Start an Online Fitness Coaching Business
Coaching Money Worksheet
Companion to "The Honest Money" and "The Consult Call and Your Pricing."
1. Anchor: the employed baseline
| Median wage, US fitness trainers and instructors (BLS, May 2024) | $46,180 / year ($22.20 / hour) |
Employed trainers give the gym most of the session fee; online coaches keep nearly all of the monthly fee. Everything else about the money follows from that.
2. Rate setting
| Step | Inputs | Worked example (lesson arithmetic) | Your numbers |
|---|
| Band position | Market band $100 to $300 per client per month. Founding rate near the bottom; monthly calls and daily messaging justify the upper half; program-plus-weekly-check-in sits in the middle. | $180/mo illustrative price used in the consult script | $ /mo |
| Delivery-time floor check | All-in delivery hours per client per month | At $200/mo: 2 hrs = $100/hr (healthy); 6 hrs = ~$33/hr; below ~$50/hr the client is buying your evenings. Under fifty: raise the price or trim the delivery. (Author heuristic, logged in claims.) | $ /mo at hrs = $ /hr |
| Founding vs standard rate | Founding rate for your first three only, below market, for as long as they stay; every client after the founding three pays your real price. State it in writing. | Founding $ / Standard $ | Founding $ / Standard $ |
3. Client-count revenue table
Assumptions: band-mid $150/mo and upper $250/mo columns as taught; the lesson's twenty-client math: $48k/year mid-band, $36k to $60k across the full band.
| Clients | At $150/mo | At $250/mo | At your rate $ /mo |
|---|
| 3 | $450 | $750 | |
| 10 | $1,500 | $2,500 | |
| 20 | $3,000 | $5,000 | |
| 30 | $4,500 | $7,500 | |
| | | | |
High-ticket three-month packages at $1,000 to $1,500 exist at the top end; start monthly, packages come later. Never charge per session online.
4. Cost stack
| Item | Cost (verified in claims ledger) | When | Your quote |
|---|
| Certification (if needed) | Roughly $700 to $1,800 across the accredited bodies, less in frequent sales; NASM payment plans from $47/mo; NSCA exam-only $300 member / $435 non-member paid in full | Once, before or during first clients | |
| Coaching software | $0 to about $30/mo at small client counts | Monthly | |
| Liability insurance | $159 to $189 a year (Insurance Canopy $159/yr, $2M per occurrence; Insure Fitness Group $189/yr, $1M per occurrence) | Yearly, before first paying client | |
| Payment processing | Around 3% of what you collect | Always | |
| Everything else | Video calls and forms run free tiers | Monthly | |
| Fixed monthly total | Certified coach with a small app plan: under $50/mo. Ten clients at $150 covers that stack thirty times over. | | |
5. Churn line: what it takes to stand still
Assumptions (published benchmarks): average client lasts 3 to 6 months; standard retention rate 75 to 80%, read monthly. At that rate a coach holding twenty clients should expect to lose four or five every month and replace them just to stand still.
| Row | Formula | Worked (20 clients) | Your numbers |
|---|
| Clients held | count | 20 | |
| Monthly retention | your rate | 75 to 80% | % |
| Clients lost per month | clients × (1 − retention) | 4 to 5 | |
| New clients needed per month to stand still | = clients lost | 4 to 5 | |
A coach who adds 2 clients a month and loses 3 grows nothing. A coach who adds 1 client a month and loses almost nobody passes thirty clients in under three years. Acquisition gets the glory; retention pays the rent.
6. Targets
| First month or two | Two to five clients at founding rates, mostly people who already know you |
| Get to ten clients, keep eight of them, let the math compound | ☐ |
| At 20 to 30 clients: busy and solid income; past that, a different business (raise prices, group program, or hire coaches) | ☐ |