The International Coaching Federation's latest Global Coaching Study has a big headline number: $5.34 billion in coaching revenue and a record 122,974 coach practitioners. That's what most coverage led with.
The Coaching Times pulled out a quieter line from the same study, and it's the one worth your attention. Most coaches, 59%, expect to earn more next year. They expect that money to come from more clients and more sessions. Not from higher fees.
In other words, the plan is to work more hours. For a business where your hours are the product, that's a plan with a hard ceiling.
The numbers that don't add up
The Coaching Times put a few of the study's benchmarks side by side. Average fee for a one-hour session in North America: about $234. Average coaching hours per week: 11.6. Average active clients: around 12.4.
Multiply the fee by the hours over a working year and you'd expect a figure well over $100,000. The reported average annual revenue from coaching is $49,283.
The same piece points to Western Europe, where the average fee per one-hour session is $277 but average hourly revenue is $84.
So the price on the proposal and the money that actually arrives per hour are very far apart. That gap is where packages get discounted, sessions get cancelled, prep goes unbilled, and clients stretch a "three-month" program to six.
Why more hours is the wrong first move
If your effective rate is a fraction of your listed rate, adding clients adds more of the same leak. Each new client brings discovery calls, admin, reschedules and notes. You fill your week and the gap stays the same size.
Before you go looking for more clients, it's worth finding out what one hour of your time actually earns now.
Work out your real hourly rate
This takes about thirty minutes with your last three months of records. Use your actual numbers, not your rate card.
- Add up what you were paid. Money in the bank from coaching, not invoices sent.
- Add up every hour the work took. Sessions, yes. Also discovery calls, prep, notes, follow-up emails, scheduling, invoicing and chasing payment.
- Divide the first by the second.
Don't be surprised if it's well below your rate card. That's fine. The number is a starting point.
Find where the money leaks
Once you have your real rate, look at what's pulling it down. A few common causes:
Packages that quietly stretch. You sold eight sessions over two months. The client took five months. You did the same work, plus more check-ins and more re-reading of notes, for the same fee. A package needs an end date as well as a session count.
Late cancellations you don't charge for. Every "no worries, let's move it" costs you a slot you probably can't refill on short notice. A clear policy, applied the same way every time, protects the hour.
Unpaid discovery calls that run long. A free 20-minute call that becomes a free hour of coaching is a session you gave away.
Prep and notes nobody priced in. If each session needs 20 minutes of prep and 15 of notes, your "one hour" is closer to an hour and a half. Price it that way.
Discounts that became the default. A first-client discount from two years ago that you never removed.
Fix one or two of these and your effective rate moves without a single new client.
Then look at price
The Coaching Times did one piece of simple maths worth repeating. Holding the fee flat and aiming for a 20% better year means roughly two and a half more paid sessions every week. A 15% fee increase gets close to the same revenue with no extra time.
Raising prices feels risky. A few ways to make it less so:
- Raise for new clients first. Existing clients keep their rate until their current package ends.
- Give notice. Tell current clients the new rate a couple of months before it applies.
- Change the package along with the number. A clearer program with an end date and a defined outcome is easier to price higher than a loose bundle of sessions.
- Don't apologise for it. One plain sentence is enough. "From January, my rate for new programs is X."
Offering other formats is fine, with care
The study, as reported by The Coaching Times, also found coaches adding other services: 60% offer training, 57% consulting, 55% facilitation and 49% mentoring.
That can work well. A workshop or group program can pay more per hour than one-to-one sessions. But it only helps if you price it with the same honesty. A workshop with three days of prep, sold at a half-day rate, makes the leak worse.
A note on the headline figures
If you plan to quote the industry total anywhere, The Coaching Times flags that ICF describes the $5.34 billion in two different ways: as almost double the 2023 total on the study page, and as a 17% increase in a blog post. Both come from ICF. Check which one you're using before you put it in a slide or a sales page.
What to do this month
Work out your real hourly rate from the last three months. Pick the biggest leak and fix it. Then decide on a new rate for new clients from a fixed date.
More hours might still be part of your plan. Just make sure each hour earns what you think it does before you add more of them.