How much does online fitness coaching cost? What the numbers say, and what they can't

You'll find plenty of confident numbers for this question. Most come from companies that sell coaching, or the software coaches use, and they rarely say where the number came from. Here's what independent data does show, with every amount written out in words, and how to compare quotes when you're shopping.

I don't publish a price list. (The FAQ explains how I handle it.)

What a personal trainer costs at the gym

One survey reports what people said they paid: a survey of people who had used a US health club in the previous year, with data compiled in 2016, for the IHRSA Fitness Training Report.¹ IHRSA is the trade association representing health and fitness facilities and gyms. Its survey ran more than 24,000 online interviews with a US online panel at the end of 2016 and the start of 2017, and the club users it counts include non-members as well as members.² The price averages come from the smaller group who had used a trainer. On average:

• One-to-one: women paid about fifty-nine dollars for an hour-long session with a personal trainer, and men about seventy.¹
• Small-group training: about twenty-nine dollars a session for women, and about forty for men.¹
• How many sessions: female members who trained with a personal trainer did about 30 sessions in 2016, and male members about 29.¹

Twice a week for a month is eight or nine sessions. At those averages, that comes to roughly four hundred seventy to six hundred thirty dollars a month. That's arithmetic on the survey's averages, not a figure from the survey.

Two cautions. It's 2016 data, so read it as a reference point, not today's price. And it's what health-club goers paid for sessions at a club, which says nothing about what online coaching costs.

What trainers earn, and where the rest of the fee goes

The government's numbers are about pay, not price. In May 2025, the median annual wage for fitness trainers and instructors in the US was about forty-seven thousand dollars, or about twenty-three dollars an hour. The lowest-paid tenth earned less than about twenty-nine thousand dollars a year, and the highest-paid tenth more than about eighty-three thousand.³ Those figures don't include the self-employed, who hold about 15 percent of the jobs.³

A 2023 pay survey by IDEA and the American College of Sports Medicine asked their members directly, and 1,943 volunteers answered, 13 percent of them as personal trainers.⁴ Personal trainers working as independent contractors were paid about sixty-four dollars per hour, class or session, and trainers who were employees about thirty-five.⁴ Different surveys, different people: the government's figures cover employed trainers and instructors across the country, and this one covers association members who chose to answer.

Part of a gym session's fee goes to the gym. In the same survey, managers reported that just over a third of personal trainers are paid a percentage of client fees, with 55 percent of the fee going to the trainer, and independent contractors reported paying the facility an average of 28 percent of their client fees.⁴

What online coaching costs

This is the number people want most, and it's the one with the least behind it. Among the trainers who answered the 2023 survey, remote training was common: just over half of personal trainers trained about a third of their clients remotely or virtually.⁴ But that survey reports pay, not what those clients paid, and the government's pay figures don't break out online work. The price ranges that come up in a search are mostly published by companies that sell coaching or coaching software, and they don't say how the ranges were gathered. This page doesn't repeat a range it can't source.

What you can do is make any quote comparable. Online coaching covers the week rather than the hour, so work out what a quote comes to per week and list what each week includes:

1. Who writes the plan, and whether it's written for you or picked from a template.
2. How often someone looks at your numbers: weigh-ins, logged workouts, photos.
3. Whether there's a call, how often and how long.
4. How fast the plan changes when your week falls apart.
5. How you reach the coach between check-ins, and how soon you hear back.

That's a practical checklist, not survey data. With me, that's workouts in Trainerize, two weigh-ins a week, progress photos every two weeks, a weekly check-in call and direct access to me for questions. (The longer checklist for choosing a coach is here, red flags included.)

What moves a trainer's pay, and what probably moves the fee

These surveys measure pay, not what a client is charged.

• Experience and skills. In the 2023 survey, skills and abilities and years of experience were important criteria for setting pay at hiring.⁴ The government says earnings in every occupation vary by experience, responsibility, performance, tenure and place.³
• Where they work. In the same survey, an employed personal trainer's hourly pay ran from about thirty-one dollars in the Midwest to about forty-three in the Southwest, and the report cautions about figures with low response rates.⁴
• Who else is paid out of the fee. At a gym, part of it goes to the facility (above).
• How much of the coach's time each week includes. This one isn't in the surveys. A weekly call and plan changes take more of a coach's time than a template with a monthly check-in, so expect them to cost more. That's common sense, not data.

Why I don't publish a price list

What it costs depends on the level of support you need, and I'd rather talk with you first than hand you a price list for a plan that isn't built for you. That conversation happens in the DMs. If a free plan is all you need, I'll say so. (Here's what to do if a trainer isn't in the budget right now.)

Common questions

How much does an online personal trainer cost per month?

Most of the ranges you'll see for this come from companies that sell coaching or coaching software, and they don't say how they were gathered, so this page doesn't quote one. Work out what a quote comes to per week and compare what each week includes: the plan, how often someone reviews your numbers, the calls, and how fast the plan changes.

How much does a personal trainer cost per session?

In a 2016 survey of US health-club goers, women paid about fifty-nine dollars on average for an hour-long session and men about seventy.¹ That's old data and gym prices, so ask your gym what a session costs and what it includes.

Is online coaching cheaper than a personal trainer?

I can't answer that with data, because the independent numbers here cover gym sessions, not online coaching. The two also buy different things: a session is an hour with someone beside you, and coaching is the week around it. (Here's how the two formats compare.)

How much do personal trainers make?

In May 2025, the median for fitness trainers and instructors, a group that includes group-class instructors, was about forty-seven thousand dollars a year, or about twenty-three dollars an hour, not counting the self-employed.³

Is coaching worth the money?

That depends on what you're missing more than on the price. Here's how I'd decide.

Where to go from here

If you want to talk it through, apply and tell me about your week. If I'm not the right coach for you, I'll be honest about that too. Here's how coaching works if you want to read first.