Say the word tool and most people picture a hammer, a saw or a wrench. A coach’s tools are quieter, but they do the same job of turning raw material into something useful. Online coaching tools are the forms, exercises and assessments your clients fill in online, before, during or between sessions.
Used well, they put the client’s thinking in writing, make progress easy to track, cut your admin and keep clients working between sessions. Below, you will see what these tools are, what they do for your coaching business and which exercises are worth running online. If you want the exercises first, go straight to 6 Types of Online Coaching Tools That Support Growth.
TL;DR
Coaches use online coaching tools to gather information from clients and give each engagement a structure, without the paper. The tools improve communication, keep clients engaged between sessions, help you understand each client, track progress and save the time you would spend on paperwork and manual reports. Six exercises work especially well online: the Wheel of Life, big rocks and small rocks, goal reflection, spheres of influence, daily successful habits and decluttering the mind. Choose software that lets you build your own forms, send them automatically and turn the answers into reports, so the tools support the coaching instead of adding to your workload.
What Are Online Coaching Tools?
Worksheets, forms, exercises and assessments all count as online coaching tools when a coach uses them to collect information from clients and give the coaching process a clear structure. As an executive coach, you are more than a mentor or a counselor to your client. You support them through a process that helps them name their challenges, find their own solutions and reach their goals.
Good coaches lean on tools that save time and effort. They help you draw out the right information from each client and organize the work, so the coaching leads to real growth rather than scattered conversations.
The right coaching management software comes with these tools built in. Simply.Coach, for example, has a Forms feature that lets you create custom forms for any purpose, send them with sessions and turn the responses into visual reports.
You can use these tools in one-to-one or group sessions, in workshops and webinars, or as homework. They take a large share of the paperwork off your desk and help you run a more efficient, professional coaching business. They are one part of the wider set of software for coaches, which also covers scheduling, billing and client records.
Many coaches already work this way. The 2025 ICF Global Coaching Study found that coaches who use digital coaching platforms rely on them mainly for virtual sessions and for scheduling and client management.
What Are the Benefits of Using Online Coaching Tools?
Online coaching tools give you a clearer picture of each client, and they show you your own strengths and gaps as a coach. Here are seven ways the right tools help your coaching business grow.
1. Better communication
Meeting clients in person is ideal, but it is not always possible. Online coaching tools give you a regular way to stay in touch and collect updates from your clients.
Online forms also ask direct questions and get direct answers. That avoids misunderstandings about a client’s motivations, the information you need or how your coaching process works.
2. Continued client engagement
Beyond your one-to-one sessions, online coaching tools let you share coaching material with one client or with a whole group. The work carries on between meetings instead of stopping when the session ends.
Feedback rounds, homework and exercises keep clients thinking about their goals between sessions. They also give clients a reason to come to the next meeting prepared.
3. Improved understanding of your clients
To coach well, you need to understand each client’s needs, challenges, ambitions and goals. That understanding is what lets you build a plan that fits them.
Sometimes, even after long conversations, you still cannot see where a client is and where they want to be. An online form can feel less intimidating than a face-to-face question, and clients often answer it more openly.
4. Progress tracking and evaluation
Forms let you follow your client’s activity, see their progress toward goals (or the lack of it) and review performance as it happens. That makes your impact visible. It also lets you praise what is working and adjust what is not, without waiting for the end of the engagement.
5. Saves time
Progress reports for sponsors can eat hours of your week. With the right coaching management software, online tools collect responses and build the reports for you. You can gather stakeholder feedback and show progress toward goals without assembling the data by hand.
That time goes back into your business, your clients or your own development. The benefits of coaching software reach well beyond forms, into scheduling, billing and client records.
6. Data security
Clients share personal details with you on trust that they will stay private. Choose online coaching tools that store client details, assessments and notes securely, and check how each vendor protects data before you move client information online.
7. Increased business effectiveness
A single platform that handles admin, client content, coaching, assessments and reports makes you more effective as a coach. Online coaching tools let you offer coaching experiences built around each client, which can help your earnings grow.
The difference shows most clearly when you compare the same exercise run on paper and run online, as the figure below does.
How Do You Choose the Best Online Coaching Tools for Your Business?
Many online coaching tools can make your coaching more effective, so start from your own workflow and the way you like to coach. Coaching software that offers online tools should help you:
- Design your own forms, exercises, tasks and homework
- Track client learning for better results
- Record and report client development
- Gather and review feedback from stakeholders
- Send regular reminders to clients
- Create visual reports from the answers you collect
- Do all of this without leaving the platform
Tools are only half of a coaching practice; the other half is how you use them in the room. If you are weighing the two, this look at coaching tools and techniques explains how they work together and how to choose between them.
How We Chose These Six Tools
What we compared: Six exercises and assessments that coaches run as online forms, from a review of a whole life down to the plan for a single day.
How we chose them: Each one asks the client to write, rate or sort something and runs as a form they can finish between sessions. Each fits a clear point in a coaching engagement.
Where the details come from: Widely used coaching exercises, checked against the free tools and guides that coaches find when they search for online coaching tools.
What we left out: Coaching software, which has its own comparisons, and licensed personality tests, which are bought from their publishers rather than built as a form.
Before you use them: Tell the client why you are asking, and talk the answers through in your next session.
6 Types of Online Coaching Tools That Support Growth
Many coaching tools are on the market, but these six are simple to run online and give clients something concrete to work with. Each one suits a different moment in a client’s growth.
| Tool | What the client does | What it shows you |
|---|---|---|
| Wheel of Life | Scores each area of their life | Where life feels out of balance |
| Big rocks and small rocks | Lists priorities, small tasks and daily chores | What gets crowded out of the week |
| Goal reflection | Writes about their situation, challenges and goals | Where the client is starting from |
| Spheres of influence | Sorts concerns into control, influence and neither | Where effort will make a difference |
| Daily successful habits | Plans a day around a few small habits | Whether daily routines support the goals |
| Declutter the mind | Lists what they are putting up with | What is draining their energy |
1. Wheel of life
The Wheel of Life is one of the most popular online coaching tools. It is an assessment that shows which areas of life your clients are happy with and which they want to improve. Clients score areas such as relationships, career, family, health, recreation and finances, and the shape of the wheel shows where life feels out of balance.
2. Big rocks and small rocks
Big rocks and small rocks is a visual exercise about priorities. It shows clients how the things that matter most get crowded out when small tasks fill the day.
The story behind it is well known. A professor fills a jar with big rocks and asks his class if it is full. The students say yes, so he adds pebbles, then asks again, and when they say yes a second time he pours in sand.
The big rocks stand for the important parts of life, while the pebbles and sand are the daily chores that take up most of our time. The point for the client is to put the big rocks in first and let the small things fill the space around them. You can turn this into an online form that asks the client to list their own big rocks, small rocks and sand.
3. Goal reflection
Every coaching engagement starts with the client reflecting on where they are, and with you getting to know them. A goal reflection form asks clients to think about their current situation, challenges and future goals, then write down their thoughts, hopes, observations and obstacles.
Putting it in writing helps clients analyze their own position and take ownership of their goals. It also gives you a starting record to look back on when you review progress later.
4. Spheres of influence
This exercise uses concentric circles for what the client controls, what they can influence and what they can neither control nor influence. Sorting their concerns into the circles shows clients where their effort will make a difference. It helps them accept present circumstances, work with them and stop spending energy on situations outside their control.
5. Daily successful habits
Daily habits are the small routines a client repeats every day, and successful people often owe their results to them. This tool helps your client build a daily schedule around a few small habits, such as exercise, time alone, focused work and family time. Over time, those habits add up to bigger changes like less stress and better health.
Habits take time to settle, so plan to revisit the schedule over the following months. A 2024 review of habit formation studies found that new health habits often took around two months or longer to become automatic, with wide differences between people. Business coaches use a similar routine exercise, and it sits among these business coaching tools alongside delegation and time management exercises.
6. Declutter the mind
Most of us put up with things we do not like. Over time, those frustrations pile up, cause stress and clutter the mind.
A decluttering exercise helps your client name what they are tolerating against their wishes, such as a behavior, an unresolved issue, procrastination, untidiness or indecision. Writing the list down releases a lot of that mental clutter and leaves more energy for what matters.
Simply.Coach also includes a Forms Repository of ready-made templates that cover several of these, such as Reflective Goal Setting, Ideation on Daily Habits and Self Reflections. It sits alongside the forms coaches use every day, including a coaching intent form, 360º feedback, a mid-engagement review, a completion report and an impact assessment.
How to Use These Tools Across a Coaching Engagement
Each of the six tools answers a different question a client brings, so the order you use them in matters as much as the tools themselves. Start with goal reflection and the Wheel of Life when a client is new, so you both see where they stand. Use big rocks and spheres of influence when a client feels busy but stuck, because they point effort at what matters and what can change.
Bring in daily habits once the goals are clear and the client is ready to act. Keep the decluttering exercise for moments when a client feels overwhelmed, whatever stage they are at. Repeat the Wheel of Life at the end of an engagement, so you and your client can see what changed.
Clients rarely name the tool they need, but what they say usually points to one. The figure below pairs common things clients say with the tool that fits.
Conclusion
Online coaching tools are one of the best ways to engage your clients between sessions. They help clients name their challenges and work toward their goals, and they make your coaching business more efficient by cutting manual work.
They also replace the paperwork from face-to-face sessions and keep each client’s work in one place. Use them, but add your own touch so they feel like yours. Simply.Coach lets you build your own forms or start from ready-made templates, send them automatically and turn the answers into reports.
Key Takeaways
- Tools give coaching structure. Forms, exercises and assessments capture what clients think and turn sessions into a process you can follow.
- Set work between sessions. Send a short exercise after each meeting so the coaching does not stop when the call ends.
- Ask hard questions in writing. Clients who hesitate in the room often give fuller answers on a form.
- Baseline every new client. Record where each client starts, so later answers have something to be compared with.
- Match the tool to the moment. Use priority and control exercises when a client feels stuck, and habit plans once they are ready to act.
- Let software do the reports. Tools that collect answers and build reports give you back hours for coaching.
- Protect client data. Check how each tool stores personal details before you move client work online.
Paper worksheets and email attachments make it hard to see how a client is changing over time. Simply.Coach’s forms for coaches let you build your own exercises or start from ready-made templates. You can send them with each session and turn every answer into a visual report to share.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Are online coaching tools really necessary for me to scale my business?
If most of your week goes on admin instead of coaching, growth stalls sooner or later. Online coaching tools help you keep the clients you have and take on new ones, and they automate the forms and reports that would otherwise eat into your coaching time.
What are some examples of online coaching tools?
Common examples include the Wheel of Life, goal reflection forms, big rocks and small rocks, spheres of influence, daily habit plans and decluttering exercises. Coaches also use intake questionnaires, 360-degree feedback forms, mid-engagement reviews and completion reports, often built and sent through coaching software.
Are there free online coaching tools?
Yes. Exercises such as the Wheel of Life, big rocks and spheres of influence are widely shared as free templates you can rebuild in any form builder. Coaching software adds automatic sending, reminders and reports, and Simply.Coach, for example, offers a free 14-day trial.
Which online tools work best for coaching assessments?
Rating exercises such as the Wheel of Life suit a quick self-assessment, while 360-degree feedback forms collect views from the people around the client. Repeat the same assessment at intervals, and use software that lines up the answers so you can compare them over time.
Can clients complete coaching exercises between sessions?
Yes, and that is one of the main reasons to put them online. You can send a form before a session so the client arrives prepared, or after it as homework. Simply.Coach can send forms automatically with each session and follow up with email nudges.
How do online coaching tools help track client progress?
They keep every answer in one place, so you can compare a client's responses from month to month. When the same form is repeated, software can turn the answers into trend charts, which makes progress easy to show the client and any sponsor.
What is the difference between coaching tools and coaching software?
Coaching tools are the exercises, forms and assessments you use with clients. Coaching software is the platform that hosts them, and it usually adds scheduling, billing, notes and client records, so the tools sit inside the rest of your coaching business.