As a personal trainer who has put in the time, effort, and money to acquire your personal training certifications and credentials, the end goal is to earn enough money to support you financially. And how much you will earn, will depend on how much you are charging for personal training services.
If you are not a gym employee, it’s up to you to set your own rates, since you are not salaried. So, how do you set your personal training prices to ensure you are adequately compensated for your services? This article has the answers.
In this guide, we will take a closer look at the different personal training pricing structures that you can use, depending on the type of services that you offer. We will also walk you through the key considerations for pricing personal training packages, to ensure maximum returns for your services.
1. The Different Personal Training Pricing Structures
Personal trainers have different pricing structures that they can use, to increase their bottom line while ensuring customer satisfaction. In this section, we will take a closer look at some of the different personal training pricing structures that you can use, and help you understand the ideal one for your needs.
1.1 Monthly/Annual Pricing Structure
The monthly or annual pricing structure is one of the oldest in the personal training industry. It’s also one of the most popular. As its name suggests, your personal training clients will be paying you a monthly or annual fee, depending on the agreement you have in place.
What makes this pricing model so popular in the industry is its simplicity. It’s easy to understand and track, for both you and your personal training clients. Furthermore, a monthly or annual pricing structure comes with the added benefit of providing you with a consistent income. And this is a great benefit for personal trainers, whose income is usually affected by seasonality.
Another benefit of using this personal training model is that in case you have a certain revenue target you intend to attain, it will be easy to calculate how many personal training clients you will need to attract. And with that information, you can then work towards attaining those goals.
Furthermore, this pricing model is also quite flexible. For instance, as much as you have a set price, you can offer discounts to attract new clients or even to current members, to encourage them to renew their membership. Simply put, you can customize it as much as you want, to suit your personal training business model.
Your personal training clients will opt for either a month-to-month contract or an annual one. As for the personal trainer prices, you can charge higher rates for the month-to-month contract than the annual one. With this approach, you are incentivizing members to sign up for your personal training services for a longer period.
1.2 Class Packages
Also known as the pay-as-you-go pricing model, class packages are ideal for personal training clients who want to explore your personal training services. They can be a great means of attracting new personal training clients since there is no commitment on their part.
For instance, you can be charging $30 per single training session. This gives anyone an opportunity to come and check out your personal training services. After a client has signed up for a single session, you will then have the opportunity to demonstrate how great your personal training services are. And from there, it will be easier to convince them to sign up for a longer commitment.
It’s worth mentioning that class packages don’t provide a consistent or guaranteed source of income. Hence, it will be advisable to combine them with other pricing models, to ensure a consistent revenue stream.
1.3 Dynamic Pricing Model
The dynamic pricing model is one of the latest in the fitness industry. It’s ideal for personal trainers who own their own fitness studios. With this pricing model, your personal trainer prices will depend on the time of the day. As you may expect, most people visit a gym either in the morning or in the evening. Hence, if you were to charge a flat rate for both peak and off-peak times, there’s high chance everyone will visit during the peak hours, leading to crowding in your fitness studio.
Instead of going with single pricing, you can instead offer discounts for the off-peak personal training sessions. For instance, a personal training session offered at 6 pm, offered at $50 may be fully booked from Monday to Friday. If you were to offer the same session at 1 pm, there’s a high chance it may only have a 50% occupancy rate, or even lower. But, if you were to offer a discount of 50% for the 1 pm class, the occupancy rate will increase considerably.
With this approach, you will maximize your profits. Also, you will minimize overcrowding in your gym, meaning you will offer personalized attention to each client, leading to higher customer satisfaction. As a result, the retention rates will be higher. Simply put, a dynamic personal training pricing model will be a win-win situation for everyone.
1.4 Results-Based Pricing Model
You can also opt for a results-based personal training pricing structure. At the end of the day, different clients have different fitness goals. Also, you will get clients with varying levels of fitness. Even if you use similar concepts or methods, the resource expenditure will vary from one client to the other.
For example, if you are training a fit and healthy individual who simply wants to remain active, it will require you less time and effort. On the other hand, if you are working with an overweight person who wants to achieve a reasonable standard of fitness and health, the resource expenditure will be high.
With that in mind, you can then explore different pricing options, depending on the resources and effort you will spend with each client. To make your work easier, you can create several categories depending on your assessment and experience, with each category having different pricing. You can then place each personal training client within a particular category.
A results-based pricing strategy will be a fair approach to everyone. Furthermore, it shows that you are confident that you can deliver the desired results. However, this pricing model will be most suited for personal trainers who have years of experience in the industry.
2. Pricing Personal Training Packages: Key Considerations
When it comes to setting personal training prices, most personal trainers normally use the base price in the industry. However, this approach may not be best. After all, different personal trainers have different financial goals. Furthermore, each personal training business comes with different operational costs. Hence, to price your personal training services properly and ensure maximum profitability, you should consider the following factors.
2.1 Your Financial Goals
Your monthly financial goal should come into play when you are setting your personal training prices. For instance, a particular personal trainer may be looking to generate $5000 per month while another may be looking to earn $3,000. As you can see, the two personal trainers have different financial goals. Hence, they cannot charge the same rates. Therefore, you need to sit down and identify your monthly financial goal. And from there, you can then figure out how to charge for your services.
2.2 Your Expenses
Estimating your expenses will help you to determine how much you should charge for your personal training sessions. For instance, if you normally train clients at their homes, your expenses will be higher than someone who operates out of a gym. You will have to factor in fuel spent to and from the client, as well as time spent commuting. So, you need to sit down, calculate your expenses and then factor them into your pricing. If you fail to do so, your personal training business may never break even.
2.3 Your Experience and Specialization
You should also consider your level of experience when it comes to pricing personal training packages. For instance, if you are a beginner, you cannot expect to charge premium prices. Instead, you will have to start with the base market rate and then increase your rates gradually, as you gain more experience and your portfolio grows.
Also, you have a certain specialization, then you can charge higher rates compared to a personal trainer with no specialization. For example, you may have specialized in training athletes such as footballers. You may also have specialized in creating meal plans for each personal training client, depending on their fitness goals. With such specialization, you will be doing yourself a disservice if you are charging the same rates as anyone else.
3. Wrapping It Up
Now that you are conversant with the different personal training pricing structures available and the considerations to make for pricing personal training packages, you should have an idea of how to set your personal training rates. The most important thing is to ensure you set a rate that compensates you adequately while making sure your personal training clients are satisfied with the services they are paying for.