How to Price a Health Coaching Package (Functional Medicine Included)

Most health coaches start out charging per session, because that's what feels fair and it's what everyone around them does.

It's also the pricing model most likely to keep you underpaid and your clients under-served. Here's why, and what to charge instead.

Why Per-Session Pricing Fails in Health Coaching

Your work doesn't happen in the session. It happens between them — reviewing labs, adjusting protocols, answering the panicked message on day nine, tracking whether the change you made three weeks ago actually did anything.

Per-session pricing charges for the visible hour and gives away the rest. Two things follow:

• Your income is capped by your calendar. The only way to earn more is to see more people, which makes the invisible work worse for everyone.
• Clients drop out early. Someone who has paid for one session at a time will quit at week five, right when the process gets tedious and just before results usually show up. That's bad for them, and it costs you the testimonial.

Price the Outcome, Over a Real Timeframe

Health changes on a biological clock, not a billing cycle. Gut protocols, thyroid work, hormone rebalancing — these take months.

So sell months. A package structured around the actual arc of the work — say 12 or 16 weeks — does three useful things at once: it matches how the body responds, it commits the client through the boring middle stretch, and it lets you price the whole transformation rather than an hour of talking.

What Actually Goes in the Package

Write down everything you really deliver. Most coaches are shocked by the list:

• Intake and history review (often 90 minutes plus prep)
• Lab interpretation and protocol design
• Scheduled calls across the period
• Between-call messaging support
• Protocol adjustments as results come in
• Handouts, meal frameworks, tracking tools

Now price that. The number that felt outrageous per hour looks reasonable next to the full scope — and the client sees what they're actually buying instead of a row of appointments.

Finding Your Number

There's no formula, but there is a sane process:

1. Set your income floor. How much do you need per year, and how many clients can you genuinely serve well at once? Divide. That's your minimum package price — not your goal, your floor.
2. Check the alternatives. What is your client already spending on this problem? Practitioner visits, supplements they guessed at, tests, time off work. Your price should sit sensibly inside that world.
3. Test it out loud three times. Say the number on three calls without flinching or discounting. If all three buy immediately, it's too low. If none do and the objection is genuinely price, look at your proof before you look at the number.

Two Traps Specific to This Field

Supplement revenue. Building your income around dispensary margin creates a conflict your client can feel, and it makes your coaching fee look like the small part of the relationship. Charge properly for the coaching and let supplements be a pass-through.

Sliding scale for everyone. Wanting the work to be accessible is a good instinct. Applying it to every client quietly turns your full price into a fiction. Set a real price, then decide deliberately how many reduced spots you can carry.

The Reframe That Makes It Easier

You are not asking someone to spend $3,000 on calls with you. You're asking them to stop spending another year on a problem they've already thrown money at — and to do it with someone who will notice when something isn't working.

Price for that, structure the package to deliver it, and the conversation about money gets much shorter.