What To Charge As A Personal Trainer!

By Brad Sheppard.

That is the question…

I am often asked by fitness professionals exactly how we go about determining and defining our charge out rates in our own Personal Training business and in the many PT businesses around Australia that we consult to. And rightly so, many fitness professionals are unsure how they actually arrived at the charge out rate they are on or how they can leverage their time to earn a greater income with less work.

My Yellow Pages Story

When I kicked off my Personal Training business 16 years ago, I had no idea what to charge, so I picked up the Yellow Pages, then called the PT’s listed in there (back in 1995 there was only a handful!) and asked them all what they charged.Of course they all told me straight up – and this is the topic of a totally different discussion altogether on why you shouldn’t give prices over the phone as people can be making decisions based on price versus value!

The average rate worked out to be $30 / hour. So that is the rate I went with. I set it without a thought and without consideration and simply figured that this must be what people are prepared to pay for a Personal training session.

Not Much Has Changed

Interestingly enough, I still see this practice happening a lot in amongst Personal Trainers within Australia. They use a very similar “Yellow Pages” model, just like I did. It’s the process of just doing what everyone else does!

Stay tuned for part 2, to find out what you should charge…