The goal of becoming a certified personal trainer is to make a living as one. Making a living is directly correlated to how much you can make based on your rates and being confident in how you present them. 

If you’re not working for a commercial gym, it’s up to you to set your own pricing structure. You can now become a certified online personal trainer and add additional revenue by setting prices based on all services you offer.  

The goal of becoming a certified personal trainer is to make a living as one.

Today we’ll look at basing factors such as location, the economy, target population, cost to train client, and how self-worth factors into your personal training prices. I’ll also teach you how to discuss pricing with clients so you can do it confidently and you can avoid the mistakes I made when I first started out. 

Location: how where you work affects your rates

When setting your hourly rates as a personal trainer, you have to consider how much your clients expect to pay based on the rates in your city. For example, clients in Manhattan would likely think that $100/hour is pretty reasonable while those in the Bronx would laugh at you.

Consider how much your clients expect to pay based on the rates in your city.

The socioeconomic conditions within the respective regions differ and your pricing model will need to be aligned with whatever it is people are willing to pay. Check out a few websites of other trainers in the area to see if they publish their prices and to see if there is some consistency to get a feel for the location-based pricing factors in your target market’s community.

Economy: a thriving economy merits higher prices than a downturn

Personal training is considered to be a luxury item, similar to getting massages, manicures and pedicures, and even the occasional teeth whitening. As these items are not a necessity, they will be amongst the first things cut from a client’s budget should the economy take a downturn.

Thus, it is important to have a pulse on the economy and be sensitive to recessions so that you can continue to maintain or attract new clientele. This may mean dropping your prices by $10 or $15 an hour or adding more services for the same price.

Target population: set a price that is attainable to them to entice sales

Your target population differs from your local neighborhood in that different types of clientele will have different interests. For example, the pricing structure for a toning client would differ from that of an extreme weight loss client.

Understanding the prices that your target audience expects to pay – and that are attainable – will be crucial to your ability to foster sales.

Cost to train client: the investments you make for training are passed on to the client

There are generally three things to consider when factoring in your costs to train a client:

1. Travel time
2. Gym fees
3. Equipment costs

If you are a trainer that visits clients at their home or a facility of their choice they should expect to pay more than your local clientele. Generally, the farther away the client the more that you can charge (provided they won’t shop around for a local trainer).

Gyms charging personal trainers to use their facilities is common in the industry. This typically ranges from $10 to $25 and should be passed on to the client.

Investing in specific equipment for your client’s benefit affords you the justification to charge a bit more. If you are training at your gym that has a full set of free weights, kettlebells, a TRX, and a prowler you can charge more than if you were training at the local park with some stability balls and bands.

Self-worth: believing what you charge is worth every penny

In the above example of my lack of confidence selling $85/hour packages, I mentioned I had a tough time selling because I didn’t truly believe my services were worth that much. It wasn’t until I saw the results my clients were getting that I finally realized that people should pay me that much for my services because of the mutual benefit involved.

That said, your self-worth is one of the most important factors to setting your price. Think about some famous Hollywood personal trainers you admire; they can easily justify charging $150/hour because they have high self-worth and recognize people are willing to pay them that much.

I’ve found that the following factors influence self-worth:

• Experience – How long have you been getting people to their goals?
• Education – Do you have a CPT Certification? An Online Personal Training Certification? More than one? Bachelors? Masters? Loads of continuing education training? The more education you have the more confidence you will gain, therefore the more you can charge.
• Personal Belief – What do you believe you are worth?

If you want to charge more but aren’t confident enough to do so, consider how you can expand the above areas of experience and education so that you have more self-assurance in increasing your rates. Once you start to see your clients have a new outlook on their health, you’ll know the value you provide.