COMPARISON
Executive Coaching vs. BetterUp
Platforms like BetterUp scale coaching to everyone. A specialist coach goes deep with one leader. Here's which a senior leader should choose.
THE SHORT ANSWER
BetterUp and app-based platforms are the better choice for rolling out coaching at scale, giving an entire workforce affordable, on-demand access to a matched coach plus AI tools. A specialist executive coach excels as senior, high-touch partnership best suited for individual directors, VPs, and C-suite leaders, particularly deep continuity, full context on your situation, and accountability from one coach who knows you.
SIDE BY SIDE
A specialist coach vs. BetterUp
| EXECUTIVE COACHING WITH ASHLEY | BETTERUP & APPS | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | One senior coach who knows your full context | A platform matching you to rotating coaches plus AI |
| Best for | Individual senior leaders | Rolling coaching out across a workforce |
| Session length | Deep 60-minute sessions | Typically 30-minute sessions |
| Continuity | The same coach throughout | Coach may change; an AI coach fills the gaps |
| Depth | Full context on your role, politics, and goals | Broad, standardized frameworks |
| Access | High-touch, in your corner between sessions | On-demand, always-on app and AI coach |
| Typical cost | $500–$5,000+ per session, individual | ~$89–$149/mo individual; $3,000–$6,000+/user a year enterprise |
| The test | “Do I want depth with one expert?” | “Do we want scale across many people?” |
Sources: BetterUp: Plan & Subscription Management · BetterUp: What is Coaching
WHEN TO CHOOSE WHICH
Pick the one your moment calls for
Specialist coaching with Ashley
- Full context: one coach who knows your role, politics, and goals in depth.
- Continuity: the same trusted partner throughout, not a rotating match.
- High-touch: in your corner between sessions, not just on a schedule.
- Senior depth: tailored to a director, VP, or C-suite situation, not a standard track.
Choose a specialist executive coach when you are an individual senior leader who wants depth, continuity, and full context from one expert who has done the job, and you are investing in your own trajectory.
BetterUp & coaching apps
- Scale: coaching for an entire workforce, not just the C-suite.
- Affordability: far lower per-person cost than 1:1 executive coaching.
- Always-on: an app and AI coach available on demand between sessions.
- Consistency: standardized assessments and reporting across an organization.
Choose a platform like BetterUp when an organization needs to give many employees affordable, consistent access to coaching with on-demand AI support and reporting, rather than deep 1:1 work for one senior leader.
ABOUT ASHLEY
Strategy and lived experience, not theory.
I coach directors, VPs, and C-suite leaders at companies like Airbnb, Meta, Citi, A24, and JLL, and I've advised leadership at organizations as different as the New York Attorney General's office and Halliburton. I went from individual contributor to VP in tech in five years, so I coach from having actually done the job.
My coaching is tactical and strategic: we find what's actually holding you back, build the strategy against it, and I stay in your corner until it works. It's intuitive and direct, not feelings and frameworks.
Real Talk - CLIENT TESTIMONIALS
“I reached out to Ashley at a time in my career when I needed guidance and someone to remind me how much I have to offer. Ashley is an expert at listening to you and truly understanding what you are passionate about and skilled at and then coming up with a strategy to get you into roles that utilize those skills and passions. I felt strongly about having a woman coach who truly understood some of the hurdles women face in career searches. With Ashley's expert guidance, I was able to ultimately a new role with a significant salary increase and leadership advancement opportunity.”
Assistant Director, Learning at an Ivy League Institution
"I initially sought a coach to help me find clarity and meaning in my next career move. What I received in Ashley was a coach who helped me unlock my purpose and instilled in me the courage to ask for what I deserved. She is smart, caring, and exceptionally strategic. Every time we spoke, I left feeling more empowered and confident in my abilities. She knows exactly the right questions to ask, and she was quick in tailoring her approach to meet my specific needs. Ashley has been an invaluable partner in the short time we've worked together, and I can't imagine a world where she is not a part of my journey."
VP, Marketing at one of the world’s leading publishing powerhouses
“I was looking to work with a coach because I felt that I wanted some outside insight about my current role, my career, and my professional future. I especially wanted to work with Ashley because I knew there would be a level of shorthand because she is a high-performing senior level Black woman executive. This meant that we were able to be efficient with our time together; I wasn’t educating on intersectionality, identity politics, representation gaps, microagressions and more. She immediately understood what it meant to be a high-performing, high-level executive. Ashley provided validation, clarity, and tools to own my leadership free of self-doubt and fear. With Ashley, I have become a more sure-footed leader of teams that I managed. It has been valuable context for setting expectations and understanding my worth and value, not only in my place of employment, but also in my industry. Ashley, you are my secret power.”
SVP, Communications at an award-winning PR agency
“Ashley is an exceptionally talented coach and I would recommend her to anyone. From our first meeting, she instantly connected with me and was able to listen and uncover insights about myself that I was blind to - it felt like she really 'got' me, despite us having just met. For every session Ashley came prepared and clearly having put deep thought into the time we were going to spend together. Despite having a week or two between sessions, she was able to seamlessly pick up where we left off, continuing the flow of the prior work. I am so grateful to have worked with Ashley and would recommend her to any high performer looking to refine their vision and take action.”
Student at Harvard Business School
“I would describe my coaching experience with you as meeting with a highly qualified distant cousin. The coaching felt tailored to me, you gave me real-time feedback and homework, and you were very direct about the things I needed to improve versus where I was doing well. As someone who always looks for ways to do better, you took time to make sure I acknowledged my wins and not just move on to the next thing without congratulating myself. You were very encouraging, thorough, warm, and relatable. I appreciated how you allowed for space to vent a bit professionally, but you always tied it back to a few actionable items so that it didn't just feel like a venting session. You listened, processed, and then provided me with ways to solve the issue or pivot. I would give a 10/10 rating on coaching.”
HR & Experience Lead at a leading entertainment company
“I am more self-assured, empowered and intentional in how I communicate with my my CEO. When I started I felt like often what I said or shared with my leader fell on deaf ears or wasn't relevant. Now I have greater confidence in the impact, relevance and reception of what I communicate - that's huge! That's been a gamechanger for my sense of self worth at the work.”
Director of Executive Operations at a venture-backed tech company
“Ashley rotated between guide/coach, understanding ear, and mirror beautifully and in all the ways I needed it most but didn't know it. As a result, I was able to take a challenging onboarding experience into a new company and bring up my confidence. Working with Ashley has helped me to identify and name where issues and triggers come from, and as a result I truly feel like I got my mojo back. I am so grateful for Ashley. The only negative is that I've never had a coach before this experience and I am nervous that Ashley is as good as it gets?”
Head of HR in the Beauty Industry
“Ashley was able to help me think creatively and strategically through workplace challenges that were directly tied to my career progression in my organization. Her support and advice were precise, timely, and spot on. She was effective and helped me impress the right people. After the end of our initial engagement, I achieved all of the goals I had and was able to successfully get a major strategy approved. I look forward to working with her in the future and she comes highly recommended!”
Director of Digital Learning at a top non-profit
FREQUENTLY ASKED
Specialist coach vs. BetterUp: common questions
- Is a specialist executive coach better than BetterUp?
- Neither is better. They solve different problems. BetterUp scales affordable, on-demand coaching across a workforce. A specialist executive coach gives one senior leader the depth, continuity, and full context that a rotating, platform-matched model is not designed to provide.
- What is the difference between executive coaching and BetterUp?
- BetterUp is a coaching platform that uses AI to match people to coaches and adds an AI coach, a learning library, and assessments at scale, usually in 30-minute sessions. A specialist executive coach is one senior partner who works deeply and continuously with an individual leader.
- Is a specialist executive coach more expensive than BetterUp?
- Per person, yes. BetterUp's individual plans ran roughly $89 to $149 per month and enterprise seats $3,000 to $6,000 or more per user a year, while a specialist executive coach is a higher-touch 1:1 investment at $500 to $5,000 or more per session.
- Can BetterUp replace a one-on-one executive coach?
- For broad, scalable development, BetterUp works well. It is less suited to deep, continuous 1:1 work with a senior leader, where the same coach builds full context over time. Many leaders use a platform for teams and a specialist coach for themselves.
- Who should choose BetterUp instead of a specialist coach?
- Choose a platform like BetterUp when an organization wants to offer coaching to many employees affordably and consistently, with on-demand AI support, rather than deep individual work for a single senior leader.
MAKE THE CAREER CHANGES YOU DESIRE
STOP WAITING FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO NOTICE YOUR POTENTIAL
You've been doing strong work for years. You may have even been told you're strategic or leadership material. So why aren't you moving forward?
The issue isn't your performance. It's how your performance is being perceived. At a certain point in every career, expectations shift. The professionals who advance aren't necessarily doing better work than you. They've learned how to think, communicate, and connect their work to business outcomes in a way leadership recognizes as impact.
That's the step change. And it's exactly what we work on together.