Free tool
What should you charge per coaching session?
Work out the rate your business actually needs, including preparation, follow-up, costs, cancellations and time off.
A free session-rate calculator for independent coaches, tutors, teachers and instructors.
Your target
Start with what the business needs.
Enter the income you want the business to provide before your personal tax.
Allow for holidays, illness, training, public holidays and quieter periods.
A small cushion can help cover unexpected costs and quieter weeks.
Your working week
What one working week really contains.
Include the full travel time connected with one session.
Include scheduling, messages, payment follow-up, planning and general business administration.
Your costs
The costs sitting behind every session.
For example software, insurance, memberships, equipment, marketing, accountancy and professional development.
For example court hire, room hire, travel, equipment or payment processing.
Estimate how many booked sessions are cancelled, missed or otherwise not paid for.
Optional. We will compare your current rate with the rate your business needs.
Reading the result
What one session really earns.
True hourly return
At the calculated rate of £49, one working hour returns approximately £32.01 once preparation, follow-up, travel, admin and business costs are included.
- Paid sessions per year
- 836
- Total working hours per year
- 1,217 hours
- Required annual revenue
- £37,000
The cost of unpaid cancellations
At your current booking level, an 5% unpaid cancellation rate costs approximately £1,947 each year, calculated against the calculated sustainable rate.
Halving unpaid cancellations from 5% to 3% would lower the required rate by approximately £1.13 per session.
Packages
Package pricing without an automatic discount.
A package can offer commitment and convenience without reducing the value of each session. These numbers use your calculated rate of £49 per session.
| Sessions | Full price | With discount | Given away | Effective rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | £196 | £186 | −£10 | £46.55 |
| 6 | £294 | £279 | −£15 | £46.55 |
| 10 | £490 | £466 | −£25 | £46.55 |
Monthly payment
Turning a weekly session into a monthly payment.
Some coaches with regular weekly clients quote a flat monthly figure instead of paying per session. The maths is annual value divided by twelve.
44 weekly sessions per year at £49 per session equals
£179.67 per month
Spread evenly across twelve months. Agree separately what happens during holidays, missed sessions and any extra weeks.
Try a scenario
Fewer sessions at a higher rate, or the other way around.
- Paid sessions per year
- 836
- Annual revenue
- £0
- Annual working hours
- 1,217 hours
- True hourly return
- -£1.64
20 sessions at £0 produces £0 of annual revenue, compared with 20 sessions at £49 producing £40,964 with a similar annual working time., That is £40,964 less across the year.
Methodology
How the calculation works.
Paid sessions per year equals sessions booked each week, multiplied by working weeks, multiplied by the percentage expected to be paid.
Required annual revenue equals your income target, plus fixed business costs, plus session-related costs.
Minimum sustainable session rate equals required annual revenue divided by expected paid sessions.
The cushion is applied by multiplying required annual revenue by one plus the cushion percentage, then dividing by paid sessions again. It genuinely increases the revenue the calculator asks for.
True hourly return divides income after business costs by all working hours, including preparation, follow-up, travel and general admin. It does not include the delivery time of cancelled sessions, because you were not there for them.
Session-related costs are applied to booked sessions. Court hire, room hire and payment processing fees often stand whether the client turns up or not, so the honest default counts them all. Preparation, follow-up and travel time are applied to booked sessions for the same reason.
Personal tax is not included. The result is the income the business needs to produce before your tax return.
This calculator works out what your own business needs. It does not attempt to tell you what your local market will pay. Before changing your rate, compare the result with your experience, specialism, location, demand and the value of the service you provide.
This calculator provides a planning estimate based on the figures entered. It is not financial, tax or legal advice.
How do I calculate my coaching rate?
A coaching rate has four numbers underneath it. The income you want the business to provide. The revenue it needs to produce to give you that income, which is a larger figure because business costs sit between the two. The paid sessions you can honestly expect to deliver in a year. And the working time that surrounds each of those sessions, which is almost always more than the session itself.
Divide the revenue by the paid sessions and you have the minimum a session needs to earn. The calculator above does that maths and adds a small cushion for quieter weeks.
How much should I charge per coaching session?
The sustainable figure is the starting point, not the answer. From there the rate is shaped by your experience, your specialism, the demand for your work, your location, the session format, the outcomes clients tend to reach with you, the facilities and equipment involved, and whether you are working one to one or with a small group. Two coaches with the same costs can honestly sit at very different rates for reasons the maths cannot see.
Our guide to what to charge for private lessons works through those judgement calls in more detail.
Should preparation and follow-up time be included?
Yes. A one-hour session that carries fifteen minutes of preparation and ten minutes of notes is really a ninety-minute unit of work. That time will not appear on the invoice, but it still shapes the economics of the service. Coaches who leave it out of the calculation tend to end up quietly working for far less per hour than they thought.
Good session notes and clear preparation are part of how a coaching relationship holds together. Our guide to writing session notes is worth a read if this is where your unpaid time tends to disappear.
How should cancellations affect my rate?
Unpaid cancellations do not remove your costs, they reduce the number of paid sessions available to cover them. If eight in every hundred booked sessions go unpaid, ninety-two sessions have to cover the same annual figure. That either shows up as a higher rate, a clearer cancellation policy, or both. Our guide on reducing no-shows covers the practical side.
Should coaching packages be discounted?
Not automatically. A package can offer commitment, predictable revenue and a simpler conversation about scheduling, and those are valuable on their own. Where a discount does appear, it is worth knowing the full annual figure you are giving away. Our guide to designing coaching packages walks through the shapes that hold up in real practice.
How do I turn a session rate into a monthly payment?
Take the number of sessions you expect a client to have in a year and multiply by your rate. Divide the result by twelve. That is the flat monthly figure. It works cleanly when both sides have a clear agreement about holidays, missed sessions and any extra weeks that fall outside the plan.
How should I price group coaching?
Group pricing still starts with the revenue you need a session to produce. From there it is shaped by the maximum group size, the venue cost, the preparation involved, the administration of a shared booking, and the risk of low attendance on any given date. A quiet week for a solo session is a small loss. A quiet week for a group session can cost more than it earns.
When should I increase my coaching rate?
When your costs have risen, when demand is climbing, when your experience or qualifications have moved on, when the service has genuinely improved, when sessions are consistently full with a quiet waitlist, or when the current rate no longer supports the income you need. Our guide to raising rates as a private coach covers how to tell clients without losing them.
Built for session-based work
The same core maths, different working shapes.
The calculation is the same wherever session-based work happens. What tends to differ is the shape of the costs and the working week around each session.
Sports coaches
Court hire, facility fees, travel and weather-related cancellations all sit inside the rate. Enter court and travel time as part of a booked session, and the calculator will show what an outdoor cancellation really costs across a year.
Private tutors
Preparation, marking and term-time working patterns often account for a large share of the week. Enter your realistic working weeks, and add preparation time honestly. Tutors are among the coaches most likely to underestimate their true hourly return.
Music teachers
Shorter lessons, school terms and flat monthly tuition change the shape of the week. Use the average session length that reflects your teaching, and use the monthly payment section to model a flat tuition figure.
Personal trainers
Gym commission, programme design and client messaging are real business costs. Add gym fees as a fixed monthly cost and messaging time as weekly admin, and the calculator will factor them into the rate.
Yoga teachers and movement instructors
Room hire, class capacity and equipment are the usual costs. Set the cost attached to each session for room hire, and consider how privates and small groups compare when priced from the same underlying figure.
Singing, dance and language teachers
Session length varies more than in most disciplines, and preparation is often invisible. Enter an average session length that reflects your mix, and be honest about how long you spend planning between lessons.
A sustainable rate is only part of running a calm practice.
Another Session keeps clients, sessions, notes, packages and payments together for one independent coach. It helps you stay prepared, remember what matters and keep the work around each session organised.
FAQ
Common questions.
- How much should a coach charge per hour?
- There is no single number. The sustainable figure is the revenue you need per year divided by the paid sessions you can deliver, adjusted for the working time that surrounds each session. Use the calculator above with your own income goal, costs and working pattern to see the rate your business actually needs.
- Should I include preparation time in my coaching rate?
- Yes. Preparation, follow-up, travel and admin all shape the true hourly return of a session. A one-hour session with fifteen minutes of preparation and ten minutes of notes is really a ninety-minute unit of work. The calculator counts all of it when it works out your hourly return.
- How do cancellations affect my session price?
- Unpaid cancellations reduce the number of paid sessions available to cover the same annual costs. If eight in every hundred booked sessions go unpaid, the rate has to be a little higher, or the cancellation policy a little clearer, for the year to add up.
- Should coaching packages be cheaper?
- Not automatically. A package can offer commitment and convenience without a discount. Where a discount does apply, it is useful to see the total figure you are giving away across the year before deciding.
- How do I calculate a monthly coaching fee?
- Multiply the number of sessions you expect a client to have in a year by your session rate, then divide by twelve. Agree separately what happens during holidays, missed sessions and any extra weeks.
- Does the calculator include tax?
- No. The result is the income the business needs to produce before your personal tax return. Tax varies by country, personal circumstance and business structure, so it is best handled with a local accountant.
- Can tutors and music teachers use this calculator?
- Yes. The maths is the same for any session-based one-person practice. The costs and working shape will differ. A private tutor may need to include marking and term-time patterns. A music teacher may need to consider shorter lessons and flat monthly tuition. The calculator lets you enter those figures directly.
- Is my information saved?
- Your figures are kept in your own browser so they stay between visits. They are not sent to a server, added to an account, or included in analytics. Clear the page if you want to reset.