As someone who supports coaches around building and growing their businesses I get asked about how much people should charge for coaching sessions all the time.

It’s a very common question and it’s a place where a lot of us can get really stuck.

In this post I’m going to talk about how much to charge for coaching sessions (I’m in the UK so I’ll be talking about figures in GBP), the things you should take into consideration and the big mistakes to avoid.

Before we go any further though, I’m not going to be telling you an exact figure of what you should charge – sorry! But I will be giving you a whole range of strategies you can apply to help you come up with a figure that actually works for you.

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The biggest mistake coaches make when pricing their coaching sessions

The first thing that we’re going to address is the mistake that I see a lot of people make: they charge per session rather than per the coaching program.

It’s totally fine to have a single coaching session offer (I have one!), but generally speaking it’s much better to focus on creating coaching packages and charging appropriately for the value of that coaching package as a whole.

Lots of things are going to contribute to the value, which I’m going to get into in a sec.

Charging per session or per hour doesn’t accurately reflect the value that people are getting. When you charge, let’s say £100 an hour, it puts the focus on that unit of time. And let’s remember, an hour of your time is never just an hour of your time.

It’s your training and experience, it’s all the business admin and marketing going on in the background. It’s tax and expenses and holiday pay and all of the other stuff – not to mention the value of the transformation you’re supporting them to create!

It’s never just that amount of time with you, and sometimes people can find it difficult to get their head around that when you’re charging in that way.

PRICING PER COACHING PACKAGE

When we charge per coaching package it’s much easier to cover those ‘hidden’ costs, but it’s also much easier to price on the whole value of what a person is getting when they are coached – of which only a fraction is the actual time they have with you.

What a lot of us do is focus on the features of our coaching package – the bits and pieces that are included like the number of sessions, any additional support or resources. However, that’s only a piece of the total value of the package – the true value is in the result of the coaching package – the actual shift and changes they’re going to experience.

It’s some kind of transformation, a problem solved or a dream achieved. It’s something that’s way bigger than just these little pieces that put together the package, not to mention the value of your time and experience.

So with all this in mind I’d always charge per package and not per session (apart from Power Hours / Discovery Call type things)

WHOLEHEARTED PRICING TOOLS

So when it comes to thinking about your pricing, there’s a couple of different techniques that I like to use with my clients.

ALIGNMENT CHECK IN

The first one is what I call an alignment check in.

Think of your package and I’m going to throw you a random figure….

What if you charged £3000 / $4000 for that package?

How does that number feel?

Maybe you’re thinking that’s not enough, or maybe you’re feeling like that’s too much – there’s no right or wrong here, we’re feeling it out.

What thoughts are coming up for you right now? This is such a good place to check in on your limiting beliefs – did you automatically think ‘no one will ever pay me that much’?

Now, depending on how that number felt, ‘play’ with some other figures below or over depending on your reaction until you find a number that feels right.

This is a really intuitive way to feel out pricing and get a starting figure to begin with.

DO THE MATHS

The next tool I use is to actually look at the cold, hard figures and do the math, because no matter what it is that we intuitively feel on the numbers, they have to work for us to have a sustainable business that is going to work.

Begin by thinking about how much you’d like to earn in a year.

Make sure you’re factoring in tax and taking holidays etc.

Now divide that figure by 12 so we can get a monthly goal – however a quick note on monthly goals. Most businesses don’t operate where they are at a steady monthly income, it will ebb and flow over the year. We’re just using this as a gage.

Now look at that figure you came up with in the alignment task and calculate how many clients you’d need across the year to meet your goal. How many clients would you need to be working with at any one time?

Do the numbers add up? Could you manage that number of clients at once? Most people tend to overestimate how many clients they can work with at once while still marketing and keeping their business ticking over.

Of course, it’s totally ok to know that you’re going to work up to a number over time, perhaps you realise you’ll only hit your annual income goal once you can launch a group programme for example – basically this is just another task to help you see how your business might look and if the numbers add up.

If you’re aiming for £70k a year but will be charging £1000 for a package then 70 clients in a year might be rather a stretch.

WORK OUT YOUR EXPANSION PRICE

The third thing I like to look at with pricing is that most of us have a tendency to automatically under charge.

It’s very rare that I work with a coach who is charging ‘too much’ although that is entirely relative!

It’s a good thing just to check in and think, okay, so what would be a number that is just on the periphery of my comfort zone – but is still a number that you can say confidently to a potential client.

This is an expansion price. Expanding into something new is a really good place to be!

NO ONE CAN TELL YOU WHAT YOUR PRICES SHOULD BE

I wish I could sit here and say, this is how much you should charge for your coaching sessions and how much people in different industries are charging and give you a definitive figure.

But your price is your price.

You should feel confident about it, but how much it is is so personal – it needs to feel right for you and make good business sense in terms of how much you wish to earn.

Your money mindset is also a huge part of this too!

These tools are not perfect but they should help guide you.

As you work with more clients, as you get better results, as you can see the value of what it is that you do more and as your relationship with your business changes – all these things are also going to be reflected in your pricing too.

OWN YOUR PRICE

Finally, own your price!

Have it on your website, feel confident in it – I could be one of those coaches who tells you to double your prices but if you can’t ‘own’ your price then you’re going to struggle to sell at that price.

It’s also really useful to make sure that you’re doing the ongoing work around your mindset and money. It’s a really loaded topic – we all have a money mindset and working on that can totally change the game!

I hope this post has given you lots to think about when it comes to how much you should charge for your coaching sessions.

How much do you charge? Do you have any questions? Let me know in the comments and I’ll be happy to help!

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