Coaching sessions in numbers: Profi's revenue-boosting research [Infographic]

Have you ever pondered the pricing of your coaching sessions? Whether they're super budget-friendly or rather expensive? What about the optimal duration for sessions or selecting a target audience?

Our recent benchmarking study could be your guiding light if these concerns are on your mind. Keep reading to gain valuable insights and make informed decisions on enhancing your coaching session efficiency.

The research background

The Profi team consistently examines data regarding the end-to-end platform usage by our clients. This research aims to determine how coaches allocate their time and energy when approaching broader organizational questions.

This article explains the questions you might hesitate to ask but desperately need answers to:

• What revenue do group and individual sessions yield?
• Does the number of clients impact revenue?
• Which communication channels do businesses prefer for their sessions?
• What is the ratio of completed, missed, and canceled sessions?
• What is the average income per session for coaches using Profi?

Below, compelling research results inspire you to reconsider your approach to planning, conceptualizing, and pricing your coaching sessions.

Coaching sessions from the revenue perspective 

Are individual sessions more lucrative than group ones when it comes to revenue?

If you're contemplating the most efficient type of session from a business standpoint, these data and insights can assist you in setting priorities:

• Individual online sessions result in 93.62% of revenue
• Group sessions contribute only 5.29% of revenue

Conclusions: 

Individual sessions not only enable you to deliver a hyper-personalized care and create a highest value and safe experience for your clients, but they are also more revenue generating. The only drawback is the necessity to invest more time into preparation and the sessions with  clients individually. However, a well-organized coaching schedule can help address any downsides here.

Group sessions allow you to scale your impact, kick-in network effects of delivering a wow experience to cohorts of clients and are cost-effective for your clients. However, they generate less revenue, necessitating engagement with more and more groups, but have a better opportunity to generate more referrals and growth via word of mouth.

Tip: To increase revenue from your coaching efforts, we recommend productizing your services - offering subscription-based services and packages, incorporating a mix of individual and group sessions into your schedule, mixing it all with blended learning formats such as pre-recorded content. This approach supports a consistently growing income and enhances your overall activation rates, which results in better client satisfaction and higher opportunity of upsells and resells. 

The Number of Clients Doesn't Always Impact Revenue

Coaches often fall into the misconception that the more clients they take on, the higher their revenue will be. However, this assumption can lead to a lack of time, affecting the quality of sessions, client experience, and potentially causing burnout. Therefore, adopting the 80-20 rule is prudent, allowing you to optimize your resources effectively dedicating 20% of your effort to yield 80% of revenue.

When assessing revenue based on the number of clients, it's crucial to note that the most significant income comes from:

• 24 unique clients - 38.4% of total revenue
• 44 unique clients - 32.3% of total revenue
• 15 unique clients - 11.9% of total revenue

The hypothesis that having more clients doesn't necessarily equate to higher revenue is further validated by analyzing the average revenue derived from groups of unique clients.

• Hosting 1 to 5 unique clients brings 5.9% of the total revenue
• Having 8 to 10 unique clients generates 6.8% of the total revenue
• Managing 11 to 20 unique clients yields coaches 13.9% of the total revenue
• Handling 21 to 30 unique clients helps coaches accumulate 39.3% of the total revenue
• Dealing with 51 to 60 unique clients contributes 33.8% of the total revenue

Conclusions

In the early stages of your coaching practice, putting in effort to attract more clients is crucial for driving your business and generating revenue. However, the difference in revenue between 1-5 and 8-10 unique clients is only 0.8%. 

A noticeable 7.11% revenue gap exists between hosts with 11 to 20 clients and those with 21 to 30 unique clients.

Research results also demonstrate that coaches working with 21-30 clients earn 5.5% more than coaches with 51-60 unique clients.

Consequently, having 21-30 clients per host provides a middle ground that allows you to allocate resources thoughtfully and achieve high revenue. You should also keep in mind that 88% of scaling businesses are growing through word-of-mouth vs marketing efforts, which makes referrals the highest-performing business motion in the services businesses.

Coaching sessions efficiency

Approximately 11% of sessions are either missed or canceled by clients 

The number of missed and canceled sessions can significantly impact your coaching schedule, revenue and let's face it - be quite a frustrating experience. Therefore, a top priority is to minimize the occurrence of failed sessions and ensure that all planned paid sessions are completed.

Of the sessions planned by coaches in Profi:

• 87% were successfully completed
• 9% were canceled by clients
• 4% were missed by clients

Conclusions:

Coaches seldom miss sessions or initiate cancellations, given their role and the associated reputational risks. However, 11% of sessions are missed or canceled because of the client's initiative. Consequently, this way service providers can lose $20,000-$40,000 in revenue.

Average Session Length: 53.51 Minutes

The optimal session duration is crucial to providing a modern, streamlined client experience and managing time effectively. The time allocated to each session often depends on its type (1-on-1 or group), client preferences, and the topic of the session.  While some coaches opt for concise 20-minute coaching sessions, others may require 60 minutes or more to realize a full value. Regardless of your session duration, it's essential to avoid overtime to demonstrate respect for your client's time and save your own.

According to our research:

• 53.51 minutes is the average duration of scheduled sessions
• 99.83% of sessions are conducted without overtime
• 0.17% of sessions run beyond the scheduled time

Conclusions:

Considering the dependence between session duration and the number of unique clients, it's curious that hosts spend nearly the same amount of time per session, whether they have 1 to 5 unique clients or 51 to 60. Coaches working with 11-20 clients organize the longest sessions, averaging 59 minutes, while those with 41-50 clients conduct the shortest sessions, averaging 44 minutes.

Service providers conduct 89.29% of sessions via Profi 

In-person meetings, phone calls, or Zoom? Choosing the most suitable service delivery method for you and your clients is a critical decision that indirectly impacts your revenue and performance. Our research reveals the following distribution:

• The in-person delivery method was utilized for 0.88% of sessions.
• Phone calls were applicable for 0.17% of sessions.
• Zoom meetings were employed for 9.66% of sessions.
• Profi was selected for 89.29% of sessions.

Conclusions:

Most service providers are convinced that using an end-to-end service delivery platform like Profi allows them to organize everything in one place and deliver the experience their coachees deserve.

By the way, Profi recently introduced a significant upgrade to a video-conferencing feature that seamlessly replaces Zoom, Google Meets, and similar software. This feature assists you in managing your coaching sessions effectively by saving messaging history and notes in one place, and minimizing expenses by consolidating all of the workflows in Profi.

Want to explore how Profi can optimize your coaching resources and help you generate revenue? 

Book a personalized demo with one of our experts, or if you're a solo practitioner, take advantage of our free trial and experience the benefits firsthand.