How Much Does a Life Coach Make in 2024?

As a life coach, you’re in complete control of your earning potential. You get to set your rates, create your schedule, and work with your ideal clients - sounds great, right? 

But to generate a steady life coach salary, it takes more than improving your coaching skills or getting more coaching clients. You also have to price your services correctly and find ways to scale your business. 

All too often, many life coaches focus too much on helping others — and not enough on being profitable. Some undervalue the work they do. Others lower their rates to unrealistic levels because they don’t want to turn away the people who need their help. 

But if you want to continue to improve your clients’ lives (and yours), you need to build a more profitable business. 

That’s why, in this article, we’re exploring the average life coaching income, how to set your rates, and how to earn more money as a life coach.

The Demand For Life Coaches

There’s a high demand for life coaches, and the industry is more than big enough to support you. According to IBIS World, life coaching is a $1.5 billion industry with a healthy 2.5% annual growth rate.

According to 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study, there are an estimated 99,100 active coach practitioners globally. And those active coaches generated an estimated annual revenue and income from coaching of $4.564 billion in 2022.

Clearly, there’s a demand for coaches, specifically life coaches. The question we need to explore is how much money you can reasonably expect to make as an individual life coach.

How Much Do Life Coaches Make?

The 2023 ICF Global Coaching Study found that the average global annual revenue and income for coaches is $52,800 USD. In North America, the average life coach salary is $67,800.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) doesn’t have a category for life coaches. The closest category is educational, guidance, and career counselors and advisors. According to their data, the median salary as of 2022 is $60,140 a year but could range anywhere from $38,280 on the low end and $98,530 on the high end. Additionally, professionals in this industry who specialize in a category, earn an average salary of $82,250.

There are certain life coaching categories that charge premium rates and earn more than others. According to ZipRecruiter, product coaches and executive life coaches earn a much higher salary than the national average salary.

Keep in mind that these numbers represent the median life coach salary, but they aren’t set in stone. If you can establish yourself, build a brand, and leverage online coaching, it’s possible to earn six figures or more. 

5 Factors that Impact Life Coaching Salary

The bottom line is that your earning capacity rides on how much you charge — which is why we encourage you to avoid underpricing your coaching services. There are several factors that can impact how much you charge:

• The type of coaching you provide
• Your experience, reputation, education, and certifications
• The outcome of your coaching practice 
• Where you live
• How many coaching clients you have at a time

Let’s look at each of these factors more closely.

Types of life coaching

Because life coaches focus on helping clients reach personal goals, coaching can cover a lot of ground:

• Leadership coaching
• Career coaching 
• Personal improvement
• Marriage and family 
• Relationship 
• Weight loss and fitness 
• Parenting
• Personal branding
• Recovery from injury or addiction

As you might guess, some types of coaching pay better than others.

According to Payscale, average life coaches make $40.79 per hour. However, as we noted above, plenty of coaches are able to charge exponentially more.

Executive coaches, for example, can charge $100 to $300 per hour for two sessions per month. That’s anywhere from two to seven times the national average. 

Corporate coaches can also charge more. This type of coaching is aimed at companies that provide training for their employees. Rates for corporate coaching range from $1,000 to $10,000 a month or $500 per hour. Those with an official life coach certification can also command higher rates.

Some types of coaching — such as fitness or career coaching — can boost people’s self-confidence and performance to the point that they’re able to pursue bigger opportunities and increase their income in the future. This means that coaching can be a worthwhile investment for clients seeking these results. 

Simply put: If you provide value and expertise and your clients see that value, then you can organically grow your client base and ultimately charge more for your services.

Your experience

The more experience you’ve got, the more people will trust you to deliver results for them. And the more they trust you, the more they’re willing to pay. According to ICF data, coaching experience is positively linked to the drivers of coaching revenue.

The truth is, you can charge as much as the market will bear. For new life coaches, this may mean you charge $100 an hour. But as soon as you fill up your calendar with new client meetings and your time becomes limited, your time is worth more. That’s when you can begin raising your prices.

Unlike applying to jobs on the market, your coaching experience doesn’t need to be proven through the number of years you’ve worked. Most successful coaches can showcase their experience in various ways:

• The number of years you’ve been a life coach
• The number of people you’ve helped
• The impact of the results you’ve helped people generate 
• Your own life experience overcoming your own challenges

If you’re relatively a new coach, you may not be able to cite quantitative data like specific numbers. But you can definitely leverage qualitative data through your own professional growth  and personal development. 

The outcome you deliver

Most coaches know that you can charge more for coaching that helps clients succeed in business and life — for example, by earning more money or improving their life satisfaction.

So think about the transformation you promise as a life coach. Can you tie your services to a better job, higher income, or a better standard of living? If so, you may be able to charge more as clients will view your life coaching business as a valuable investment. 

Where you live

Different locations, both globally and nationally, have different standards of living. If you offer in-person sessions, then both you and your client’s location can dramatically impact the amount of money people can pay for coaching.

Fortunately, when you do online coaching, location is less of an issue. You and your clients can be located anywhere in the world if you can connect online. As long as you can prove that you offer a significant transformation, location doesn’t impact your earnings as an online life coach. 

How many coaching clients you take on at once

According to ICF’s 2023 study, the average active coach practitioner had 12.2 clients in 2022. Additionally, coach practitioners spent an average of 11.9 hours per week working as a coach. Of course, these hours don’t include prep time, providing other services, and time you spend running your business.

That’s why we don’t advise increasing your coaching hours to raise your income. If your schedule is too busy, you won’t have time to prepare for your coaching sessions and you won’t have time to offer a personalized for every client. The less time you have, the more that’s going to impact your ability to help your coaching clients.

If you work with people one-on-one, it’s a good idea to limit yourself to 10 to 12 clients at a time.

To help more people at once, offer group coaching to your coaching packages. It’s actually a win-win for you and your clients. Group coaching generally costs less for clients to participate in, making your services more affordable to more people. And for you, it means you can support dozens of clients at a time, without encroaching on your private sessions or the time you need to run your own coaching business.

How Much Should You Charge as a Life Coach?

Because so many factors impact your rates, there’s no set price you should charge as a life coach.

Instead, we’ll use a four-step process to help you determine the rate that’s right for you. The process begins with what you want to earn each year from coaching.

How much money do you want to make as a life coach?

To calculate your rates, you need to start with the net income you’d like to make each year. Too often, coaches base their rates on the average life coach salary that they find online or on what other coaches are charging.

But it’s important to consider your business and personal needs when setting your prices.

The truth is, running a life coaching business costs money. You need to account for your overhead, including the software you use to run your coaching business, your ongoing education, marketing costs, and business taxes. Otherwise, you may find yourself operating in the red.

Let’s do some math using a mock pricing strategy.

We’ll start by assuming 12 coaching sessions a week. Let’s also assume you want to take four weeks off during the year and that you pay $3,000 a year to run your business. That breakdown looks like this: 

• Your desired net income: $100,000
• Annual expenses: $3,000
• Income taxes (at 24%): $24,000
• Billable hours for the year: 576

Here’s how to calculate your hourly rate:

‍Net annual income + expenses + taxes / billable hours = hourly rate

$100,000 + $3,000 + $24,000 / 576 hrs = $220 per hour

Now, let’s use that $220 rate to set your prices.

Create a coaching package

Think about the transformation or outcome you promise your clients. How many sessions should it take to give them the support they need to achieve a full transformation? 

Let’s say it takes 10 sessions to get good results. At $220 an hour, a 10-hour coaching package should be priced at $2,200.

Diversify your offerings

You aren’t limited to offering large packages or private coaching programs. You can also offer individual sessions, bundles of sessions, or group sessions. 

For instance, you could sell individual sessions for $220 an hour and monthly packages of four sessions for $880.

This is a great way to let people try your coaching without committing to an expensive program. And it lets paying clients come to you on an as-needed basis if that’s what they prefer.

Don’t undersell yourself

If your coaching truly impacts your clients' lives, it’s valuable. $220 an hour may not actually reflect the value you offer. While it may be a good starting point, don’t be afraid to raise your rates as you gain experience and become more established in your industry. Many life coaches increase their rates every year to reflect their increased experience, growth, and value over time. 

What Can Life Coaches Do To Increase Their Earnings?

There are three ways to boost your salary as a life coach:

• Higher rates
• More clients
• Additional income streams
  

Let’s go over exactly how most life coaches approach each of these. 

Raise your rates

As we’ve discussed, you can easily charge more if people value what you have to offer. They’ll pay whatever you ask if you’re recognized as an expert or they’re anxious to get help.

That’s why it’s so important to position yourself as the elite option or even the only option compared to other coaches. Here are a few ways to do that.

‍Find a niche: No one is an expert in everything. Niche down as far as possible to position yourself as the best option in your space. There are plenty of coaching niches within life coaching — you can be anything from a career coach to a wellness and nutrition coach to a relationship coach.

‍Get a celebrity client: You don’t need a movie star on your client list, but if you can snag a client who’s well-known to your audience, you’ll gain instant credibility. One celebrity or influencer client can take your own business to the next level.

‍Get more testimonials: Make it a practice to ask your satisfied clients for a testimonial — a video testimonial, if possible — describing the transformation you’ve given them. Then, share those testimonials generously on your website, on landing pages, and on social media for potential clients to see.

‍Increase the number of people you’ve helped: Numbers are powerful in marketing as they’re specific and measurable. If you’ve got 9,784 subscribers, that’s impressive. Leverage that in your marketing. If you’ve helped 11 people hit a difficult goal, such as getting a six-figure job, that’s impressive! Don’t be afraid to share real results to show new clients that you’re the real deal. Note: Don’t round your numbers. A specific number is far more believable.

Get more clients

Easier said than done, right? To increase your client base, you need to optimize your marketing and sales. Luckily, with a platform like Kajabi, the tools you need are built into your coaching business. 

For instance, you can easily start a podcast or newsletter to build your audience and credibility. That gives you a platform to talk about what you do and share valuable tips, so people understand why they need your coaching. 

Be aware that a percentage of your paying clients will always want more from you, so give them ways to buy additional training and sessions. An easy way to do that is to add an upsell to your pipeline or use email marketing to promote your coaching services and products. 

Don’t worry if you seem to be spending more time on marketing than on coaching — that’s normal. JRNI found that new coaches typically spend 40% of their time on marketing vs 20% of their time on billable coaching sessions. 

The truth is, prioritizing marketing helps keep your pipeline full which will help you hit your income goals. So set aside time on a regular basis to focus on building your business: strategizing, marketing, and taking care of the backend.

Create additional income streams 

A strategic way to increase your earnings is to expand beyond one-to-one coaching. In fact, many coaches structure their pricing model this way. The ICF found that 93% of coach practitioners offer services in addition to coaching such as consulting or training. 

It doesn’t take a lot of extra work to create additional streams of income, both active and passive.

Active income streams

An active income stream is a product or service that requires you to be present and active. As a result, you’ll need to be careful not to overbook your time.

A good way to do that is to offer group coaching. Create cohort groups that work through your coaching at the same time, so you can help more people in the same amount of time.

Note: A rule of thumb when setting a price for groups is to charge 30% of your one-on-one coaching rates. 

‍Membership groups are another way to add value to your coaching. Here’s an idea: Once clients have completed your coaching program, offer a membership that gives them continued support and access to you and your knowledge. 

Workshops and events can give you quick revenue boosts. Consider a two-hour workshop or a one-day event where you focus on providing in-depth training on a specific problem your clients struggle with.

Passive income streams

Passive income streams bring in extra revenue without you having to be present. You can create a digital product, set up the landing page and pipeline, and let people know it’s available. Not only does this boost your coaching income, but it also helps you reach more people. 

For example, self-paced online courses are a good solution for people who can’t afford your coaching. Use them as a down-sell in your sales funnel, or make them available on your product page.

You may also create digital products, such as PDFs, worksheets, templates, checklists, and videos. These can be products that are relatively easy for you to produce but help bring new people into your universe and provide quick answers when they don’t have time for a big coaching program.

Books and ebooks are another option for passive income. A book builds your credibility as an expert. It also helps you educate your prospects about your methods and ideas, so they come to you, eager to work with you.

Final Tips For Making More Money as a Life Coach

Life coaching is one of the most satisfying businesses you can build. When done right, your coaching practice can help you achieve a full-time income but also reach the professional development goals you’ve set for yourself and your career.

Start with the foundations. Do the math to figure out what you should be charging for your services. You need to know what your rate needs to be and how many billable hours you need to reach your income goals. Then conduct marketing to keep your calendar full and do whatever it takes to bring your clients success. 

And finally, leverage your time so you can serve more people and make a bigger impact on the world.