Nowadays, inductive power transfer technology is widely considered for the charging of electric vehicles due to environmental pollution. The most important part of this system is how to design coupling coils with high efficiency and low magnetic flux leakage. The present work aims at comparing the maximum transmission efficiency and the magnetic flux leakage for different coupling coils in an inductive power transfer system. Here, four typical shaped coils (circle, square, double D and bipolar) are studied and compared in the simulation and the experimental aspect. The transmission efficiency and magnetic field distribution are relevant to different shaped coils as well as the variation of the misalignment between the coils.