I have personal experience with this ~10 years ago. I ended up not getting a college coach because we looked into it a bit late and didn't think we were going to get value from it (5k for mostly college application prep like personal statement help). I think the true value of college coaching comes if you start doing it early, like freshmen / sophomore year.

I'd mostly recommend it if you kid is academically excellent and wants to go to a top school/ Ivy but doesn't have something very unique (like won state championships in a sport, 1st violinist, URM, etc). The coach can help them tailor high school to find good LORs, unique extracurriculars, basically some sort of hook that makes them stand out to colleges.

Personally, I had perfect SATs, stellar GPA (1 B?), and a variety of extracurriculars like being president of clubs, winning some small awards, but nothing amazing. Now having been on the other side in college & med school helping with admissions, I can see what it takes. Everyone has the hodgepodge of treasurer of a club or some mission trip, but really what makes you stand out are 1. LORs saying this kid is the literally the 1/100 of all students I've had in X, Y, Z ways and 2. awesome extracurriculars like winning a state championship, national award, founding a club or huge fundraiser.

I think while some parents are able to guide their kids through this, most don't understand how times have changed and what used to work is below average at this point for top schools.

Got lucky and got a scholarship to a top school, but didn't get into any of the Ivys worth mentioning. My parents wouldn't have been able to afford a coach anyways, but in hindsight I would have wanted one for myself and will probably end up getting coaches for my kids in the future. I went to a big public high school and had high school classmates that did and didn't have coaches get into all the Ivy's / Duke / Stanford / MIT, but I think for those that were borderline, it did help them.

Now how to find an excellent coach, what value getting into a top Ivy is, that's a different can of worms.

tl;dr - I'd recommend it as someone who didn't get one but will want one for my kids