How Much to Charge for Personal Training

Working out how much to charge for personal training starts with your own numbers, not someone else's price list. Add your yearly costs to the income you want, allow for tax and payment fees, then divide by the paid sessions you can realistically deliver.

That gives you your minimum rate. Your local market then tells you how far above it you can go. This guide walks through each step, with a worked example you can copy and a few ways to test the result.

Why copying other personal training rates goes wrong

Looking at what other trainers charge is useful, but only as a final check. Their price was set for their costs, their hours and their clients. Copy it and you take on their assumptions without knowing what they were.

A trainer who rents studio space by the hour has different costs from one who trains clients in a park. A trainer with a full diary needs less per session than one with gaps. Two identical prices can mean very different incomes.

So start from your own business. Compare afterwards.

How to work out how much to charge for personal training

Every sensible approach to personal trainer pricing comes back to one sum. Your price per session is your yearly costs, plus the income you want to keep, plus the tax on it, divided by the number of paid sessions you deliver in a year.

Then you add enough on top to cover card payment fees. That is the whole method. The six steps below fill in each part, and the worked example after them puts it together.

Step 1: Add up your yearly business costs

List everything you pay to run the business, even the small things. Work in yearly totals, because some costs arrive once a year and are easy to forget when you think month by month.

Gym rental, floor fees or room hire
Insurance
Courses, certifications and continuing education
Equipment, and replacing it when it wears out
Travel to clients or venues, including parking
Phone, apps and software subscriptions
Marketing, such as printing, ads or photos
An accountant or bookkeeper
Kit and clothing you only use for work

If you are not sure of a figure, look at your last three months of bank statements and multiply by four. Guessing low is the easy mistake here, and it quietly cuts into your income all year.

Step 2: Decide your target income

Your target income is what you want to keep each year, after business costs and after tax. Base it on your real living costs, your savings goals and a buffer. Not on what feels polite to ask for.

If you could earn a salary elsewhere, use that as a reference point. Remember that self employment usually means no paid holiday, no sick pay and no employer contributions to your pension or retirement savings. Your target has to cover those too.

Step 3: Count your real working weeks

There are 52 weeks in a year, but you will not train clients in all of them. Take out every week where you will not be earning:

Holidays you plan to take
Public holidays and festive periods when clients travel
An honest allowance for illness
Courses, competitions or events you attend
Quiet seasons, such as summer for some trainers or winter for outdoor coaches

Done honestly, the total usually lands well below 52. That is normal. Your rate simply has to earn your yearly income in fewer weeks than the calendar suggests.

Step 4: Estimate realistic sessions per week

Count paid sessions, not hours spent at the gym. Between sessions you travel, write programmes, reply to messages, do admin and train yourself. All of that is work, but none of it is billed.

Ask two questions. How many sessions can you deliver well each week, at the energy your clients pay for, all year round? And how many of those slots can you actually fill? Use the lower number.

If you are just starting out, your diary will not be full straight away. Price for the diary you expect within a few months, and plan how you will cover the gap while you build up.

Step 5: Allow for cancellations and no-shows

Some booked sessions will not happen. Clients get ill, travel for work or simply forget. Whether you are paid for those depends on your cancellation policy, and on whether you actually apply it.

Look back over the last few months. For every 20 sessions booked, how many were cancelled late or missed without payment? Take that number off your weekly total before you go any further.

A clear cancellation policy helps close that gap. If you do not have one yet, the cancellation policy generator gives you a starting point to adapt.

Step 6: Cover payment fees and tax

Card payments cost money. Most providers take a percentage of each payment, and some add a fixed amount per transaction, payout fees or currency conversion costs. Check your own provider's terms and add them up for a typical month.

As one example, CoachOne charges a 3% Platform Fee on card payments plus Stripe's processing costs. There is no fixed fee per booking and no commission on cash sessions.

Whichever provider you use, your rate has to absorb the cost. This guide to taking card payments as a personal trainer explains the options.

Tax depends on where you live and how your business is set up. Ask an accountant what to set aside, or use a cautious estimate until you know.

The method here treats tax as a share of your profit, so your target income is what you keep after it.

A worked example with example numbers

Here is how much to charge for personal training in one made-up case, from start to finish. Every figure below is made up for illustration. None are market rates, and they are plain numbers you can read in any currency.

Example yearly costs

Gym floor fees: 6,000
Insurance: 400
Courses and certifications: 800
Equipment: 500
Phone, apps and software: 600
Travel: 1,200
Marketing: 300
Accountant: 700
Total yearly costs: 10,500

Example income, tax and fees

Target income to keep after tax: 36,000
Example tax rate on profit: 25%
Profit needed before tax: 36,000 divided by 0.75, which is 48,000
Example card fees: 4% on every payment
Takings needed before fees: 48,000 plus 10,500, divided by 0.96, which is about 60,940

Example sessions

Working weeks: 52 minus 4 weeks of holiday, 1 for illness and 1 for courses, which leaves 46
Sessions booked per week: 22
Late cancellations and no-shows that go unpaid: 2 per week
Paid sessions per week: 20
Paid sessions per year: 46 times 20, which is 920

Example rate

Minimum price per session: 60,940 divided by 920, which is about 66
Rounded up for a buffer: 70

In this example, anything under about 66 means the trainer misses their target. Rounding up to 70 leaves a little room for months that go worse than planned.

Now see how sensitive the result is. If the same trainer fills only 15 paid sessions a week, the year has 690 paid sessions and the minimum rises to about 88. How many sessions you can really fill matters as much as what you spend.

How much do personal trainers charge in your area?

Once you have your minimum, look outward. Search for trainers near you, check local gym price lists and note what each price includes. Session length, location, travel and whether programming is included all change what a number means.

This guide does not quote typical figures, because personal training rates vary widely by city, venue and specialism. Your own research in your own area is worth more than any national average. Then compare:

Your number is well below local prices. You may be underpricing. If your experience and service are comparable, price nearer the middle of what you found.
Your number is close to local prices. Good. Price for the clients you want to attract, not to be the cheapest option nearby.
Your number is well above local prices. Look again at your costs and your sessions per week. Duo and group sessions can raise what you earn per hour without raising what each client pays.

Deciding how much to charge for personal training is part maths and part positioning. The maths sets your floor. Your market, your specialism and your confidence set how far above it you sit.

How to approach group session pricing

Group session pricing follows a different logic. Each person pays less than for a private session, but the hour earns you more in total. The risk is that groups do not always fill.

So price groups on realistic attendance, not full capacity. Using example numbers again:

Private session: 70 for one client
Duo session: 45 per person, so 90 for the hour
Group of up to 8: 18 per person. With 5 people on average, the hour earns 90. Full, it earns 144.

Set a capacity you can coach well, and decide the minimum number of people a group needs to go ahead. Duo sessions work well for clients who want close attention at a lower price than training alone.

In CoachOne, each private, duo or group service has its own price, duration and capacity, so every format can carry the rate that makes sense for it.

When and how to raise your rates

Review your rate once a year, and whenever your costs change. Signs it may be time to raise it:

Your diary is full and you are turning people away
Your costs have gone up since you last set your price
You have added qualifications or experience
New clients accept your price without hesitating

Give existing clients notice, ideally a month or more. Tell them the new price and the date it starts. Keep the message short and do not over explain. For example:

Hi Sam, a quick update. From 1 March my price per session will be 75. Your regular Tuesday slot stays exactly the same. Thank you for training with me, and just let me know if you have any questions.

Some trainers keep existing clients on the old rate for a few months while new clients pay the new one. Either approach works. Decide in advance and apply it to everyone the same way.

Run your own numbers

If you would rather not do the sums by hand, use the personal training rate calculator to work out how much to charge for personal training from your own figures.

Try changing one figure at a time to see which one moves your price the most. Often it is sessions per week.

Once your rate is set, the next job is charging it every time. CoachOne is an iPhone app where you set a price for each private, duo or group session and take card, Apple Pay or cash. See how payments work in CoachOne.