I am often asked how much do personal trainers cost. The question is asked as if there is only one simple answer to this question. However, that is not the case as many factors go into how a personal trainer determines their session rate. For those who are looking for a personal trainer they can work with, it is more important to determine where you budget breakpoint is and what your needs are. All of the other factors are merely non-factors until it is necessary to know. Sometimes people are afraid to hear the answer, because they think that personal training will be too expensive. When it comes to personal training prices there are a couples of myths I would like to dispel.
Most people have to travel to work everyday and rarely do people get paid for their travel time to the office. But in service businesses, if you have in home services, you will have to pay more for the person to come to you. This is not the case, most of the time, with personal trainers. For trainers in New York City, they spend much of their days going from place to place on a bike or the bus. Most have an unlimited metro card, so it costs them nothing extra to get around the city. It is expected that some traveling between clients is done. Many of their clients live in buildings that have gyms in their apartment buildings, so it makes sense to go to them. What’s best for the trainer in this case is their is no cost to them to train clients in a “home gym”. There is no rent being charged. Now, if you were very particular in the personal trainer or instructor you selected and they had to travel an hour out of their normal area to get to you, then they might charge you for travel time.
If you are concerned that you might be paying someone just to travel to your location, then you might consider an instructor who has their own training studio. However, there are some out there who would argue that personal trainers with private training studios cost more. True, they do have rental fees to pay, but aside from that there is little expense. The flip side of that argument is that they can train more people in less time since they don’t have to travel from place to place. Their travel time is reduced to zero. If they have a home base gym or their own private studio, they can bounce from one session to the next with little or no intermission. There is little chance that the trainer hasn’t built this cost into their session rates already. Every business has expenses that are built into the cost of their product or service.
On a different matter all together, some personal training clients think you get better results with more expensive trainers. My guess is you can find lots of people who paid high session rates and got little results, while their will be others who found less expensive trainers and achieved great results. Just the same as you might buy a Mercedes that is in the repair shop often, while someone who bought a new less expensive Ford could drive problem free for years. Personal trainers determine their rates on many factors. They will look at basic things like their expenses and competitor pricing in the area. After that they have to confidently consider what value to place on their services. They will take into account, there level of education, the packages they want to offer, business and financial goals, and the simple laws of supply and demand.
The bottom line when determining what to pay for personal training services, is to not worry about how the trainer came to determine their price. Find the right combination of services, skills, and experience that meet your needs in your price range. If you need a trainer to provide in-home services, then you look for those that offer that option. If your medical history requires an instructor has a special certification, the you put that on your check list. Don’t settle for a trainer based on the cheapest price. Rather, look for the personal trainers in your price range that meet your needs. To view a robust list of personal trainer profiles in your New York City zip code, click here.
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