Eyeing a career as a life coach or just want to see how your own earnings stack up to others in the industry?
Like any profession, how much a life coach makes depends on several factors, and salaries vary widely as a result. We’ll break down what you can expect in this field, ways to boost your earnings, and why liability insurance is so critical to your financial success.
Looking into launching your life coaching biz? Here’s what you need to know.
The Average Life Coach Salary in the U.S. in 2025
When the International Coaching Federation (ICF) conducted its last Global Coaching Survey in 2023, it found the average salary for U.S. professionals was $67,800. This number has gone up steadily in recent years, with Payscale placing the national average life coaching salary above $72,000 in 2025.
It’s worth emphasizing this is the average salary — plenty of life coaches across the nation who make much more (or less). Famous coaches like Tony Robbins and Marisa Peer are outliers, making upwards of seven figures a year.
Misconceptions About Life Coach Earnings
Chances are, you’ve heard (and maybe believed) one or more of the following misconceptions about how much life coaches earn. A lot of these can be chalked up to the high-profile, high-earning coaches who immediately come to mind when people talk about this career path.
Let’s bust these myths before we dive into the real factors that influence life coach earnings to set a realistic scene of what making money in this industry is like.
Myth | Reality |
All life coaches make big money, and it’s an easy path to wealth | Life coaching is a competitive field, and building a successful coaching practice requires hard work, time, and dedication |
Clients are willing to pay top dollar for coaching services | Many clients have budget constraints, affecting your earning potential |
Life coaches have a steady stream of high-paying clients | Finding and retaining clients can be challenging, leading to extreme income fluctuations from one month to the next |
Life coaches only work part-time and have plenty of free time | Building a thriving coaching practice typically requires a full-time commitment and dedication |
Life coaches can easily transition from another career | Transitioning to coaching requires building a client base and establishing credibility, which takes time and patience |
Factors Influencing Life Coach Earnings
It’s crucial not to get too hung up on average income, even though this figure is nice to know.
The truth is, there’s no one-size-fits-all salary range for life coaches. Many factors affect how much you can make in this career, so let’s take a look at them to get a better understanding of the why behind it all.
Certifications and Credentials
While most life coaches aren’t required to carry specific certifications, having them boosts your legitimacy — and by extension, your earnings. Clients are more likely to trust and choose to work with you if you’ve taken courses and graduated from a certification program.
Think of it like this: let’s say you need someone to fix your broken plumbing. Are you more likely to hire Ayesha, a licensed and certified plumber, or Greg, who has no formal training but swears he knows his stuff?
Even if Ayesha charges more for her services, you’ll probably pick her for the job because she’s trained to do this type of work. The same is true for people hiring a life coach.
Specializations and Niche Markets
Professionals in this field rarely stick with the title “life coach” because the term is extremely broad. There are many types of life coaches offering a wide range of specialized guidance, from careers to parenting.
Picking a niche doesn’t just allow you to play to your strengths and expertise. It also makes it easier to market your services to potential clients through highly targeted, personalized advertising.
Of course, some niches are more lucrative than others. These tend to be in the highest demand or require the most credentials.
The top-earning life coaches are:
- Executive coaches: Assist high-level executives and corporate leaders in achieving their goals ($122,100+)
- Business coaches: Give business management insights to employees and corporations to help them meet objectives ($84,100+)
- Financial coaches: Help individuals and families manage their finances, including budgeting, managing debt, and saving for retirement ($47,000+)
- Career coaches: Guide individuals through the process of choosing, working towards, and/or navigating a career path ($46,600+)
- Leadership coaches: Assist people in developing or sharpening leadership skills, usually as they relate to career goals ($40,300+)
Geographic Location
Your location has a major impact on your life coaching salary. Living in a densely populated area grants you easier access to more clients, which can increase your earnings.
Don’t pack your bags and move to the big city just yet! Thanks to virtual coaching, you can still boost your salary without changing your physical surroundings.
According to Firdaus Syazwani, founder of Dollar Bureau and an expert in helping professionals maximize their earning potential, offering online coaching services can be just as effective as operating out of a city.
“Coaches in major urban centers or those offering virtual packages to global audiences often see 20–30% higher earnings. When I expanded my own consulting services, I tapped into new markets and saw an uptick in my hourly rate almost immediately.”
Experience in the Field
As with most careers, the more experience you have working as a life coach, the more you can charge clients for your services. If you’re just starting your coaching business, especially if you don’t have any clients on the books yet, you will likely need to charge less than more established coaches to compete with them.
This factor is one of the toughest for new coaches to come to terms with, as everyone has to start somewhere, and you can’t speed up time to start advertising your years of experience. Be patient with yourself, and keep in mind that the other factors in this list are more within your control. You can still take steps to boost your earnings without building a time machine!
Strategies to Boost Your Life Coaching Income
Whether you’re making above or below the average salary for life coaches, there are always opportunities to increase your earnings. Let’s take a look at some tried-and-true strategies you can use to bolster success in your career.
Earn Certifications
Because certifications are one of the biggest factors in determining how much a life coach can earn, taking relevant courses and obtaining these credentials is an effective way to increase your earnings.
“After earning her ICF PCC (International Coaching Federation Professional Certified Coach) credential, one coach I mentor increased her session rate from $150 to $250, simply because she could confidently market her proven framework,” says Syazwani. “Investing in certifications not only boosts your credibility, but also gives you permission to raise rates.”
While every niche has its own specialized courses and credentials to consider, the following groups offer some of the best life coach certification programs.
Coach Training Alliance (CTA)
- What it is: An ICF-accredited program that guarantees at least two paying clients before you graduate; offers an extensive alumni network to help you establish your business as well as your skills
- How to get it: Online
- Length of program: 6 months
- Cost: $4,339
Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (IPEC)
- What it is: Allows you to focus on a niche/specialty in addition to learning skills all life coaches should know
- How to get it: Online and in person
- Length of program: 7–9 months
- Cost: $13,395
CoachU
- What it is: An international program combining a virtual basic life coaching skills course with the opportunity to continue education with advanced online and in-person courses
- How to get it: Online or in person (depending on the program)
- Length of program: 6–15 months (depending on the program)
- Cost: $5,995–$12,790 (depending on the program)
Diversify Your Income
As with many entrepreneurial pursuits, pursue ways to diversify your income streams so you never rely on just one source of revenue to keep your life coaching business afloat. But you’re just one person — you’ll be busy enough with clients! — so the best way to approach this is by generating passive income.
If you aren’t familiar with this term, passive income is money you make from things that take minimal effort to maintain once you’ve set them up. Below are some of the best passive income sources for life coaches.
eBooks
These short, digestible books typically hover around 50 pages and are a great way to share your expertise on a particular topic that would be too long for something like an email newsletter.
Example: Kamini Wood’s eBooks cover topics such as conscious parenting, impostor syndrome, and setting boundaries
Online Courses
Online courses are a perfect fit for clients who prefer to go at their own pace or need a more flexible coaching setup.
The bulk of the work will be in creating, scripting, and recording these courses, but the return can be huge. One of Syazwani’s clients launched self-paced online courses and “within six months, her monthly revenue jumped from $5,000 to $12,000,” he says. She more than doubled her earnings thanks to a scalable online program.
Once you’ve finished that and uploaded them onto a secure learning management platform behind a paywall, you may only need to update or maintain them annually.
Example: When you purchase Mel Robbins’ book The 5 Second Rule, you get her 31 Sessions Course — a series of short videos to watch on your own time that coincides with the book’s topics
Digital Resources
Offering digital resources for clients to download is an excellent way to boost your earnings without too much work. This could include creating:
- Checklists
- Goal tracking sheets
- Planners
- Workbooks
Example: Kris Carr offers a free downloadable wellness tracker in exchange for your email address, helping her generate leads and sales for other products and services
Membership Programs
Offer subscription-based memberships to your clients in exchange for access to exclusive resources and other content, like videos, downloadable workbooks, and more. You can also create an online space for members to interact with each other and form a community, such as an exclusive Facebook group.
Membership programs help foster loyalty and repeat clients, which can significantly benefit your overall revenue. Plus, with subscription-based business models on the rise, many clients may already expect you to have a similar setup available.
Example: Gabby Bernstein’s spiritual coaching membership includes a 7-day free trial and an app for Android and iOS
Refine Your Niche
The importance of finding your niche and playing to your strengths cannot be overstated when it comes to the amount of money you can make as a life coach.
“I’ve seen life coaches with three to five years of experience typically earn between $55,000 and $75,000 annually, while those who build a strong niche can push past six figures,” says Syazwani. This illustrates how identifying your specialty can be even more valuable than the amount of experience under your belt.
Case Study: Elisa Tidswell and the Importance of Carving Out Your Niche
Elisa Tidswell was working as a UK-based business coach and chasing more revenue without seeing any results. Business coaching was familiar and comfortable for her, but she knew her real passion was helping people become the best version of themselves.
As she put it in an interview with Mindvalley Coach, “I was chasing money. I was being driven by fear and my ego.”
After a while, she felt the best thing she could do was to be the kind of coach she actually wanted to be. So, she combined business coaching with spirituality — something she had never seen done before — and that’s when her life coaching career skyrocketed.
In just a few years, she became a Mindvalley Certified Business Coach and started reaping the financial rewards she sought after in the early days.
The biggest takeaway from Tidswell’s experience is the value (both personal and financial) in following your passion and embracing your area of expertise. Don’t just choose a high-paying niche — be true to yourself, understand the value of your knowledge, and clients will follow.
Pro Tip: Choosing your niche is essential to finding the right clients, but it’s not the only one you can take! Learn more strategies for getting life coaching clients and start building your books ASAP.
How Life Coach Insurance Protects Your Earnings
No matter how much you earn in your life coaching business, you need to make sure those profits are protected. The best way to do this is by getting life coach insurance.
Life coaching insurance is a type of liability policy that financially shields you against some of the most common claims you’re likely to face in this line of work, including:
- Getting sued by a client over “bad” advice they claim resulted in financial hardship
- Accidentally breaking a client’s expensive, one-of-a-kind vase when you visit their home for a session
- Having your client’s private information stolen from your computer when you fall victim to a phishing attack*
Insurance Canopy’s life coach policy can cover claims like these, so you can put the money you earn back into your business and the things you love — not paying thousands of dollars when an accident occurs.
Plus, being insured is another excellent credential to add to your resume. Show clients you’re prepared if something goes wrong and instantly build trust!
Check out our no-nonsense guide to life coaching insurance today and learn more about what being insured can do for you.
*Requires cyber liability insurance add-on for coverage
FAQs About Life Coach Earnings
Do Life Coaches Typically Charge Hourly Rates, Package Fees, or a Combination of Both?
All of these earning models are popular options for life coaches. The median hourly rate for life coaches is just over $49, while package fees vary and cover a set number of sessions for a single fixed price.
What Are the Must-Have Skills for a Beginner Life Coach?
The most essential life coaching skills are:
- Empathetic listening
- The ability to ask the right questions at the right time
- Knowing how to help your clients set clear goals they can realistically achieve
- Understanding how to foster trust between you and your clients
- Being flexible enough to adapt your approach and methods to suit individual client needs
