Pricing: Less is More

Many coaches have too much complexity in their subscription packages. Too many options lead to decision fatigue for customers. Price isn’t what you want them to focus on anyway: they should be focused on the excellent service they’re going to receive. Simplifying the sign-up process is better for the client, and better for the business. Let’s look at a few guiding principles for designing an efficient, successful pricing strategy for your coaching business.

First, contracts are really unnecessary. Unless you run a large globo gym with high churn rates, there’s no need to force clients into staying. The value of your services will keep clients coming back. Also, many clients will expect a rate discount for signing a longer-term contract. By having one, simple price and no contract options, you don’t have to negotiate with clients.

If your clients have to make a decision every month to pay you, you’ll likely be dealing with late payments and a higher rate of churn. Recurring electronic payments take that option off the table. If a client wants to cancel their subscription, they can take that step, but it shouldn’t be a question every month.

Do not charge by the session. Charge for monthly service. Every client will miss a session occasionally, or go on vacation, and months have different numbers of training days in them. By having a simple monthly price, all of the conversations about prorating for absences are bypassed. Online clients may train a different number of days per week, as well. If they are focused on per-session pricing, this needlessly introduces “value computations.” Clients should think of a single price that simply gives them access to your services.

For in-person coaching, clients that train a different number of days per week do need to be accounted for, as this represents a very different number of labor hours for the coach. Regardless, try to keep these different subscription packages to a minimum–preferably just two.

Keeping subscription packages and prices to a bare minimum actually makes it easier for potential clients to say yes to your services, and recurring payments make it easier for them to continue with you.