About Our Coaches
Our survey had respondents from across the coaching spectrum. From speciality (executive coaches to nutrition coaches), to location (USA to Moldova), to whether they coach full-time or part-time, and how long they’ve been in the coaching industry. Let's dive in.
166 coaches from 26 countries
Our most common countries from the 2023 State of Coaching were the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Spain, South Africa and Ireland.
Featuring 24 types of coaches
Our respondents were mostly executive, leadership and life coaches but we also had a large variety of coaches with niched audiences, from ADHD to Sober coaches. One of the insights we had from this question was the number of multi-hyphenated coaches: 65% of leadership coaches also called themselves executive coaches.
Full-time and part-time coaches represented
Coaching can present a full-time career for some, and a passion side project for others, so it was important for us to capture both groups to see what differences there might be.
Learning from new and experienced coaches
We're excited to have such a large number of experienced coaches participate in this year's survey.
Coaching Rates in 2023
We spent a lot of time asking about pricing by service, and also whether coaches are changing their prices in 2023. It's important to see the big range of price points, what's most commonly charged, and how certification seems to affect prices.
Most coaches are going beyond 1:1 sessions
It seems like most coaches are offering more than one service, the most common being group coaching. Some coaches are using these additional services are new revenue streams, while others seem to be using them as engagement and retention strategies. You'll see this represented in the pricing section of the report.
Pricing by coaching service
1:1 sessions are still by far the most common offering that coaches will provide, with group coaching being a clear second. We saw a lot of coaches offer group coaching and membership services without charging for them, which seems to indicate that they might be using these services as a retention and engagement strategy, rather than one that brings in additional income.
For 1:1 sessions, the average price point was $300.52 USD. That price point is skewed towards the high end due to a few coaches charging a large sum. When we look for the most common price point, we see that 1:1 sessions typically go for $100 USD per session.
For group coaching, memberships and courses, you can see the most common prices and the median prices below.
How are coaching prices changing this year?
It seems like many coaches will be raising their prices this year to adjust for rapid inflation and other factors.
About Coaching Clients
We get into how clients work with coaches, the average number of clients broken out by full-time and part-time coaches, how long clients tend to work with coaches and how they find you.
Two thirds of clients are remote
It seems like most are not in the same city as their coach, which means you should focus less on location for your marketing efforts and more on who your services are designed for.
Most coaches have 10 clients at a time
The coaches surveyed had anywhere from 0 to 500 clients, but the most common roster was 10. You can imagine that the coaches on the higher end of the spectrum leveraged services like group coaching, courses or memberships and didn't rely solely on individual sessions.
As expected, part-time coaches had about half the roster as full-time coaches.
Clients stay for 6-12 months typically
A third of our respondents this year have been working as a coach for 10+ years, which likely impacts our client engagement findings. We found that 6-12 months is the most common client engagement length, which was longer than what we saw in 2022.
Clients come from word of mouth and professional referrals
There's no better marketing than word of mouth. This shows that you should spend more time building up a professional network and telling those people about your coaching, instead of thinking up clever paid ads.
About Coaching Education
Continued education is a core pillar in the coaching world. We look at how certifications affect coaching prices and how much coaches are spending on education this year.
Most coaches have a certification
Coaches with certifications charge 3x more
There seems to be a big difference in prices amongst those with certifications than those without, according to this year's results. Even though the average might be skewed by a few high priced coaches, it's clear that the median is still representative of the difference in prices.
Coaches are spending less on education this year
Whether it's due to the macroeconomic climate or other factors, coaches are spending much less on education in 2023 compared to 2022. Our $5000+ budget category had 50% less respondents compared to last year's report.
