Get a market based rate range for one on one personal training, built from your city, your training setting, your specialties and your session length.
Every state and metro on the list is assigned to a market tier, and each tier carries a low, target and high hourly rate for independent one on one training. Your setting, your specialties and your session length adjust that band. It is a market range, not a personal quote.
Here is how the range is built. The market tier sets the starting band, because the same hour of coaching does not clear the same money in a dense metro and a small town. The setting moves it next. A private studio or an in home client carries travel, rent or equipment that a gym floor session does not, so the number climbs. Online coaching sits lower per session and makes its money on volume and retention instead. Specialties move it again, because the narrower the population you serve well, the fewer coaches your buyer can compare you to. Session length is the last adjustment, and it is not linear. A thirty minute session does not cost half of an hour, because your programming time, your setup and your attention barely change.
Use the target number as the price you say out loud, and use the low end as your walk away floor rather than your opening offer. Most coaches do the opposite. They lead with the floor, discount from there, and end up working a full book at a rate that cannot fund time off or a slow month. If the target feels uncomfortable, that discomfort is usually a sign you have been anchored to your own gym's old rate card rather than to your market.
Common mistakes worth avoiding. Pricing off what the coach next to you charges, when neither of you has checked the market. Quoting a package total without ever naming the per session value, so the buyer prices you on the biggest number they hear. Discounting for a client who never asked. Raising rates for new clients but never touching the legacy book, which quietly becomes most of your week. And treating the range as fixed forever, when your certifications, results and waitlist all move it.
What this is not. It is not a personal quote, it does not know your reputation, your close rate or your local competition, and it cannot see your calendar. It is good enough to tell you whether you are badly underpricing, which most coaches are. Treat it as the floor of the conversation, not the answer.
The usual signs are a full calendar with no financial breathing room, dread before a renewal conversation, and no ability to take a week off without losing income. If your rate sits under the low end of your market band while your schedule is full, price is the problem, not demand.
No. Gym floor work is the common comparison point, so it tends to sit near the market baseline. In home and private studio work carries travel or facility cost and prices above it. Online coaching usually prices lower per session because delivery is asynchronous, and it makes its money on retention and roster size instead.
They do when the specialty genuinely narrows who can serve the client. Pre and post natal, return to sport, older adults and clinical populations all reduce the pool of qualified coaches, which reduces price comparison. General fitness carries no premium because it is the most compared thing a coach can sell.
Quote hourly value, sell in packages. Naming the per session number gives the buyer a reference point, and the package discount then reads as a reason to commit rather than as your real price. A small discount on a larger block is normal. A large one teaches clients to wait for a deal.
Say the target number plainly, then stop talking. Do not stack qualifiers on it. If the client pushes, move the scope rather than the price, so a smaller package or a shorter session length is the lever instead of a discount. The low end is what you accept, not what you open with.