Part One: Why Pricing Feels So Hard in Coaching
Pricing is one of the least visible pressures in coaching.
It rarely shows up as a headline problem, yet it quietly influences confidence, sustainability, and decision-making at every stage of a coaching practice. For many coaches, pricing feels disproportionately difficult, not because they lack business sense, but because pricing touches something more personal than skill.
It touches identity.
The Unspoken Question Beneath Pricing
When coaches ask, “How do I charge my worth?”, they are rarely just asking about numbers.
They are often asking:
• Am I good enough yet?
• Who am I to charge that?
• What if I get it wrong?
• What if I lose the client?
• What if I look unreasonable?
These questions don’t arise because coaches are unsure of their intentions. They arise because coaching is relational work. It asks the coach to show up as a human being, not just a service provider.
When pricing enters that space, it can feel exposing.
Why Coaches Often Default to What Feels Safe
Most coaches do not consciously decide to undercharge.
Instead, they look sideways.
They compare.
They choose something that feels “reasonable”.
Reasonable is often code for:
• familiar
• defensible
• unlikely to be challenged
What rarely gets examined is whether that figure actually reflects the reality of the work.
Over time, many coaches notice a gap forming. The sessions may be meaningful, but the business feels fragile. Energy is high, income is not. And slowly, resentment or fatigue creeps in, not towards clients, but towards the structure holding the work.
The Problem With Linking Price to Personal Worth
The idea of “charging your worth” is meant to be empowering, but it can quietly undermine confidence.
When pricing is tied to personal worth, every response from a potential client carries emotional weight. A pause feels like doubt. A no feels like rejection. A request for a discount feels like a judgement.
This makes pricing unstable.
You are not assigning a value to yourself as a person.
You are creating a structure around a professional service.
Separating those two things allows pricing decisions to become clearer, calmer, and less reactive.
What Pricing Often Fails to Account For
Most coaches think about pricing in relation to the session itself.
An hour of conversation.
A slot in the diary.
What is often missing from that calculation is everything that makes the session possible:
• preparation and reflection
• emotional regulation and presence
• supervision and ethical oversight
• continued professional development
• administration, systems, and client communication
When these elements are ignored, prices can look reasonable while the business quietly becomes unsustainable.
This rarely shows up immediately. It emerges over time, as overworking, blurred boundaries, or a sense that the work is costing more than it gives back.
Why Hourly Pricing Can Limit the Work
Hourly pricing feels simple and transparent, but it frames coaching as time spent talking.
That framing invites comparison with other hourly services that do not carry the same emotional, cognitive, or ethical responsibility. It also pulls the focus away from change and towards cost.
Coaching is not a commodity.
It is a process.
When the conversation centres on hours, the natural question becomes “how much per session?”
When it centres on outcomes and intention, the question shifts to “what does this work require?”
That shift matters, not as a sales tactic, but as a reflection of how coaching actually works.
How Do I Charge My Worth as a Coach?
Part Two: Moving Towards Ethical, Sustainable Pricing
Sustainable pricing is not about confidence or bravado.
It is about coherence.
It is about whether what you charge aligns with the responsibility you are holding, the way you work, and the conditions required to do that work well over time.
The Hidden Impact of Low Pricing
Low pricing does not just affect income.
It changes the coaching relationship.
When clients have made a meaningful investment, they are more likely to:
• attend consistently
• engage deeply
• follow through on actions
• take responsibility for their part in the process
When the investment is minimal, commitment often mirrors it. Sessions are cancelled. Momentum slips. The coach compensates by working harder, thinking more, and carrying more.
That imbalance is rarely named, but it is felt.
Pricing as a Signal
Whether we intend it or not, pricing communicates something.
To individuals, it shapes expectations around seriousness and depth.
To organisations, it signals professionalism and credibility.
In organisational contexts in particular, unusually low pricing does not read as generous. It raises questions about experience, confidence, and robustness.
Ethical pricing is not about being the most expensive option. It is about being a believable one.
The Wider Impact on the Coaching Profession
Pricing decisions do not exist in isolation.
When coaching is consistently underpriced, the profession absorbs the consequences. Talented coaches leave because they cannot make the business side work. Others stay but quietly burn out. Over time, the profession becomes skewed towards those who can market loudly rather than those who can practise deeply.
A profession that cannot sustain its practitioners is not a healthy one.
If coaching is to mature, pricing has to be part of that maturation.
Pricing Without Business Support Leaves Coaches Guessing
Many coaches are taught how to coach well, but not how to build a viable practice around that work.
Without a grounded understanding of income targets, capacity, packaging, and positioning, pricing becomes guesswork. Coaches lower fees to secure clients, then work harder to make the numbers add up.
This is where structured business support matters.
At Paseda360, this is one of the core reasons the Business Accelerator exists. Not to teach coaches how to sell harder, but to help them understand how to design a business that supports the depth of their work rather than undermining it.
You can explore the Business Accelerator here:
Sustainable pricing is not about tactics. It is about building a model that holds the work properly.
A Human-Centric Pricing Principles Framework for Coaches
Rather than seeing pricing as a number to land on, it can be more helpful to see it as a set of principles to work from. Principles create consistency and allow pricing to evolve without becoming reactive.
- Pricing Must Reflect the Full Scope of the Work
Coaching is not the hour in the diary.
It is the preparation, the regulation, the emotional labour, the supervision, and the ongoing development required to practise ethically.
If pricing only accounts for what is visible, the invisible parts are carried by the coach. Over time, that creates imbalance.
2. Pricing Should Support Presence, Not Pressure
A financially stretched coach is not neutral.
When income is fragile, coaches are more likely to overwork, avoid difficult conversations, or take on clients who are not a good fit.
Pricing should support the coach to be present, regulated, and clear. If it creates pressure rather than stability, it will eventually affect the work.
3. Pricing Sets the Tone for the Relationship
Pricing communicates expectations from the outset.
It signals whether coaching is a casual conversation or a committed process. Whether responsibility is shared or subtly sits with the coach.
Clear pricing supports clean contracting and healthier coaching relationships.
4. Pricing Is an Ethical Boundary
Ethics are not limited to confidentiality and scope of practice.
They also include how the work is structured. Chronic underpricing can lead to exhaustion, resentment, and compromised judgement. None of these support ethical coaching.
Ethical pricing allows the coach to remain resourced enough to practise responsibly.
5. Accessibility Is a Design Choice, Not a Default Discount
Accessibility matters, but it needs to be intentional.
Reduced fees or pro bono work can be part of an ethical practice when they are limited, chosen, and sustainable. When accessibility becomes a reflexive response to discomfort around pricing, it often leads to self-erasure rather than impact.
6. Pricing Should Be Transparent and Stable
Clients should understand costs before they emotionally invest.
Transparency builds trust and removes the need for performative selling. Stability creates safety for both coach and client.
7. Pricing Is Allowed to Evolve
Pricing is not fixed forever.
As experience deepens and responsibility grows, pricing may need to change. That does not invalidate earlier prices. It reflects development.
Pricing grounded in principles can evolve without guilt or defensiveness.
Bringing It Back to the Original Question
“How do I charge my worth?” is an understandable question.
But it places the focus in the wrong place.
A more grounding question is this:
What structure allows me to do this work well, ethically, and without disappearing myself in the process?
When pricing is built from there, it stops being about worth.
It becomes about stewardship of the work.
And that is where human-centric coaching belongs.
