Personal Trainer Income and How to Set Personal Training Fees

A personal trainer employed at a gym can expect to earn £16,000 to £24,000.  Hotels and similar leisure chains tend to pay a bit less as do the cruise liners.  However, the latter at least pay for your room and board and you do get to travel, making it an exciting opportunity for the young and the single.

 

 

A freelance personal trainer has the potential to earn significantly more, but as with any self employed business, the income is directly proportionate to the quality and quantity of the work you put in.  A good freelance personal trainer can expect to earn £25,000 to £35,000.

 

Freelance personal training income can be divided into the following types:

 

• Personal training fees
• Class fees
• Other service fees e.g. sports massage
• Part time work/cover work
• Retail
• Contributions to the fitness industry e.g. magazine articles, speaking at fitness events

 

The following addresses each one in turn.

 

 

Personal Training Fees

This should be the bulk of a self employed personal trainer's income.  It is, after all, what the job is all about.

 

Setting your fees at the right level is a bit of a balancing act and depends on a number of factors.

 

For a start, what part of the country you are in will effect your basic rate.  In the South of England, where I am based, I could easily ask for £30 per session, where a session lasts between 45 minutes and an hour.  In less affluent areas, £15 per session is the average, and in London fees of £80 per session are not uncommon.

 

The level, type and number of fitness qualifications, combined with the amount of experience in the fitness industry you have are also a consideration.  If you are newly qualified and new to the industry then it may be a good idea to pitch your level a little lower e.g. £20 per hour, just to get your foot in the door and to build up your initial client base.  One disadvantage of doing it this way is that it can be harder to increase your fees later on, particularly with existing clients.  Also, in my experience, clients who can only afford to pay £20 or less per session, are likely to be less committed than those who can afford the higher rates.  So there is a strong argument for starting off how you mean to go on.

 

 

This is where another very important factor comes in...CONFIDENCE. It takes confidence to charge the higher rates.  Confidence in your business, your ability and yourself.  If you charge £30 per session or more, clients will expect more from you in terms of how you present yourself (see Image and the Personal Trainer).  If you have been through the qualification process, then you are an expert in your field.  So behave like one and do not let self doubt creep in.  Sell yourself and your business, and be confident in promoting the results that you hope to achieve with the client.

 

You can of course charge more should you decide to specialise or target a specific market.  There are a number of city based personal trainers who specifically target the celebrities.  Even if you only get one or two on your books the endorsement alone, and the potential for your clients to say "I have the same personal trainer as ........" means you can pretty much double your fees.  Celebrity trainers will charge anything from £80 to £150 per session.  But again,  bare in mind that there is always a pay off.  Celebrities are notoriously demanding and have unsociable working hours that you will need to work around.

 

Alternatively, you may choose to qualify and specialise in a sports specific field and perhaps work with individual athletes or teams.  While they will have their own coaches, it now common place to have seperate fitness instructors who can build their fitness with specific sport requirments.

 

Finally, note that what we have discussed so far is simply the setting of your basic rate.  This itself can change depending on how you sell your personal training products and services.  For example, you may sell individual sessions at £30 per session, but a block of 10 for £250, reducing your session rate to £25.  Furthermore, you may give a free session to clients for referring a friend, you may discount your rate for a long term client, you may offer an attractive rate to secure a corporate training deal.

 

 

 

 

Class Fees

Running classes is an important part of a personal trainer's marketing strategy (see Fitness Classes).  The fees charged for classes will depend largely on the type of class, the venue at which it is held and the local competition.

 

As an example, I will use circuit training classes, as these are what I used to run, and are a popular choice among personal trainers who decided not to do an "Exercise to Music" qualification e.g. dancercise, aerobics, step etc.

 

My local public lesiure centre already operated several circuit traing classes per week, for which they charged £6 for non members and £4.50 for members.  It was the non members that I wished to attract to my classes so i had to undercut the £6 price.  Furthermore, I was operating out of a village hall with no changing or shower facilities and limited parking, and I was limited to using the equipment that I was able to fit in my small van.  With this in mind, I had toaccept that I was unable to provide the same facilities and dropped my initial rate to as little as £4.00.

 

 

What I did have that the local leisure centre didn't however, was the personal touch.  The maximum number of people i could comfortably fit into the hall was 20.  The leisure centre classes were typically in excess of 100 people.  This meant I could spend time with individuals helping them with particular exercises.  I had the time  to build up a relationship with regular attendees.  After 6 months of struggling to keep up class numbers, the word got around and the class was regularly full and people were actuallybeing drawn away from the bigger leisure centre, because my class was more "fun".  6 months later I was able to put my price up to £5 per head.

 

Again, discounts for block bookings and groups reduced the per session rate.

 

 

Other Service Fees e.g. Sports Massage

If you have taken the time to qualify in any supporting therapy such as sports massage, reiki or reflexology, then this will be another significant part of your income.  Furthermore, it provides an excellent opportunity for cross selling and meeting new personal training clients.

 

The amount to charge for these services is really dependant on the same factors taken into consideration when setting your basic fee for personal training.

 

However, one should also bare in mind, particularly as your days start to get filled up, that if one service is being charged out for less that another, bookings for one may prevent you from taking bookings for the other for which you get better paid.  So there is therefore, a good argument for having one basic hourly rate regardless of service.

 

 

Part Time Work/Cover Work

Many self employed personal trainers, particularly when first starting their business choose to subsidise their income by working part time for gyms, leisure centres or hotels.  This may be in a personal training capacity or more commonly in a class instructor capacity.

 

It is quite good practice to contact your local facilities and inform them what classes, groups and individuals you are qualified to train, and letting them know that should they require cover for holidays and sickness you would be happy to hear from them.

 

 

Retail

Another potential source of income is through the retail of fitness equipment, exercise and nutritional books and supplements.  These products can be promoted directly to personal training clients, through classes, on the business web site and even on eBay.co.uk   Alternatively, some trainers choose to rent out fitness equipment.

 

Register on eBay.co.uk!

 

 

Contributions To The Fitness Industry

In this section I am referring to the following types of activities:

 

• writing articles for fitness related magazines or fitness articles for general interest magazines.
• speaking at fitness events, workshops and conventions.
• facilitating and training at fitness educational events and facilities.
• television appearances for fitness related documentaries and the like.

 

Needless to say these areas are very difficult to get into, but they can be very rewarding and are by no means impossible.

 

If you have some talent for writing, or have the time to complete a writing course, then targeting magazines with health and fitness related articles is a good way to start.  Should you get published the money is additional income and it is a big string to your bow in terms of marketing. A few published articles can also act as a springboard into some of the other areas, such as conventions, training and even television.

 

If you really want to make a difference in the world and reach people on a larger scale then television will likely be your chosen medium. This is an extremely difficult area to get into.  However, with a good agent, the right look and personality it can be done and their are an increasing number of celebrity personal trainers and fitness instructors appearing on our screens.

 

 

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