How much do life coaches make? Can you really make a full-time income as a life coach?

Good news! The answer is YES.

Let me guess: You’re here because you just finished your life coach certification.

Or maybe you are thinking of joining one and taking the first step to being a life coach?

Awesome! And welcome!

And now you’re wondering how much you should be charging.

And even more importantly, you want to know how much money you can expect to make over the next year. What IS a certified life coach salary? 

(Also, you are *probably* avoiding doing the math on how long it’ll take you to pay back that life coach certification, because…. ugh.)

Before we talk about money, first some honesty…

Starting a life coaching business is hard.

Any of this sound familiar?

“I’m out of money and I have to go back to my day job…”

“I want to do this, but what if I can’t find any paying clients…”

“I sent a ton of emails and got nothing…so I’ve got to put my coaching business on hold for now. I’m exhausted.”

Reading the above statements is kind of like an achy pit in your stomach.

But not the fun “I just got on a roller coaster and I’m having a great day!” kind of way.

More like the “Oh my gosh, I’m in a fetal position on my couch face-first in a depression-related ice-cream-binge” kind of way. 

You have so many awesome dreams and goals around coaching, and you are SO EXCITED. 

BUT…

What if you can’t figure out how to make money as a life coach?

You probably know at least one person who has proclaimed themselves a life coach and then gotten crickets in response.

Coaches quit every single day.

It’s enough to make you think that almost no one can do this full time.

But you’d be wrong. Let’s look at the data! Yay FACTS.

FACT: You CAN make a full-time income as a life coach

Life Coaching is a BILLION dollar industry – just in the United States. Here’s some data, compiled by the helpful people at IBIS world, looking at the state of coaching here in the States. Pun intended! 🙂

–>IBIS says life coaching is a still a growing industry.

–>And that demand will remain strong.

–>For at least the next five years.

Something interesting?

This growth held even during the worst of COVID, when we all took a collective “What the what??!!” deep breath.

Here’s some examples of coaches who started and grew their businesses during COVID times.

Now that we are past the pandemic stage, growth continues apace.

Meaning that there IS room for new coaches.

Coaches like YOU.

But what about my niche? Can I really make enough money to live on as a full-time life or corporate coach? 

Here’s another helpful piece of data about what a life coach salary might be, collected from Payscale.

Okay, $48,501. That’s not bad.

It may seem like a lot or a little, there’s no judgement here!

(If it’s a little, don’t worry! I have more data to share!)

I’ve also polled real coaches in different arenas for real income numbers, because I believe in checking my data. I used my community of 20,000+ coaches from all over the world, and here’s what I’ve gathered. 

Executive Coach earnings: $12,000 to $25,000 per client.

Life Coach earnings: $100 – $400 per hour, usually translating to $1000 – $4000 per client. 

(When I quit private coaching as a career coach specializing in helping people find their passion, I was making $6500 per private client serving clients in the US, UK, Canada and the EU. I share this as an aside to let you know that I’m trying to be as conservative as possible, because I am a big believer in the #truth).

If an executive coach makes between $12,000 and $25,000 a client, then let’s be conservative and say you charge $15,000 per client.

What does that mean for year over year?

Put in real person words, if you get 8 clients per year, you are making $120,000 as an executive coach. 

That’s less than ONE client per month.

Note: I like to think about things in terms of months because a business is based on recurring revenue – months, quarters, years. To have a real business you need to have a steady revenue that you can predict.

Back to salaries: For life coaches let’s be conservative again, and say that you are making $1500 per private client.

If you get three clients a month as a life coach, you are making $4500 per month, or $54,000 per year, conservatively.

 That tracks with Payscale, for the most part. Yay data!

The median family income in the US is actually ~$68,000 per year, according to good folks at the US Census Bureau. 

So if you alone are making $54,000 per year, you are doing not too shabby!

And keep in mind, that’s conservative. What if you were getting three, $4,000 clients per month?

Now you are making $144,000 per year as a life coach.  

Given that life coaching is a more streamlined sales process (you don’t have to convince tons of people in HR and contract through a big company), and cheaper for individuals to purchase, it’s sometimes easier to acquire clients.

And we haven’t even gotten to group coaching or DIY online programs, which can have huge revenue potential.

I’ve made hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from just *one* of my career coaching group programs.

 Here’s a snapshot of some of my sales from just one day: 

So, take a deep, restorative breath. We know you can make a living doing this (yay!). And we know there is room for YOU as a coach.

But, problem: Do you know how to make money as a coach?

We started with the fact that many coaches fail.

So, we come full circle now.

Here’s why: They never learn how to find paying clients and run a coaching business.

They hang out their shingle, announce on social media they are a coach and … crickets.

NOTHING HAPPENS.

Why? Because they never learned how to market and sell coaching! *face palm*

When you set up your coaching business you are also becoming an entrepreneur, which is a HUGE skill set.

So, take a moment and set aside time to learn how to do basic business activities like…how to find paying clients.

(Paying clients would be great, right?)

There are a ton of places you can find this info, but for ease, why not start with our free webinar all about how to find paying clients?

It’s concrete, in-depth, free, and based on working with 3000+ paying clients across different niches so we’ve learned a thing or two.

You can grab your seat right here, and learn how to get your own paying clients.

CLICK (IT’S FREE!).