How to price personal training packages

Price a package from your per-session floor, not from a discount. Work out the rate every session has to earn — the income you want plus the costs you carry, divided by the sessions you will really deliver in a year — then build packages that sell commitment rather than cheaper hours, with a small discount you can afford and terms written down before anyone pays.

Start from the floor

Every package price is a per-session price in disguise, so you need the one number under all of them: break-even. Take the income you want, add a year of business costs — insurance, floor fees, software, continuing education — and divide by the sessions you will actually deliver. Not 52 weeks of them: holidays, illness and client travel are real, and a rate that assumes they are not is a rate that comes up short in December. The free rate calculator does the arithmetic and gives you three rates above break-even. That middle one is a sensible starting point for a single session.

Three package shapes, and what each one is for

Single sessions are priced highest. Few people buy them for long, and that is fine: their job is to be the anchor that makes the other two look like what they are — a better deal for committing.

Session blocks — ten sessions, say, paid up front — are the easiest package to explain and to sell. They bring cash in early and give the client a reason to keep showing up.

Monthly memberships — a set number of sessions a week, billed every month — are the steadiest income you can build. They also keep a client on a rhythm, which is where results, and therefore retention, come from.

How big a discount, and why

Discount by what the commitment saves you, and no more. A prepaid block means fewer empty slots and less time selling; a membership means you can plan your month. That is worth something, but it is not worth dropping below your floor. A worked example, with round numbers: if your single session sits at $70 and your break-even is $60, a ten-session block at $650 is $65 a session — a real saving for the client, still above the line for you. A block at $550 feels generous and quietly loses money on every session.

Check every package the same way: total price, divided by sessions, compared against break-even. If it is under the line, it is not a package. It is a donation.

The terms are part of the price

A package is only as good as the agreement behind it. Decide, in writing, before the client pays: how much notice cancels a session, what happens to a no-show, whether sessions can be paused for illness or travel, and whether a block expires. Unwritten terms get negotiated one awkward conversation at a time, and you lose most of them. How your state treats refunds and expiry on prepaid services is a question for an attorney. In Trainer HQ, waivers and agreements go out for signature from the same place you run the rest of the practice, so the terms are signed before session one, not after a dispute.

Three mistakes worth skipping

Matching the gym down the road, whose costs and week are nothing like yours. A first month priced below break-even “to get people in,” which trains clients to expect it. And a menu of nine packages, which turns a yes into a spreadsheet. Three options, each above the floor, each with written terms, is enough.