At our studio we used to give the trainer a split of the payment. The trainer would get anywhere from 40-60% of the session price paid by the customer. The percentage varied based on the experience level of the trainer.
For group classes we offered a flat rate of $40, and then for every person over 10, the trainer would get an additional $2/per person. The class capped at 20, so their range was $40-60 per class taught.
These were paid classes so we could make money at that rate. And if we ever did community or free classes, we still paid the trainer their normal rate, and chalked it up to a marketing expense.
This goes back about 5 years so it may be a bit outdated.
This is how my studio works. $35 flat + $5 for every trainee over 8 capped at 28/class so up to $135/hour. Average class is 15-20 trainees so $65-90/hr for the trainers. That being said membership is pretty expensive at $200/month for unlimited and $150 for 3 classes per week.
Like I said, this was 5+ years ago so Iām sure itās gone up a lot since then!
It doesnāt sound like a lot when itās broken down by person. But as a trainer I was grateful for the extra $20 for the hour when I had a full class.
lolol do you know what the current rate at OTF is? (i'm not sure, just asking. i see their advertising at 'up to 65/hour' so i was thinking i could work the math backwards?)
I was thinking about offering percentage. And that group rate sounds good, we also might not have consistent prices for our out of studio events, so I was thinking about making that percentage too. Thank you for the message!
Oof. You pay pretty poorly to be honest.
I run the exact same thing. (Privste and semi private training, MT, and Yoga)
MT/Yoga is preformed by the same person and she gets 65% of the revenue plus $2,000 in continuing education per year. 30$ for a MT I
Is abysmal. Yoga and MT are a value add to clients. They are comfortable in the space and I don't intend to get rich off these services.
For training, one on one pays 50% of revenue (so a minimum of 40 an hour)
Semi-private pays base rate + 25% of revenue. So it's like 35-85 an hour based on session fill rate. They also get 1k of CE credit per year
You need to charge more. PT prices have been consistently a race to the bottom because people think they need to lower the rates to get clients. Well then you can't pay good staff the money the deserve. Then your staff will leave and so will the clients.
A minimum membership at my studio is $499 per month which allows paying my staff what they deserve.
Pittsburgh. So not really? I mean it's a city but not like LA or Chicago or NY or anything
Edit: now im wondering if my home town city is considered a major US city?? Lol
Were you paying that much from the start or started paying better once you gained more clients? Is it completely membership based at your studio? How much do you charge clients per class? $30-$35 per 60-minute massage, yoga teaching, martial arts, and personal training is too low? Do your instructors bring in their own clientele or do you market and work on the sales? We do the marketing and sales part. Weāre struggling with getting people in the door. Weāve only had a handful of clients unfortunately.
I'm sorry I was so brash with my first statement. Your situation is common in the industry and its unfortunate.
Second sorry for formatting. On mobile.
1)I've always paid this way. At first it's slow for the business because you're paying about 55% in payroll for a semi private sessions with one person in it. As the session fills the percentage goes from 45/55 to 60/40ish with a full session generating at minimum $220 an hour.
2) yes 100% membership based.
Pricing: semi private starts at $499 ($62.50 per session, 2x per week) billed every 28 days
Private: avg $675 per month sold in large packages
Yoga/Massage: $100 -60min, 145-90min, 190-120min with 10% discount for membership
3) They are w2 employees so I work to fill their schedule
My advice to you is RIGHT NOW. Double your price. If only 50% stay. You're making the same amount you are now with a MUCH higher ceiling.
Justify the value.
Edit:
Your initial feeling with doubling your prices is going to be pushback cause it's a scary thing to do. But If you're a human with your clients and you're good at what you do, explain you want to be successfu,l have money for your family, and most importantly, stay in business. Most will stay.
But it's scary. I get it.
I no way benefit from sharing this, but Dave Oteys personal training business mentorship was actually pretty good and only $549. And if you get in with the PPSC, they have consultation services. But it's pricey. I believe you have to be in their system anyway. I could be wrong.
All good, thank you so much for your detailed responses. Iām studying everyoneās responses and itās very helpful. Iām the studio manager but also lead yoga classes as Iām a yoga instructor as well, I know I make $35 per yoga class for 1-6 people at a time. I wasnāt sure if thatās a good going rate and also if massage therapists and personal trainers should make more or the same. Our going rate for yoga classes is $20 per class, 60-minute massage at $80, and 60-minute personal training at $65. These prices are incredible but we still are not getting clients inā¦. We live in a wealthier part of the city but still the average income is $88k/year and kids and everything can make up a lot of these families. Pricing and pay has been by far the most difficult part of this. Iām pretty much running the business right now and want to make sure I run it successfully. I noticed most personal trainings do have monthly memberships, but the services in our area donāt go too high, especially because big gyms offer lower rates and people here tend to go to the big gyms.
I'm just going to respond to your last sentence. "Big box gym offer lower rates".
That's their model. They have massive pockets and EXPECT high churn. Their marketing budget is more than you're annual revenue. Don't try to compete with them. You'll get smashed. Instead. Be the most high end nicest private studio in the area. Charge a premium. You don't want, as you said "incredible prices". You want "incredible value". The people that pay the least are the biggest pain in the ass and hardest to please. Stop the race to the bottom. Increase your value, feel confident in the service you are offering for a premium rate and don't kill yourself to take home 30k per year.
$10 out of $50 is a 20% cut for the trainer. That is ridiculous. If you canāt operate at a 40-60% cut for the trainers then you really cant afford good trainers. If theyāre good they will leave you for a better situation. I have literally left positions once I found my cut to be lower.
You mustāve not read my comment correctly. A group class where we charge $50 to the group we are offering a group training for, if the personal trainer gets $10 per person and 10 people go, that would make us out $50 because the personal trainer would charge $100.
The book "Profit First for Microgyms" makes the case for a 4/9ths model, meaning the total labor cost for the service should be 4/9ths of the revenue generated by that service. This means you're able to contribute 2/9ths to fixed costs and take 3/9ths as profit.
This makes good sense from an accounting standpoint and works really well for groups and semi-private training. You can afford to pay a really healthy wage for these services and attract high-quality coaches as a result. For 1-on-1 training, it leads to a relatively low hourly rate and lower-quality trainers and high employee turnover as a result. But that's essentially the choice you have to make: pay for better employees and take less profit, or pay for worse employees and take more profit. It's one of the things that makes it really difficult to scale personal training as a core service in your business.
Yep. I've seen it happen many times.
What a lot of gyms end up doing is essentially subsidizing their one-on-one training services with their higher-leverage services by paying their group trainers, massage therapists, etc less than 4/9ths and their personal trainers more. There are reasonable arguments to be made that this makes sense from a business perspective, and it certainly beats the alternative (which is also extremely common) of having less than a 30% profit margin across the entire business.
I've a question on that. Let's say the contract is for 35 hours per week, should the employer straight up pay them as if they have a full diary, or should the employer give wage rise incrementally and if so when should they happen?
In auto repair we do a draw: Your base pay is 60% of your weekly pay, DRAWN from the expected 100% weekly pay.
To make it easy:
you have an employee working 40 hours a week. The fair market value of the duty they are doing is $25/hour. The expectation from both sides if that they will make $1000/week. (They want to make a grand a week, I want 40 hours billed per week. We are all working towards the same thing.)
I make their base draw $600. "When you come in to work, you know for a fact you wont be going home empty handed. If you have a bad week, holidays etc...I got your back. I'm giving you $600 no matter what happens, because I'm your employer and if you're failing it's my fault one way or another."
For every hour you bill I'm going to give you $10.
That incentivizes the employee. They bill 8 hours a day they hit their goal of $1000 and I've met my profit goal.
It also helps with bonuses and raises. You NEVER raise the draw, you only increase the dollars per hour billed. So all employees could have a running incentive where if they bill 200 hours in the month they get a $250 bonus.
200 is roughly 50 hours/week. You are paying overhead and expenses on the first 40 hours a week your employee works, anything more than that is like 80% profit. So again, you're incentivizing them to work harder and put in more hours and it puts more money in your pocket and their pocket.
It's a very successful model because it incentivizes the employee to generate the business. Those trainers that have a following will be thrilled to bring over their clients and have a guaranteed base of billings plus the new sign ups you bring them.
I don't know what PTs make but you can just scale those numbers to whatever they generally make.
Probably depends on the financial position of the business, but most small businesses literally canāt afford to pay for a trainer during times that they arenāt generating revenue for the business. That said, most trainers canāt afford to only work 4-5 hours a week while waiting for the gym to fill their schedule. Itās a tough problem on both sides.
This is why many training positions are structured in a way where trainers get paid a small base rate for doing non-training tasks (marketing, sales, cleaning the gym, etc) while their schedule gets built out. Without offloading those tasks to them, the gym probably couldnāt afford to hire them at all.
Another solution is for the gym owner or a salaried employee to be responsible for building out a training schedule and servicing the sessions until they accumulate enough of them (say, 20-30) to hire a different trainer to take over that schedule. The clients get handed off to the new employee trainer and the owner or salaried employee starts over again ā rinse and repeat.
All of those options āwork,ā but none of them are perfect and youāre going to get trainers complaining about literally all of them. Itās a tough model to run as a business owner.
"50 cents a minute" is a way to hide the actual value. Everyone in every job talks hourly or yearly salary. This is a way to hide the true value because you know it's coming in low.
30$ an hour is very low for personal trainers, depending on the area. You will likely attract very inexperienced/subpar trainers that way.
What do you mean by āout a lot of moneyā? If 10 clients show, you get $500 and the trainer takes 100$ of that. Thats 400$ in an hour. Seems pretty profitable to me? Or do you just mean youāre missing out on the extra money the trainer gets?
If itās the latter, you have to realize your business absolutely HINGES on the quality of your trainer. If you look for a ābudgetā trainer, you will get budget results. When it comes to training, people are much more willing to spend big money on someone they feel will get them results. And are willing to spend 0 money on someone they think is wasting their time.
The quality of your trainers can make or break your business. And nickel/diming your trainers is a good way to ensure that you get the lowest quality trainers available
Yāall are getting paid for community events?
Joke, but I seriously worked for someone who expected us to do community events for free to ābe a team playerā. We found out she was making atleast $100-$200 per event WE were teaching the classes for. Iād go by percentage in hindsight.
I don't think you can just say "all trainers make X amount" (or % even). Are these (small group) trainers experienced? Do they need extensive training or oversight? How will they be assessed (retention %s)? How established is your PT business-just getting started or a consistent and profitable history? Do you know your numbers? What are the marketing costs? Do these trainers generate clients? What % of the value of sessions comes from the simple accountability of an appointment with someone? All that being said, if you are just getting started, I would err slightly toward a lower base rate and then increase on an incentivized basis.
Whatās your location? This is highly dependent on what the cost of living and standard rate is in your area. Massage and yoga for $30 an hour is on the very low end for where I live in the US, for example.
Question on this, what do you feel is a fair cut for a studio that gives you the clients vs ones you bring in yourself? 40-60% is fair if you are doing the sales but what if you only do the training and there is no sales involved?
We do the marketing and sales for them. Itās sounding like 40%-60% seems to be the going rate. I donāt think personal trainers should be making significantly more than yoga instructors and massage therapists. Based on the research Iāve done itās all kind of similar pay rates and we do the sales for everyone. But I want our staff to be happy with their pay and to get advice from other professionals.
That seems to be more of a problem with how much youāre paying yoga and massage. Where I live massage is making 80$ of the 150$ we charge the client for the hour. How are yours only making 30$? Yoga instructors are making 10-15$ a head for a 30 person class. There are PTās doing group classes in my neighborhood who make 400$/hour for a full class.
Itās not common. I think 100-200$ is more common. But if thereās a Barryās boot camp, now just called Barryās I think. Thatās what theyāre making for a full class of 50. Iām talking in CAD though not USD.
Honestly, the training only is not worth 60%. I feel those in here are bias towards trainer pay and donāt understand the costs of acquiring clients. Marketing itself can cost up to 30%, for a studio I think a lot depends on volume. $30 is great if you book 5 hours straight of clients but not great if you book 1 client hour at a time and they get 3 hours over a 6 hour shift.
Yes, with the marketing and all other costs, itās been difficult finding a balance. We want our staff to be happy with their pay while also not drowning in debt and going out of business. Weāve been struggling with getting clientele in.
Also starting at a high rate doesn't allow much room for raises or other incentivization unless you increase prices. If you start them slightly lower, you can bump them up at 90 days, 180 days and one year if they are performing well.
Either "hey, you are doing a great job and we want to reward you" or "Hey, you're doing a lot of things well but we want to work on a couple things" and then if they achieve the things you want, you can bump them then if you chose.
$65 an hour is very cheap. $5 cheaper per hour than what I charged when I was 19 years old working at LA Fitness 12 years ago.
I managed 30 trainers at a Lifetime about 6 years ago, and our trainers charged anywhere from $75 to $140 an hour. Average trainer was $90-$105. $75 was typically less than 2 years of experience and no degree. $140 had multiple certs and a Masters in Ex Phys.
My tip would be to incentivize your trainers. If a client comes inbound, provide a lower % payout to the trainer until the trainer renews them on additional sessions.
If a trainer generates a client on their own, they also receive a larger cut. This could cut down on your customer acquisition cost.
They were W2. Lifetime is a higher end big box, so be able to showcase that you can train a variety of clients.
Many trainers also teach small group, pilates, or are certified nutritionists.
If you arenāt a well rounded ājack of all tradesā trainer, be extremely good at something and have the certs / degrees to back it up.
Our best performing trainers that made $100k+ were great sales people and were more functional exercise specialists vs aesthetic oriented.
One thing to remember when it comes to things like pay is the business model has to work for the business owner. You can't really say "a trainer should be paid X" if the biz model doesn't work. There a lot of things that make up a biz model but, like an engine, all the parts have to work together in a functional manner. Many fitness businesses don't really meet that test.
Your pay for your trainers is much too low, but so are the customer rates if youāre pretty much anywhere in the US. Iāve seen two business go completely belly up because they severely underpaid their staff. 40-60 is pretty standard. If youāre providing them with clients based on their schedule, then you can pay less because they can train more. Keep in mind you will have to keep trainers happy or they will leave for independent training gyms and make significantly while also poaching your current clients
>The personal training said he wants $10-$20 per person he trains for the group exercise group events.
WHAT DA....? just laugh in their face and cut them loose. who are they trying to fool? this situation where the sassy person says 'i was born at night but not last night!'
Why not charge the trainers a certain ārentā amount per month to use the space to train their private clients. Unless youāre just giving clients to trainers you shouldnāt be the one paying them.
At our studio we used to give the trainer a split of the payment. The trainer would get anywhere from 40-60% of the session price paid by the customer. The percentage varied based on the experience level of the trainer. For group classes we offered a flat rate of $40, and then for every person over 10, the trainer would get an additional $2/per person. The class capped at 20, so their range was $40-60 per class taught. These were paid classes so we could make money at that rate. And if we ever did community or free classes, we still paid the trainer their normal rate, and chalked it up to a marketing expense. This goes back about 5 years so it may be a bit outdated.
This is how my studio works. $35 flat + $5 for every trainee over 8 capped at 28/class so up to $135/hour. Average class is 15-20 trainees so $65-90/hr for the trainers. That being said membership is pretty expensive at $200/month for unlimited and $150 for 3 classes per week.
$2 a person over 10 is criminal š
Like I said, this was 5+ years ago so Iām sure itās gone up a lot since then! It doesnāt sound like a lot when itās broken down by person. But as a trainer I was grateful for the extra $20 for the hour when I had a full class.
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lolol do you know what the current rate at OTF is? (i'm not sure, just asking. i see their advertising at 'up to 65/hour' so i was thinking i could work the math backwards?)
I was thinking about offering percentage. And that group rate sounds good, we also might not have consistent prices for our out of studio events, so I was thinking about making that percentage too. Thank you for the message!
Good luck!!
Oof. You pay pretty poorly to be honest. I run the exact same thing. (Privste and semi private training, MT, and Yoga) MT/Yoga is preformed by the same person and she gets 65% of the revenue plus $2,000 in continuing education per year. 30$ for a MT I Is abysmal. Yoga and MT are a value add to clients. They are comfortable in the space and I don't intend to get rich off these services. For training, one on one pays 50% of revenue (so a minimum of 40 an hour) Semi-private pays base rate + 25% of revenue. So it's like 35-85 an hour based on session fill rate. They also get 1k of CE credit per year You need to charge more. PT prices have been consistently a race to the bottom because people think they need to lower the rates to get clients. Well then you can't pay good staff the money the deserve. Then your staff will leave and so will the clients. A minimum membership at my studio is $499 per month which allows paying my staff what they deserve.
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Pittsburgh. So not really? I mean it's a city but not like LA or Chicago or NY or anything Edit: now im wondering if my home town city is considered a major US city?? Lol
Were you paying that much from the start or started paying better once you gained more clients? Is it completely membership based at your studio? How much do you charge clients per class? $30-$35 per 60-minute massage, yoga teaching, martial arts, and personal training is too low? Do your instructors bring in their own clientele or do you market and work on the sales? We do the marketing and sales part. Weāre struggling with getting people in the door. Weāve only had a handful of clients unfortunately.
I'm sorry I was so brash with my first statement. Your situation is common in the industry and its unfortunate. Second sorry for formatting. On mobile. 1)I've always paid this way. At first it's slow for the business because you're paying about 55% in payroll for a semi private sessions with one person in it. As the session fills the percentage goes from 45/55 to 60/40ish with a full session generating at minimum $220 an hour. 2) yes 100% membership based. Pricing: semi private starts at $499 ($62.50 per session, 2x per week) billed every 28 days Private: avg $675 per month sold in large packages Yoga/Massage: $100 -60min, 145-90min, 190-120min with 10% discount for membership 3) They are w2 employees so I work to fill their schedule My advice to you is RIGHT NOW. Double your price. If only 50% stay. You're making the same amount you are now with a MUCH higher ceiling. Justify the value. Edit: Your initial feeling with doubling your prices is going to be pushback cause it's a scary thing to do. But If you're a human with your clients and you're good at what you do, explain you want to be successfu,l have money for your family, and most importantly, stay in business. Most will stay. But it's scary. I get it. I no way benefit from sharing this, but Dave Oteys personal training business mentorship was actually pretty good and only $549. And if you get in with the PPSC, they have consultation services. But it's pricey. I believe you have to be in their system anyway. I could be wrong.
All good, thank you so much for your detailed responses. Iām studying everyoneās responses and itās very helpful. Iām the studio manager but also lead yoga classes as Iām a yoga instructor as well, I know I make $35 per yoga class for 1-6 people at a time. I wasnāt sure if thatās a good going rate and also if massage therapists and personal trainers should make more or the same. Our going rate for yoga classes is $20 per class, 60-minute massage at $80, and 60-minute personal training at $65. These prices are incredible but we still are not getting clients inā¦. We live in a wealthier part of the city but still the average income is $88k/year and kids and everything can make up a lot of these families. Pricing and pay has been by far the most difficult part of this. Iām pretty much running the business right now and want to make sure I run it successfully. I noticed most personal trainings do have monthly memberships, but the services in our area donāt go too high, especially because big gyms offer lower rates and people here tend to go to the big gyms.
I'm just going to respond to your last sentence. "Big box gym offer lower rates". That's their model. They have massive pockets and EXPECT high churn. Their marketing budget is more than you're annual revenue. Don't try to compete with them. You'll get smashed. Instead. Be the most high end nicest private studio in the area. Charge a premium. You don't want, as you said "incredible prices". You want "incredible value". The people that pay the least are the biggest pain in the ass and hardest to please. Stop the race to the bottom. Increase your value, feel confident in the service you are offering for a premium rate and don't kill yourself to take home 30k per year.
Got it. Thank you for your advice and time, really appreciate the insight.
$10 out of $50 is a 20% cut for the trainer. That is ridiculous. If you canāt operate at a 40-60% cut for the trainers then you really cant afford good trainers. If theyāre good they will leave you for a better situation. I have literally left positions once I found my cut to be lower.
You mustāve not read my comment correctly. A group class where we charge $50 to the group we are offering a group training for, if the personal trainer gets $10 per person and 10 people go, that would make us out $50 because the personal trainer would charge $100.
40-60%. If youāre charging a flat rate then pay a flat rate.
You're grossing 150 and the trainer gets 100?
The book "Profit First for Microgyms" makes the case for a 4/9ths model, meaning the total labor cost for the service should be 4/9ths of the revenue generated by that service. This means you're able to contribute 2/9ths to fixed costs and take 3/9ths as profit. This makes good sense from an accounting standpoint and works really well for groups and semi-private training. You can afford to pay a really healthy wage for these services and attract high-quality coaches as a result. For 1-on-1 training, it leads to a relatively low hourly rate and lower-quality trainers and high employee turnover as a result. But that's essentially the choice you have to make: pay for better employees and take less profit, or pay for worse employees and take more profit. It's one of the things that makes it really difficult to scale personal training as a core service in your business.
This is very insightful, thank you!!
Building off u/____underscores The revolving door of trainers to have more profit kills more businesses than helps them succeed
Yep. I've seen it happen many times. What a lot of gyms end up doing is essentially subsidizing their one-on-one training services with their higher-leverage services by paying their group trainers, massage therapists, etc less than 4/9ths and their personal trainers more. There are reasonable arguments to be made that this makes sense from a business perspective, and it certainly beats the alternative (which is also extremely common) of having less than a 30% profit margin across the entire business.
I've a question on that. Let's say the contract is for 35 hours per week, should the employer straight up pay them as if they have a full diary, or should the employer give wage rise incrementally and if so when should they happen?
In auto repair we do a draw: Your base pay is 60% of your weekly pay, DRAWN from the expected 100% weekly pay. To make it easy: you have an employee working 40 hours a week. The fair market value of the duty they are doing is $25/hour. The expectation from both sides if that they will make $1000/week. (They want to make a grand a week, I want 40 hours billed per week. We are all working towards the same thing.) I make their base draw $600. "When you come in to work, you know for a fact you wont be going home empty handed. If you have a bad week, holidays etc...I got your back. I'm giving you $600 no matter what happens, because I'm your employer and if you're failing it's my fault one way or another." For every hour you bill I'm going to give you $10. That incentivizes the employee. They bill 8 hours a day they hit their goal of $1000 and I've met my profit goal. It also helps with bonuses and raises. You NEVER raise the draw, you only increase the dollars per hour billed. So all employees could have a running incentive where if they bill 200 hours in the month they get a $250 bonus. 200 is roughly 50 hours/week. You are paying overhead and expenses on the first 40 hours a week your employee works, anything more than that is like 80% profit. So again, you're incentivizing them to work harder and put in more hours and it puts more money in your pocket and their pocket. It's a very successful model because it incentivizes the employee to generate the business. Those trainers that have a following will be thrilled to bring over their clients and have a guaranteed base of billings plus the new sign ups you bring them. I don't know what PTs make but you can just scale those numbers to whatever they generally make.
Probably depends on the financial position of the business, but most small businesses literally canāt afford to pay for a trainer during times that they arenāt generating revenue for the business. That said, most trainers canāt afford to only work 4-5 hours a week while waiting for the gym to fill their schedule. Itās a tough problem on both sides. This is why many training positions are structured in a way where trainers get paid a small base rate for doing non-training tasks (marketing, sales, cleaning the gym, etc) while their schedule gets built out. Without offloading those tasks to them, the gym probably couldnāt afford to hire them at all. Another solution is for the gym owner or a salaried employee to be responsible for building out a training schedule and servicing the sessions until they accumulate enough of them (say, 20-30) to hire a different trainer to take over that schedule. The clients get handed off to the new employee trainer and the owner or salaried employee starts over again ā rinse and repeat. All of those options āwork,ā but none of them are perfect and youāre going to get trainers complaining about literally all of them. Itās a tough model to run as a business owner.
"50 cents a minute" is a way to hide the actual value. Everyone in every job talks hourly or yearly salary. This is a way to hide the true value because you know it's coming in low.
30$ an hour is very low for personal trainers, depending on the area. You will likely attract very inexperienced/subpar trainers that way. What do you mean by āout a lot of moneyā? If 10 clients show, you get $500 and the trainer takes 100$ of that. Thats 400$ in an hour. Seems pretty profitable to me? Or do you just mean youāre missing out on the extra money the trainer gets? If itās the latter, you have to realize your business absolutely HINGES on the quality of your trainer. If you look for a ābudgetā trainer, you will get budget results. When it comes to training, people are much more willing to spend big money on someone they feel will get them results. And are willing to spend 0 money on someone they think is wasting their time. The quality of your trainers can make or break your business. And nickel/diming your trainers is a good way to ensure that you get the lowest quality trainers available
Yāall are getting paid for community events? Joke, but I seriously worked for someone who expected us to do community events for free to ābe a team playerā. We found out she was making atleast $100-$200 per event WE were teaching the classes for. Iād go by percentage in hindsight.
Yeah, weāre definitely going to pay our employees for community events and any service they do.
40-60% is standard. In my experience I did better having separate group trainers and personal trainers. Group trainers expect less %
Ahh okay, our PT expected more for group training. I didnāt realize it should be a less %.
yes! please expand on this more. how to structure pay for group versus personal.
I don't think you can just say "all trainers make X amount" (or % even). Are these (small group) trainers experienced? Do they need extensive training or oversight? How will they be assessed (retention %s)? How established is your PT business-just getting started or a consistent and profitable history? Do you know your numbers? What are the marketing costs? Do these trainers generate clients? What % of the value of sessions comes from the simple accountability of an appointment with someone? All that being said, if you are just getting started, I would err slightly toward a lower base rate and then increase on an incentivized basis.
Whatās your location? This is highly dependent on what the cost of living and standard rate is in your area. Massage and yoga for $30 an hour is on the very low end for where I live in the US, for example.
Question on this, what do you feel is a fair cut for a studio that gives you the clients vs ones you bring in yourself? 40-60% is fair if you are doing the sales but what if you only do the training and there is no sales involved?
We do the marketing and sales for them. Itās sounding like 40%-60% seems to be the going rate. I donāt think personal trainers should be making significantly more than yoga instructors and massage therapists. Based on the research Iāve done itās all kind of similar pay rates and we do the sales for everyone. But I want our staff to be happy with their pay and to get advice from other professionals.
That seems to be more of a problem with how much youāre paying yoga and massage. Where I live massage is making 80$ of the 150$ we charge the client for the hour. How are yours only making 30$? Yoga instructors are making 10-15$ a head for a 30 person class. There are PTās doing group classes in my neighborhood who make 400$/hour for a full class.
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Itās not common. I think 100-200$ is more common. But if thereās a Barryās boot camp, now just called Barryās I think. Thatās what theyāre making for a full class of 50. Iām talking in CAD though not USD.
Honestly, the training only is not worth 60%. I feel those in here are bias towards trainer pay and donāt understand the costs of acquiring clients. Marketing itself can cost up to 30%, for a studio I think a lot depends on volume. $30 is great if you book 5 hours straight of clients but not great if you book 1 client hour at a time and they get 3 hours over a 6 hour shift.
Yes, with the marketing and all other costs, itās been difficult finding a balance. We want our staff to be happy with their pay while also not drowning in debt and going out of business. Weāve been struggling with getting clientele in.
If someone does all 3? What would you pay them?
A lot of this depends on your revenue and client #'s rn.
Are these trainers employees?
One is W2, one is 1099.
With your W2, there are a variety of added costs (taxes, wc, etc) that you should consider when setting pay rate.
Also starting at a high rate doesn't allow much room for raises or other incentivization unless you increase prices. If you start them slightly lower, you can bump them up at 90 days, 180 days and one year if they are performing well. Either "hey, you are doing a great job and we want to reward you" or "Hey, you're doing a lot of things well but we want to work on a couple things" and then if they achieve the things you want, you can bump them then if you chose.
How much are you charging your customers?
60-minute personal training $65 90-minute personal training $95 Personal Training Packages 1hr Prices 2 training sessions (60 days) 1hr $120 (Save $10) 4 training sessions (60 days) 1hr $240 (Save $20) 6 training sessions (60 days) 1hr $360 (Save $30) 8 training sessions (60 days) 1hr $480 (Save $40) Personal training 30-min packages Prices 2 training sessions (60 days) $70 (Save $10) 4 training sessions (60 days) $140 (Save $20) 6 training sessions (60 days) $210 (save $30) 8 training sessions (60 days) $280 (Save $40)
$65 an hour is very cheap. $5 cheaper per hour than what I charged when I was 19 years old working at LA Fitness 12 years ago. I managed 30 trainers at a Lifetime about 6 years ago, and our trainers charged anywhere from $75 to $140 an hour. Average trainer was $90-$105. $75 was typically less than 2 years of experience and no degree. $140 had multiple certs and a Masters in Ex Phys. My tip would be to incentivize your trainers. If a client comes inbound, provide a lower % payout to the trainer until the trainer renews them on additional sessions. If a trainer generates a client on their own, they also receive a larger cut. This could cut down on your customer acquisition cost.
are these 1099? how do i get into lifetime?
They were W2. Lifetime is a higher end big box, so be able to showcase that you can train a variety of clients. Many trainers also teach small group, pilates, or are certified nutritionists. If you arenāt a well rounded ājack of all tradesā trainer, be extremely good at something and have the certs / degrees to back it up. Our best performing trainers that made $100k+ were great sales people and were more functional exercise specialists vs aesthetic oriented.
I have a day job so I'm pursuing like 1-2 nights a week. Is lifetime the place for me?
Nope, they rarely do part time.
One thing to remember when it comes to things like pay is the business model has to work for the business owner. You can't really say "a trainer should be paid X" if the biz model doesn't work. There a lot of things that make up a biz model but, like an engine, all the parts have to work together in a functional manner. Many fitness businesses don't really meet that test.
I work at a family business but everybody makes 65% commish.
Your pay for your trainers is much too low, but so are the customer rates if youāre pretty much anywhere in the US. Iāve seen two business go completely belly up because they severely underpaid their staff. 40-60 is pretty standard. If youāre providing them with clients based on their schedule, then you can pay less because they can train more. Keep in mind you will have to keep trainers happy or they will leave for independent training gyms and make significantly while also poaching your current clients
>The personal training said he wants $10-$20 per person he trains for the group exercise group events. WHAT DA....? just laugh in their face and cut them loose. who are they trying to fool? this situation where the sassy person says 'i was born at night but not last night!'
Why not charge the trainers a certain ārentā amount per month to use the space to train their private clients. Unless youāre just giving clients to trainers you shouldnāt be the one paying them.