Start with the service you deliver
What you should charge for running coaching depends on a service you can sustain. A plan sent at the beginning of the month with occasional contact takes a different amount of time from support involving regular conversations, session reviews and in-person meetings. Before looking for a ready-made monthly fee, describe your offer: audience, channels, review frequency, response times and situations requiring a longer discussion. Without that scope, two similar prices can represent very different services.
This article contains no market survey or recommended professional fee table. Its purpose is a calculation you can inspect. The Sebrae RS guide to service pricing connects pricing with business structure and market assessment. The application below is an example created by Darwin, with assumptions to replace with your own. All monetary amounts are in Brazilian reais.
Count work that happens outside the session
List the time spent preparing plans, reading training logs, answering questions, reviewing goals and arranging schedules. Include onboarding, billing and administrative messages. An athlete receiving one monthly update does not use the same capacity as someone requesting frequent changes. Record time by activity over a service cycle rather than relying on your memory of the quietest day.
Then estimate how many hours fit your routine without filling every available gap. Leave room for learning, unexpected issues and new enquiries. This is a commercial planning proposal, not a recommended workload. Your capacity also depends on your team, delivery format and responsibilities outside the coaching business.
Separate your pay, operating costs and desired result
Payment for your own work should not disappear into a vague idea of profit. Write down the compensation you want for your time and the expenses needed to operate: tools, connectivity, travel and any training space. Sebrae SC's pricing material includes activity time and fixed and variable expenses in its discussion of services. Avoid counting the same expense in two different places.
Payment charges and taxes must come from your actual contracts and business arrangements. The percentage in this example does not describe a tax regime. Confirm your figures with your accountant and providers. Add a separate line for the business result or reserve you want to build, distinguishing that goal from expenses already paid.
A hypothetical example with every assumption visible
Imagine an operation serving 20 athletes with 40 coaching hours per month. For this example, the professional wants compensation of R$ 60 per hour, or R$ 2,400. Add operating expenses of R$ 600 and a desired business result or reserve of R$ 300. The operation needs R$ 3,300 after proportional charges on revenue.
If those hypothetical charges were 12%, 88% of each fee would remain. The calculation would be R$ 3,300 ÷ (20 × 0.88) = R$ 187.50 per athlete per month. 20 payments at that price generate R$ 3,750, with R$ 450 in charges and the planned R$ 3,300 remaining. The arithmetic reconciles because every assumption is explicit.
Now keep the same compensation, expense and reserve targets, but assume only 15 paying athletes. In this simulation, the required monthly fee becomes R$ 250. That does not mean your audience will accept it. It shows that client occupancy changes the calculation. You can revisit the format, expenses, capacity or financial target before presenting a commercial proposal.
Compare offers with equivalent scope
Competitor research helps when the services are comparable. Separate group and individual support, in-person and remote delivery, review frequency and contact rules. The Sebrae RS pricing infographic includes customers, competition and added value among pricing factors. A published fee alone reveals neither the costs nor the quality of the operation behind it.
You can offer different levels of support if each has a clearly defined service. Explain what is included, when reviews occur and how requests outside the agreed scope will be handled. Avoid promising immediate replies or guaranteed performance gains to justify a more expensive package. Sell a coaching relationship you can deliver and explain.
Review your own client data
After a cycle, compare planned and actual hours, completed payments and recorded expenses. Note which activities took the most time and which questions kept returning. If one service format consistently exceeds its planned capacity, revise its scope and offer before expanding your client list. A discount without this review may increase athlete numbers while leaving the financial problem unchanged.
Your next step is to fill this structure with your own figures. If you also want to explore Darwin's professional coaching proposition, join the professional preview interest list. The request records your interest; the team will contact you about the preview, and this form creates no account.
