CoachHub vs. Marlee: Compare digital coaching platforms

What is CoachHub, the digital coaching platform?

CoachHub is a popular digital coaching platform developed by experts in behavioral science and positive psychology. With a global network of 3,500 certified business coaches across 90 countries, CoachHub offers tailored, one-on-one coaching to employees, supporting over 1,000 enterprises worldwide. The platform’s primary goal is to drive personal and organizational growth through professional development, using video and phone sessions complemented by chat-based messaging.

What is Marlee?

Marlee is a collaboration and performance AI that supports individuals and teams from 90% of the Fortune 100 to bring out the best in each other. The clincher? Marlee delivers personalized coaching insights in minutes, making it easy to connect, motivate, collaborate, and develop yourself or your team right in the flow of work.

Marlee was founded in 2020 by Michelle Duval, who pioneered the field of professional coaching in Australia. Duval is the co-author of two internationally recognized handbooks on coaching and her coaching methodologies and training programs have certified executive, business, and personal coaches in more than 60 countries, solidifying her status as a leader in developmental and transformational coaching worldwide.

Noticing that personalized leadership development was a privilege reserved only for an elite few, Duval set about finding a way to bring coaching to the masses. Collaborating with other coaching experts, she developed a scalable virtual coaching platform powered by the world's first AI coach, Marlee.

Marlee is based on 20+ years of motivation research, and it is now the world's largest global database of human motivations. The Marlee experience starts with an evidence-based assessment (the Motivational Analysis), which creates your unique 'fingerprint' across 48 motivational traits. These are benchmarked against the traits of highly successful people to highlight strengths and any areas for development. Once gaps are uncovered, you can set a goal and start personalized online coaching programs to help you reach your full potential.

CoachHub features

As a digital coaching platform, CoachHub's features include:

• Human-based coaches: These coaches are certified by reputable organizations, such as the International Coaching Federation.
• CoachHub Academy: Gain access to on-demand learning to complement coaching. These are personalized based on employee goals.
• AI-powered coach matching: CoachHub suggests the best coach for employee needs through artificial intelligence. Depending on the client, these AI-selected coaches focus on leadership development, stress management, or career development.
• CoachHub Insights: Track adoption rates, employee ratings, and employee engagement levels.
• Flexible coaching sessions: Coachees can choose when and in which format (video, call, or chat) they have their session. However, these are not available ad hoc.
• iOS and Android: The coaching app is available on both major operating systems.
• Integrated with HR systems: an open API approach

CoachHub also launched AIMY, an AI-powered assistant. Although billed as the 'world’s first conversational AI coach,' this title belongs to Marlee – launched in 2021, a full two years prior. Here's how AIMY works:

• Although structured coaching is beyond its grasp, AIMY can chat you through simple coaching.
• AIMY can understand context and nuance in text, including informal speech. It cannot read facial expressions, body language, or other visual communication.
• AIMY is built around Open AI’s ChatGPT. CoachHub offers AIMY for free because it is a research initiative into AI coaching.
• AIMY does not use the free coaching sessions to train AIMY unless consent is given.
• AIMY provides coaches and employees with feedback so both parties can maximize the relationship.

Marlee features

Marlee and CoachHub both offer robust digital coaching, but Marlee’s AI-driven approach makes it a standout for individuals and teams looking for dynamic, immediate, and scalable support.

Here’s how Marlee’s features compare:

• Deep team connections: Marlee enables teams to build authentic, meaningful connections by surfacing insights that allow each member to feel valued, safe, and truly seen. This goes beyond CoachHub's one-on-one coaching approach, creating a culture where collaboration and trust thrive across the entire team.
• Personalized motivation and self-awareness: Marlee provides instant, tailored insights into each team member's motivations and work styles, empowering individuals to reach their full potential. Unlike CoachHub, which primarily focuses on structured sessions, Marlee delivers real-time support directly in the flow of work.

Marlee "My Results" board

• Enhanced collaboration with AI: With science-backed questions that reveal unique communication styles, Marlee promotes harmony and productivity by preemptively identifying and addressing potential conflicts. CoachHub emphasizes individualized growth, but Marlee’s collaboration tools drive whole-team synergy and efficiency.

Marlee team board showing similarities and differences in work styles

• Scalable personalized development: Marlee’s online coaching adapts to each person’s work style and business goals, supporting more than 1,000 personal and professional objectives—from leadership to mental well-being. CoachHub offers personalized sessions but mainly for leadership and higher-level positions. Marlee scales coaching to all team members, ensuring everyone can grow, not just C-suite leaders.
• High-performance hiring: Marlee’s success model benchmarking helps you rapidly identify high-performing candidates, assess team dynamics, and identify potential conflict areas, improving hiring and onboarding success.
• Success benchmarking: Marlee’s benchmarking lets you compare your performance (or your team's) with industry leaders, acting as a key performance indicator. CoachHub focuses on personal growth; Marlee adds a competitive edge by helping you visualize and achieve top performance.
• Human coaching: Marlee also has an amazing team of human coaches, all certified through the Marlee Coach & People Leader Certification Program.
• iOS and Android: The Marlee mobile app is optimized for major operating systems.

CoachHub vs. Marlee (formerly Fingerprint For Success) comparison

CoachHub coaching cost

CoachHub does not list standardized pricing on its site. Instead, it encourages interested organizations to request a demo. From there, CoachHub creates a coaching plan customized to the organization's needs, which will serve as the basis of a quote. The pricing will also be influenced by the type of plan and number of employees.

CoachHub does not offer a free tier; some plans reportedly start at US$275 per month.

Marlee cost

Marlee offers clear and transparent pricing. Team members can start with the free tier to take the work style assessment (or Motivational Analysis) and can compare results with up to three team members. You can also access your first coaching program for free.

The Individual plan costs US$15.99 per month. You can access an unlimited number of personal insights and online coaching programs.

The Team plan, also US$15.99 per month, allows you to make unlimited comparisons to other team members, plus access unlimited coaching programs and insights.

The highest tier is for enterprise organizations. This plan has all the features of the other two, plus advanced support and security.

CoachHub reviews

CoachHub has positive reviews on third-party sites. On review aggregator Featured Customers³, CoachHub has 4.8 out of 5 stars, averaged from over 773 user ratings. These quantitative ratings are in line with the testimonials on its site, and typically come from HR leaders of top enterprises.

For example, Calypso de Frondeville, an HR Manager at Lacoste, praised the CoachHub community. This community is made up of a pool of coaches, who collectively speak 60 different languages.

"This digital solution gave me the opportunity to interact with my peers in different countries. We share common challenges and best practices, all the while getting better at active listening.”

While most testimonials praised from the organization’s or HR’s perspective, some provided insights from the user's point of view. One such example was Adeel Hasan Jafri, a finance manager at Coca Cola;

“The whole program changed my own thinking and I must say I am a different person now.”

Marlee reviews

While coaching is the exclusive focus of CoachHub, Marlee also offers a suite of complementary features. As such, the reviews of Marlee tend to focus on the technology as a whole, rather than just coaching.

These glowing reviews notably come from a cross-section of organizations from different industries. One comes from Cliff Obrecht, co-founder and COO of Canva. Obrecht noted that Marlee was helpful to both him individually and the organization as a whole.

“Marlee has helped me understand how I work and improved how I work with others (as I now understand key strengths). Marlee is a central component of our people growth strategy at Canva and empowers us to harness our unique culture and optimize 3,500 as we scale.”

Adam Theobald, co-founder of Ordermentum, shared similar sentiments. He believes that Marlee is key to improving work relationships.

“Marlee gave me a new level of understanding around my strengths and blind spots. It showed how we could maximize capabilities and minimize weaknesses of key personnel. If you want to get the most out of yourself and business relationships, it's a no-brainer.”

The reviews for specific Marlee coaching programs, such as Increase EQ, are similarly glowing;

“This coaching program has helped me improve the way I connect, relate, and communicate – deepening my relationships with others and also with myself.”

What's the ROI of coaching?

Coaching generates a multitude of benefits for organizations. Companies who invest in executive coaching see a significant ROI across the entire workforce, with every US$1 spent producing a return of around US$7.90.⁴

According to the International Coaching Federation (ICF), the average coaching ROI is 700%.⁵ They also found 86% of organizations saw an ROI from coaching programs.

One of the biggest benefits of coaching is an increase in job performance. The numbers speak for themselves. Research shows that coupled with training, coaching leads to an 88% improvement in productivity.

Plus, the data shows that coaching helps keep high-performing employees around for longer. ICF data shows that 93% of companies report less turnover when they offer coaching to employees as a benefit.

So, you might be wondering how the ROI of Marlee compares to CoachHub? Well, CoachHub users report an ROI of 8x. Meanwhile, users of the Marlee toolkit, which includes coaching, see an astonishing 752% ROI in just one year.

CoachHub coaching jobs

Becoming a coach on CoachHub is by application only. To be accepted, coaches must meet several requirements. You need a certification from a leading coaching association. You also need over six years of work experience and at least 500–1000 hours of professional coaching experience.

Accepted coaches work flexibly. You can work from anywhere in the world and maintain a flexible schedule. They can also conduct their coaching entirely through CoachHub without needing other external platforms. Coaches benefit from CoachHub’s existing network of client companies. These enterprise clients also give regular feedback to coaches so they can grow their skills.

Marlee coaching jobs

Wondering how you go about joining Marlee's team of world-class coaches? As we maintain the highest level of coaching, all coaches must be trained and certified by Marlee.

The Marlee Coach & People Leader Certification Program is ideal for a broad range of leaders. These include professional coaches, business leaders, HR professionals, and tech investors.

Marlee coach training consists of three modules. The first is the Marlee Assessment Engine, which teaches the Inventory for Work Attitude & Motivation (iWAM). The second is Marlee for Entrepreneurship, which focuses on the attributes of successful businesses. The third is Coaching with Marlee, which equips coaches with different coaching interventions.

Coaches benefit from direct access to Marlee technology, which boasts reliability scores of over 90%. This facilitates buy-in from organizations and team members. Coaches are added to the find a coach directory.

Bottom line: CoachHub coaching vs Marlee

CoachHub and Marlee are both digital coaching pioneers. However, they differ in several key aspects, which business leaders should consider.

The first is accessibility. CoachHub does not offer a free tier. Because Marlee offers a free plan, it's far easier for organizations to start with the platform. Once you get value from the free plan, you can more confidently decide whether to upgrade.

Second, CoachHub was built from the ground up as a platform for coaches and coachees. As a result, it focuses on just one aspect of professional development: coaching. Meanwhile, Marlee is a powerful all-in-one solution. Marlee's innovative technology has been designed to develop collaboration and performance at a team level and for your entire organization.

The third is standardization. CoachHub accepts coaches who have any notable certification from a coaching organization. Meanwhile, Marlee's coaches must go through the Marlee Coach & People Leader Certification Program. This ensures that all Marlee coaches deliver a consistent experience.

In sum, while CoachHub delivers valuable one-on-one coaching, Marlee’s real-time AI insights, seamless team collaboration, and extensive scalability make it a more versatile choice for organizations aiming to cultivate high-performing, interconnected teams.

Frequently asked questions

How much does CoachHub pay coaches?

CoachHub does not publicly share how much it pays its coaches.

What is CoachHub?

CoachHub is a digital coaching platform, offering holistic people development to forward-thinking companies. As well as coaching, the platform facilitates scheduling, goal-setting, and progress monitoring.

What is CoachHub's AIMY?

AIMY is an AI-powered coaching assistant inside CoachHub. Using machine learning, AIMY analyzes data from coaching sessions and provides relevant insights. These recommendations are customized to the employee’s learning style and progress. Coaches can also identify areas for improvement based on coaching trends and patterns.

How does AIMY differ from Coach Marlee?

While both are AI-powered, AIMY and Coach Marlee are very different.

As the world's first official AI coach, Marlee has three key distinctions from competitors. First, Coach Marlee is designed to emulate the human coaching process by asking the right questions at the right time.

Second, it has been radically improved since its initial creation in 2021. Its second version has been trained on over 50,000 anonymised coaching sessions, making it the most AI coach on the market.

Finally, Coach Marlee has rapid, proven results. With Coach Marlee, users achieve their goals in just four to nine weeks – compared with the three to six months it takes with human coaches.