drill library and a weekly digital magazine, running since 2007.
A 3D session design and animation tool, owned by Coaches' Voice.
Online courses, masterclasses and session plans from elite coaches.
Animated session plans with a planner and animation tool.
A free youth team app for US coaches and parents.
A long-established skills methodology, with an app for players and coaches.
A written plan tells you what to set up. It doesn't show you how a good coach actually runs it: where they stand, when they stop play, what they say, and how the players respond. That's the part most coaches find hardest, and it's the part you learn fastest by watching someone who does it well and then trying it yourself. Sport science has studied this kind of learning by watching for decades (here's one review).
So every session on The Coaching Manual is filmed being coached by experienced coaches, and written up in detail: the set-up, timings, progressions and coaching points, so you can take it straight to the pitch.
Coaching courses, from a first badge to UEFA licences, give you a foundation in a few days or weeks. But a season lasts months, and most of a coach's development happens afterwards: planning Thursday's session, reflecting on Saturday's game, often with nobody to watch or ask. That's the gap The Coaching Manual is built for: expert coaches to watch, copy and learn from every week, between one course and the next, and a way to put what you learned on the course into practice with your own players.
"The videos explain what they're going to do, show the session, let you hear when the coach steps in, then explain what they did and why. As a brand new coach, that is invaluable."
David Cartlidge, AFC Alsager
That breadth is why clubs use it as a shared standard: the U7s volunteer and the U18s head coach are working from the same place. You can try some for yourself on our free sessions page.
Tools such as FootballGPT, Saideline and CoachFrank, and general assistants like ChatGPT or Claude, will write a session in seconds from an age group, a theme and the number of players you have. That's genuinely useful for ideas, for adapting a plan to the kit and numbers you've got, and for coaches who are short of time.
Three things are worth knowing:
Our view: AI is a good launchpad for a coach's own thinking, not a replacement for it. The best results come from pairing it with sessions that are proven to work, and with a coach who knows the players.
For more, including how to get a better session out of AI, read AI session generators vs filmed sessions.
If you're a brand-new volunteer, start here. These are free and come from the people who run the game in each country.
Free resources are a great start. Clubs usually move to a paid platform when they want every coach working from the same standard, more depth for each age group, and a way to see who's using what.
It depends on the job. For ready-made full sessions on video that every coach at the club can use, The Coaching Manual is built for exactly that. For registration and payments, coachbetter is broader. For designing your own sessions in 3D, Sport Session Planner. Many clubs combine a club admin system with a coaching content platform.
Yes. England Football Learning, U.S. Soccer's resource hub, Football Australia's coaching resources and NZ Football's CoachMate app are all free. MOJO is free in the US, Sportplan has a free tier, and The Coaching Manual has a free Basic plan and free sessions by age group.
They're good for ideas and for adapting a plan quickly, but a generated session still needs a coach to judge it, and you don't get to see it being coached. We think they work best alongside proven sessions, not instead of them.
Because the hard part isn't the diagram, it's the delivery: where to stand, when to stop play, what to say. Watching an experienced coach run a session, then copying it with your own players, is one of the quickest ways to pick that up. It's why every session on The Coaching Manual is filmed being coached.
Courses give you a foundation, but most learning happens week to week with your own players. Watching experienced coaches deliver sessions, then trying them yourself, is a practical way to keep developing between courses. That's what The Coaching Manual is built for: full sessions filmed being coached, from U5 to elite, plus individual technical practice and S&C.
A drill is one activity. A full session links a warm-up, main activities with progressions and a game around one theme, with timings and coaching points. New coaches usually find full sessions easier, because the planning is done.
MOJO is free and carries the US Youth Soccer grassroots curriculum, which makes it a good first step for younger rec teams. Soccer Coach Weekly offers rec curriculums on its US plan. The Coaching Manual suits volunteers and clubs who want full sessions on video across all age groups, and club-wide accounts.
For an individual coach, most paid options sit between about £60 and £120 ($85 to $180) a year, and several have free tiers. Club pricing usually depends on the number of coaches and is often by quote. Ours is published on our pricing page.
We have an interest, so we've stuck to facts from each provider's own site, said where others do things better, and dated it. If anything is wrong or out of date, email help@thecoachingmanual.com and we'll correct it.
Try the free sessions, check the prices, or talk to us about a club account.
