How to Price Personal Training Packages, With a Worked Example

How do you price personal training, step by step?

Pricing personal training is easier when you work backwards from what the business must earn, rather than forwards from what other trainers charge. Here is the method in seven steps.

• 1. Write down your monthly fixed costs: insurance, software, phone share, CPD, marketing and any fixed gym rent.
• 2. Decide the profit you want each month before income tax, and agree a tax set-aside with your accountant.
• 3. Choose your session ceiling: the most sessions a week you can deliver without split shifts every day.
• 4. Work out break-even: the sessions a month that cover costs, and the sessions that reach your profit goal at your average price.
• 5. Set a target effective hourly rate after rent, counting session time and admin minutes together.
• 6. Build each offer (single session, packages, semi-private, small group, online) and check its effective hourly rate against the target.
• 7. Check the market so you understand how people will compare you, then decide. Review prices once a year, in writing, with at least six weeks' notice.

What is an effective hourly rate after rent?

Your effective hourly rate after rent is what one hour of your working time really earns once the gym's share is paid. It is lower than your session price, because every session carries hidden time (planning, notes, booking messages, check-ins) and, in most gym-based models, some rent.

The formula: effective hourly rate after rent = (revenue per session - rent per session) / ((session minutes + admin minutes) / 60). For fixed monthly rent, spread it across the sessions you expect to deliver in a month. For a per-session fee, use the fee. For a revenue share, multiply the session revenue by the gym's percentage.

This one number explains most pricing surprises. A package that looks generous to clients can quietly fall below what you need, and a semi-private session at a lower price per person can earn far more per hour of your time.

Worked example: pricing packages for a gym-based trainer

Take a self-employed trainer paying fixed rent of 1,200 a month (any currency) and expecting to deliver 90 sessions a month, so rent is about 13.33 per session. Sessions are 60 minutes with 15 minutes of admin, so each one-to-one session takes 1.25 hours. The target effective hourly rate after rent is 45.

A single session at 80 earns (80 - 13.33) / 1.25 = 53.33 an hour. A 10-session package at 720 (72 a session) earns (72 - 13.33) / 1.25 = 46.93. A 20-session package at 1,360 (68 a session) earns (68 - 13.33) / 1.25 = 43.73, just below target. A semi-private session for two at 48 each brings 96 for 60 minutes plus 20 minutes of admin: (96 - 13.33) / 1.33 = 62.00.

Should you pay the gym fixed rent, a per-session fee or a revenue share?

Self-employed trainers usually pay a gym in one of three ways. Fixed monthly rent costs the same however busy you are, so it is cheapest at high volume and riskiest in a slow month. A per-session fee and a revenue share rise and fall with your work, which limits risk but costs more once you are busy.

You can find the crossover. With an average price of 70 a session, fixed rent of 1,200 beats a per-session fee of 18 once you deliver more than about 67 sessions a month (1,200 / 18), and beats a 30% revenue share above about 58 sessions (1,200 / (70 x 0.3)). Below those volumes the flexible models cost less.

Run the numbers before you sign or renew, and read the agreement itself with a lawyer: exclusivity, who keeps the client relationship if you leave, insurance requirements and notice periods matter as much as the money.

How big should a package discount be, and how long should packages last?

A package discount should buy you something: booked slots for weeks ahead, fewer gaps, less admin per session and steadier income. If the discount takes the package below your target rate, it is costing you more than it buys. Keep discounts modest and let bigger packages earn their place through predictability rather than price.

Every package needs a validity period written down before the client pays. A common, fair pattern is one week of validity per session plus room for a missed week each month, for example ten sessions over ten weeks. Explain how pauses for travel or illness work, confirm any pause in writing with the new expiry date, and apply the same rule to everyone. Consumer law on expiry and refunds differs by country, so have your terms checked.

How do semi-private, small-group and online coaching change your price?

Formats change the arithmetic more than price rises do. Two clients training together at a lower price each usually earn you more per hour than one client at full price, and a small group more again. That makes them a good fit for the off-peak hours most trainers struggle to fill, such as midday.

Online coaching is priced per month, and its hidden cost is messages. Count the minutes you spend on check-ins and replies, set message hours you will keep, and price the plan so those minutes clear your target rate. Hybrid plans (a few in-person sessions plus check-ins) carry both rent and message time, so count both.

Demand is shifting in ways worth noticing. The American College of Sports Medicine's survey of about 2,000 professionals for its 2026 fitness trends ranked wearable technology first and fitness programmes for older adults second. Trends are prompts, not plans: serve the people in your area you are qualified to serve.

What are the common mistakes when pricing personal training?

• Pricing the hour you train, not the hours you work: admin and messages are real time.
• Ignoring rent, or spreading fixed rent over more sessions than you actually deliver.
• Discounting large packages until they earn less per hour than single sessions.
• Selling packages with no validity date, which turns unused sessions into an open-ended debt.
• Offering private discounts to individuals instead of cheaper formats such as semi-private or small group.
• Copying the cheapest local price instead of starting from your own numbers.
• Promising results in your marketing. Advertising rules in many countries restrict weight-loss and health claims and treat before-and-after photos as testimonials that need proof.
• Treating package money paid in advance as spare: the sessions are still to be delivered, and tax is still due.

What should be in writing before a client pays?

Before the first session, put the essentials in writing: what a session includes and excludes, the price, the package size and validity, the cancellation notice and what counts as a used session, pauses, refunds, message hours and how you handle personal and health information.

Complete the pre-exercise screening your certifying body and insurer direct before training. The PAR-Q+ is a widely used screening tool, and its publisher asks professionals to use only the current official version. Store screening forms securely, separately from your business spreadsheets.

The skill that decides most sales is not the price but the conversation before it. If you want to measure that skill, AssessAll's Discovery & Questioning Skill assessment is a practical starting point. The Personal Trainer Business Kit from Bodhih Training includes a client agreement discussion sheet, a consultation script and a calculator that does the arithmetic in this article.

How do you check your prices against the market and your own numbers?

A market check tells you how people will compare you, not what you must charge. Look at five or six trainers who offer something close to what you offer: the same kind of venue, a similar format, a similar client. Note the single-session price, the package sizes and validity, and what is included, such as check-ins between sessions or a review every few weeks. Write down where you found each one.

Then compare like with like. A trainer in a premium studio with a small, quiet floor is selling something different from a trainer on a busy commercial floor, and a package that includes weekly online check-ins carries more of your time than one that does not. If your numbers say you need more than the local market pays for one format, change the format, the rent deal or the hours you offer rather than your arithmetic.

Finally, look at your own data after a quarter. If consultations rarely convert and price is the reason people give, look at how you explain value and which options you offer before you cut anything. If prime time is full and you have a waiting list, your prime-time price is probably too low.

Review your numbers monthly. Watch your effective hourly rate after rent, rent as a share of income, utilisation of your bookable hours, how many prime-time slots are booked, consultation conversion and renewal rate. Set your own targets from your first eight weeks rather than borrowing someone else's.

If your rate is below target, change the discount, the format mix or the rent model before you add more hours. If prime time is full and enquiries keep coming, raise the price of prime-time packages with notice. If you want a structured way to turn a pricing goal into action, Jobulary's guide to the WOOP method for professional goals is a useful planning tool.

The work itself is growing. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 7% growth in fitness trainer and instructor jobs from 2025 to 2035 and notes that about 15% of these workers are self-employed. For that 15%, pricing is part of the job.