Milkshake Link in Bio Review for Trainers (2026): Features, Pricing and Where It Falls Short

You have one link under your Instagram handle and about forty things you want it to do: show your face, list your prices, get people to book a consult, sell the 8-week programme, and collect emails. Milkshake keeps coming up as the free, pretty option. This Milkshake link in bio review is written for personal trainers and online coaches specifically, because most reviews out there are written for influencers selling Lightroom presets, and a coach has a different job list.

Everything below about features and prices comes from Milkshake's own site, app listing and help pages, fetched while writing this, and is listed under Sources at the end. Prices are in US dollars because that is the only currency Milkshake publishes.

Milkshake link in bio review: what it actually is

Milkshake is a phone-only website builder. You download the iOS or Android app, build a small site made of swipeable "Cards", pick a design ("Look"), and publish it to a yourname.msha.ke link. There is no desktop editor. Milkshake's own FAQ leans into this: it describes itself as "a mini website you build from your phone" rather than a plain link list.

The Card types on offer are Splash (the opening screen), About, Links, Top Picks, YouTube, Contact and Sell. Visitors swipe through them like Instagram Stories. You can add unlimited Cards on every plan, reorder them, and run up to five separate Milkshake sites from one account using account switching.

For a trainer, that maps to something like: a Splash Card with your photo and a one-line pitch, an About Card with who you train and how, a Links Card pointing at your booking page or WhatsApp, and a Contact Card for enquiries. If you have never written that one-line pitch, the Instagram bio guide for trainers covers it.

What it does well

Honest credit where it is due.

It is genuinely fast to set up. Pick a Card, add content, tap "Shake it up" to cycle through designs, publish. Milkshake's how-it-works page says minutes, and that matches how simple the Card model is. If you are the sort of coach who has been "meaning to sort the link" for six months, this removes the excuse.

It looks better than a link list. Because each Card is a full-screen page with your own colours, fonts, logo and images, a Milkshake site reads as a mini brand page rather than a column of buttons. For a coach whose Instagram is mostly photos and reels, that visual continuity matters.

The free tier is properly usable. Free includes hosting, unlimited links and Cards, the design templates, colour and font customisation, social icons, QR code sharing, 30 days of "Insights" analytics (Card views, link clicks, traffic sources) and, importantly, the ability to sell digital files. The catch on Free is the Milkshake branding and the msha.ke subdomain.

The app is well rated. The US App Store listing shows 4.9 out of 5 from around 15,000 ratings, published by Codelbee Pty Ltd. That is a lot of people not hating it.

You can sell a PDF without paying a subscription. The Sell Card lets you list a digital product (a file up to 100MB, a link, or a private note revealed after purchase), connect your own Stripe account, and take card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Money lands in your Stripe account, not Milkshake's. That is exactly what you want for a "£15 nutrition guide" style product.

Milkshake pricing in 2026

From Milkshake's pricing page, in USD, with the note that "actual prices may vary by country and platform":

• Free: $0. Everything above, with Milkshake branding.
• Lite: $2.99 a month. Free plus branding removed.
• Pro: $6.99 a month billed monthly, or $59.99 a year (which they show as $5.00 a month). Adds 365 days of Insights, exporting analytics, the Contact form Card, a mailing list hook-up (Google Sheets and Mailchimp), Meta pixel, SEO controls (title, description, favicon), a social sharing image, a campaign builder, the ability to temporarily hide Cards, lower selling fees and priority support.
• Pro+: $99.99 a year (shown as $8.33 a month) or $29.99 per three months (shown as $10.00 a month). Adds a custom domain, Google Analytics, and the lowest selling fees.

Two things trainers tend to miss when they skim that list.

First, the Contact form Card is a Pro feature. On Free and Lite your "contact" is effectively a Links Card pointing at your email, DMs or WhatsApp. If you want a form on the page, that is $6.99 a month, or $59.99 up front.

Second, the custom domain is Pro+ only. If you want coachjess.com rather than coachjess.msha.ke, the cheapest route is $99.99 a year.

For context, that annual Pro+ price is still cheaper than most link-in-bio tools' mid tiers, which is part of why Milkshake gets recommended so often.

The selling fees, which are the real cost

This is the part that matters more than the subscription. On top of Stripe's own processing fee, Milkshake takes a cut of every sale through the Sell Card:

• 12% on Free and Lite
• 9% on Pro
• 7% on Pro+

So the "free" plan is free until you sell something. Sell a $40 guide on Free and Milkshake keeps $4.80 before Stripe touches it. Sell ten of them a month and you have paid more in fees than a year of Pro would have cost. The pricing page is upfront about this, but it is easy to miss when the headline is "nothing to pay upfront".

There is also a hard ceiling while the Sell Card is in beta: prices must be between $1 and $100 (or the local equivalent). That is fine for an ebook. It is not fine for a $150 programme, a $200 four-pack of sessions, or a $300 a month coaching package. You simply cannot list them.

Where Milkshake falls short for trainers

Milkshake was built for creators selling files. Trainers sell time, programmes and ongoing access. Here is the gap, item by item, based on what Milkshake's own pages describe.

No bookings. The App Store description says you can "receive new bookings and clients", and the FAQ says the same, but there is no calendar, no availability, no session booking Card anywhere in the feature list. What they mean is that someone can find your contact details and message you. You would need to link out to Calendly or similar and hope the prospect follows the second link.

No services or session packs. The Sell Card is for "digital products of every kind: presets, ebooks, guides, templates, sample packs, recorded classes, meditations". Delivery options are a file, a link or a private note. There is no "1:1 session" product type, no pack of five, no in-person option.

No memberships or subscriptions. Everything is a one-off purchase. If your business model is monthly online coaching, there is no way to bill it through Milkshake.

The $100 cap. Covered above, but it deserves its own line because it rules out most of a coach's price list.

No client forms beyond contact. The Pro Contact Card collects a message. It is not a PAR-Q, a consultation intake or a waiver. You would still need separate form templates and somewhere to host them.

Phone-only editing. For quick changes this is a plus. For writing a decent About page or reorganising twelve Cards, thumb-typing gets old. Your published site works on desktop; the editor does not.

None of this makes Milkshake a bad product. It makes it a good product for a different job. If your whole offer is "follow me, read my About page, buy my $29 PDF, DM me to train", Milkshake does that neatly and cheaply. If you want the link itself to take bookings and money, it will not.

Milkshake vs Linktree vs Stan Store

The three names that come up in the same breath, briefly.

Linktree is the plain link list. Its pricing page lists Free, Starter, Pro and Premium tiers; prices vary by region, and a third-party roundup published in August 2026 lists them at roughly $0, $8, $15 and $35 a month billed monthly, less on annual. Linktree's own help centre says digital product sales carry a 12% transaction fee on Free, 9% on Starter and Pro, and 0% on Premium, plus 2.9% + $0.30 processing. So the fee structure is nearly identical to Milkshake's; Milkshake is cheaper per tier but lacks Linktree's scheduling and marketing integrations. Neither handles bookings or memberships natively. More on that in the Linktree alternative for trainers page.

Stan Store is the opposite end. Stan's own pricing post and help centre list two plans: Creator at $29 a month ($300 a year) and Creator Pro at $99 a month ($948 a year), with a 14-day free trial and no platform transaction fee. Both plans include calendar bookings, courses, memberships and unlimited digital products. Stan does the trainer job list properly. The trade-off is that $29 a month is more than ten times Milkshake's Lite plan, and the Stan Store alternative for trainers page goes into whether that is worth it for a coach with a handful of clients.

Where a trainer-specific storefront fits. Between those two there are tools built for coaches specifically. TrainerBio, for example, lists a free tier with a client enquiry form, a digital store at a 15% fee and one programme at a time, and a Pro tier at £4.99 a month with a 0% platform fee, unlimited programmes and custom form templates (PAR-Q, intake, waiver). Different sourcing, different currency, so compare on the published pages rather than on my paraphrase. The point is that the "trainer-shaped" gap in Milkshake (bookings, packages, memberships, intake forms) is a real category, not something you have to bolt together yourself.

Who should pick Milkshake

Pick Milkshake if:

• You mainly want a good-looking landing page under your handle and you will take enquiries by DM or a linked calendar.
• Your paid products are all one-off digital files under $100.
• You live on your phone and will never open a laptop to edit a site.
• Budget is the deciding factor and you are happy with branding or a msha.ke link.

Skip it, or use it only as a front page, if:

• You need the link to take session bookings or sell packs.
• You bill monthly coaching.
• You sell anything priced over $100.
• You need intake or waiver forms as part of the flow.

A workable hybrid some coaches use: Milkshake as the pretty front page, with the Links Card pointing at wherever bookings and payments actually happen. It works, at the cost of one more tap for the client, which is exactly the tap that a lot of prospects do not take. If you would rather see the whole shortlist side by side, the best link in bio tools for personal trainers post covers it.

FAQ

Is Milkshake really free?

The Free plan is genuinely free to build and host a site with unlimited Cards and links, with Milkshake branding on it. It stops being free the moment you sell something: 12% of each Sell Card sale goes to Milkshake on Free and Lite, plus Stripe's processing fee.

Can clients book sessions through a Milkshake site?

Not directly. There is no booking, calendar or availability feature on any plan. Milkshake's "receive bookings" wording means people can find your contact details and get in touch. If you want an actual booking flow, link out to a scheduler or use a storefront that has bookings built in.

Can I sell a training programme on Milkshake?

Yes, if it is a digital file, link or note and it is priced between $1 and $100. That covers a PDF programme. It does not cover session packs, in-person training, or monthly memberships, and it cannot list anything over $100 while the Sell Card is in beta.

Do I need Pro+ for my own domain?

Yes. Custom domains are a Pro+ feature at $99.99 a year (or $29.99 per quarter). Free, Lite and Pro sites live on a msha.ke link.

Can I edit my Milkshake site on a laptop?

No. Milkshake is built and edited entirely in the iOS or Android app. The finished site displays fine on desktop, but there is no browser-based editor.

Sources

• Milkshake homepage
• Milkshake pricing
• Milkshake: Sell digital products from your phone
• Milkshake FAQs
• Milkshake: How it works
• Milkshake Website Builder on the App Store
• Linktree pricing page (tier names and features)
• Linktree Help Center: Understanding transaction and processing fees
• Elev8or: Linktree pricing 2026 (third-party roundup, August 2026)
• Stan Store blog: Stan Store pricing
• Stan Store Help Center: Creator vs Creator Pro
• TrainerBio pricing