The Complete Guide to Life Coach Pricing Strategies in 2024
Understanding how to choose a pricing model for your coaching business can feel overwhelming. Pricing can feel like a dance between confidence in your worth and the ever-shifting landscape of the coaching industry.
Many new coaches find themselves unsure of what to charge for their services, and even well-established coaches wonder if they’re charging the right amount. Let’s decode it together.
In this post, you’ll discover:
- 4 Steps to Figuring Out Your Coaching Rates
- 4 Most Common Pricing Models for Coaches (and which one I personally recommend)
- What Other Coaches are Charging in 2024
- How to Respond When People Want to Work with You But Can’t Afford It
How to Price Services in Your Coaching Practice
Step 1: Know Thyself
Before diving into the whirlpool of actual rates, take a deep breath and introspect.
What unique skills, experience, and expertise do you bring to the table? Are you a seasoned coach who has worked with clients for years, with a string of success stories? Or are you a fresh-faced, passionate coach eager to make a brand new impact?
Second, consider what kind of business you’re creating right now.
That means being honest about the amount of time you have available to coach each week and what your income goals are. Consider the type of coaching you’re offering and the experience you want your clients to have. Those factors can and probably will change in the future, as will your prices!
Understanding your strengths and limitations is key to determining the value of your services.
Step 2: Market Detective Work
Take some time to scope out the current coaching market trends. What are other coaches in your coaching niche charging and what are they offering in return? How are other established coaches structuring their pricing and packages?
Peek into forums, social media groups, or even websites offering coaching services. While rates can vary widely depending on location, niche, and experience, getting a ballpark figure can be immensely helpful.
Remember, the goal isn’t to just follow the herd—you’re gathering information to guide you.
Step 3: Define Your Offering
What’s in your coaching repertoire- in other words, what kind of tangible services and experiences will you offer? One-on-one sessions, group workshops, online courses, or a combination of these?
Each service might warrant a different price tag. A package deal might differ in pricing compared to a single session, or even a combination of services. Consider the time, effort, and value you pour into each offering, as well as the transformation your clients will experience.
Ensure your rates reflect the value clients receive in both the experience they will have and the results they will experience.
Step 4: The Magic Equation
Here’s a secret formula (not really magic, but close): Combine your self-awareness, market research, and service offerings into a neat equation. Factor in the time spent per client, your expenses, desired income, and the perceived value of your coaching. Remember, it’s not just about covering costs but also valuing your expertise.
This will give you a baseline for pricing your coaching services.
Then, consider that there are multiple pricing models you could use for your business. These include:
Life Coach Pricing Model 1: Hourly Pricing
This approach to pricing means that you charge by the hour for your coaching services. This ensures that you get paid for your time and, for many new coaches, feels similar to how they might be paid at a traditional job.
However, we recommend avoiding the trap of trading time for money. It limits your ability to expand your income and gives clients the misconception that the value of coaching is in the time you spend with them. The true value of coaching is in the transformation your clients experience.
Life Coach Pricing Model 2: Retainer Pricing
Some life coaches charge a flat monthly fee in exchange for a pre-agreed upon amount of support. You might offer a certain number of coaching sessions, messaging between sessions, or even access to digital resources. If you opt for this model, be prepared to be clear about the support included and enforce strong boundaries with your clients.
Life Coach Pricing Model 3: Package Pricing
Many coaches offer packages of sessions for one flat rate. These are sometimes incentivized as more affordable when compared to the cost of a single session. This allows your clients to purchase a group of sessions at a savings, and gives you the benefit of knowing they will work with you for a longer period of time.
Life Coach Pricing Model 4: Coaching Program Pricing
Coaching programs are the pricing model we most often recommend. In a program model, your client pays a flat or monthly fee for a program experience that includes multiple types of support. This allows you to charge for a particular amount of time and include any experiences most likely to help the client achieve their desired goal.
The benefits of a coaching program pricing model include:
- Allows you to promote results rather than time-spent or number of sessions
- Creates the opportunity to offer expanded/additional programs as logical next-steps for clients who experience great results
- Offer a great way to integrate group coaching experiences into your coaching experience
- Allows you to choose a higher price point than most session-based packages and offer a more comprehensive client experience
Step 5: Flexibility and Experimentation
The coaching world is constantly evolving. Whatever you choose, your rates aren’t set in stone!
Be open to tweaking them as you gain experience, expand your skills, or if market demands shift.
Offering introductory rates or seasonal discounts can attract new clients while giving you room to gauge an optimal price point.
What Are Other Life Coaches Charging?
In the fast-growing life coaching industry, rates can be as diverse as the clients you’ll encounter.
Here’s a snapshot of what a sampling of other coaches are charging in 2024:
- Beginner Coaches: Typically, new coaches just starting might charge anywhere between $50 to $150 per hour. They often aim for lower rates to attract initial clients and gain experience.
- Mid-level Coaches: With a few years under their belt, coaches usually up their rates to around $150 to $300 per hour. Their growing expertise and client successes justify this increase.
- Seasoned Veterans: Coaches with extensive experience, a proven track record, and a strong client base might charge $300 to $500+ per hour. Their higher price point reflects their deep expertise and high demand.
Remember, these are rough estimates and can fluctuate based on location, specialty, and unique offerings.
Ultimately, your rates should resonate with your expertise, the value you provide, and your target audience’s ability to pay. Don’t undervalue yourself, but also remain mindful of the market dynamics.
How to Respond to Client Objections About Coaching Costs
No matter how much time you research your prices as a coach, you will likely run into the occasional objection.
They might say, “I would love to work with you, but I just can’t afford it.”
At first, you may be tempted to discount the price of your services so that your potential client CAN afford to work with you.
While some people who cannot afford your services may just not be a good fit as clients…
It is also important to consider the value in helping people see that they are greater than their perceived limitations. In fact, I believe all of us are greater than any circumstance, condition or situation that we may find ourselves in… And this includes financially!
For example, when people say, “I don’t have the money” as a reason they can’t do something they would actually love to do, it may not be a money problem…
It may be a mindset problem.
Some people use money as a scapegoat when they’re actually avoiding making the change they say they want to make. Our subconscious minds can point to the investment as a way to convince us to stay in our current circumstances because it believes what is familiar is safe. Some may even be uncomfortable looking at where they are spending their money instead of investing in their long-term growth.
When you discount the price of your services, you may actually be supporting your clients’ limiting beliefs.
Not to mention, you also devalue your services by communicating that they’re not as valuable as you initially stated… and perhaps this speaks to a limiting belief of your own!
The best way to respond to a client who tells you that they don’t have the money to pay for your services
Help your client get present to where else a feeling of financial lack may be holding them back in their lives.
Consider this conversation your first coaching session with them.
Ask, “Where else does the feeling that you don’t have enough money, time, or other resources to pursue your dreams show up in your life? What else would you love that you haven’t been able to do, have, or give because of a persistent feeling of lack?”
Remind them that most people find the money for what’s most important to them, sometimes without even realizing it. Ask them to remember one or two times in the past when they found the money to do or have something they wanted, even when it wasn’t sitting in their bank account.
Did they find the money they needed to go on a trip with friends or family?
To make the down payment on their home?
Or to invest in their education?
Remind your potential client that investing in the expansion of their awareness is the most valuable investment that one can make.
Then, ask them to consider all the things they’ve tried in the past to solve the problem they’re hoping to solve through this coaching experience. What is it costing them to stay where they are and not get the support they need to create results?
As a life coach, you want to work with people who you can impact, and who will add something to your life, too. Use this as an opportunity to show them that you are WORTH the INVESTMENT and to demonstrate how you could make an even greater impact on their life.
Not sure how? Find out in my free Are You Meant to Be a Life Coach? eBook: Get Access Now
Assign Your Potential Client Homework to Help Them Discover Creative Solutions
Before your potential client leaves the conversation, suggest a fun experiment.
Challenge them to come up with 5 ways they could generate the money to pay for coaching. For example:
- Are there items they aren’t using and could sell from their home or garage?
- Could they do some freelancing or gig work on the side of their regular job?
- Could they allocate money they’re already spending on other things (like shopping, coffee, or that streaming service they never watch)?
Let them know this is a useful exercise to help them discover resources and opportunities that they may not even realize they have, whether they choose to sign up for coaching with you or not.
Really, this is just the tip of the iceberg… there is FAR more available to them than they may realize in ALL areas of their life, and your speciality is helping them unlock this untapped potential!
Provided you’ve done the work to understand the desires and pain points of your ideal clients, address the areas of their life where they’d like to experience the most impact, and how your job as their coach is to help them expand their possibilities in this area.
At this point, it can help to provide an example…
Do you have coaching testimonials you can share from other clients, saying how glad they are that they decided to work with you, and the kinds of results they achieved in their lives?
Sharing what you have to offer in a clear and concise way, including how it will help your potential client powerfully shift an area of their life they may not be completely happy with, increases the perceived value of your services.
But if they still can’t afford your coaching services…
You can still let them know that your services cost what they cost because they are well worth the investment, and then some!
Tell them that you would love to help them generate whatever result it is that they would love. Provide them with a clear next step for when they are in a position to work with a heart-centered life coach who deeply cares about them and their results, whether that be booking an appointment on your site, a link to sign up for a program, or reaching back out to you directly.
You might be surprised at just how many potential clients reach back out after a powerful conversation like this!
Pricing Your Coaching Services is Only the First Step…
You may have started reading this blog thinking that pricing your coaching services was just about choosing a number. But, you’ve probably realized it requires a lot more awareness than pricing alone!
Isn’t it frustrating how even the simplest questions about your coaching business open up a giant can of worms? Something as straightforward as “How much should I charge for coaching?” leads to details you may not have considered!
All those nitty-gritty details can keep passionate difference-makers like you stuck in a never-ending loop of busy work instead of helping more people change their lives.
That oh-so-common trap is exactly why we created the Ultimate Coaching Success Kit.
Click here to explore this bundle of exclusive resources designed to help you handle the details with ease– from a comprehensive intake form to a library of coaching questions and exercises for every situation.
Because there are no bonus points for needlessly doing it all from scratch.
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