How to price a personal training package without losing money on it

The same client relationship, two pricing models

A trainer bills $75 per single session. The same trainer also sells a package of 10 sessions for $580 — a 22.67% discount off the single-session rate. About 10% of booked sessions are no-shows, a missed package session earns a free makeup rather than being forfeited, and the gym charges a flat $12 facility fee for every session actually delivered, package or not.

Same client, same no-show rate, same facility fee. Charging full price per session and letting a no-show simply free that slot nets $17.00/hr more than selling the package at this discount with a makeup owed.

Waiving the makeup helps, but doesn't close the gap

Keep every number the same and change one thing: a missed package session is forfeited instead of made up. Net effective hourly pay on the package rises from $46.00/hr to $52.44/hr, because the package now frees the same hour a pay-per-session no-show would. It is still below the $63.00/hr of charging full price, because the discount and the flat facility fee still apply to every hour that does get worked.

Solving for a target instead of guessing at a discount

Rather than pick a package price and see what it nets, this calculator solves for the price that clears a take-home target directly. At a $45/hr target, the same 10-session, makeup-owed, $12-flat-fee package would need to be priced at $570 — $10 less than the $580 in the worked example above, which already overshoots that target by a dollar. Change the rate, the no-show rate, the makeup policy, or the venue's cost structure, and the target price moves with it; there is no fixed rule of thumb that survives every one of those changing independently.

What this is not

This is arithmetic on the rates, discount, no-show rate, makeup policy, and venue cost you type, applied to one representative block of sessions. It does not track which specific client owes a makeup, does not schedule anything, and does not predict any one client's actual attendance. Replace every figure with your own before relying on either number.

No warranty. This free page is not legal, tax, or financial advice. You are responsible for reviewing and verifying its output before relying on it. It is hosted best-effort with no SLA: it may be slow, broken, moved, or taken offline without notice. Open the package pricing calculator to compare your own numbers.

Common questions

How do I price a personal training package so it doesn't cost me money?

Check two things a revenue-only comparison misses: whether your discount is deeper than your real no-show rate once a missed session earns a makeup (every hour still gets worked, at the discounted rate), and whether your gym or studio charges a flat per-session facility fee rather than a percentage cut (a flat fee is a bigger percentage bite out of a discounted package session than out of a full-price one). On this calculator's own worked example — a $75 session, a 10-for-$580 package, 10% no-shows, makeup owed, $12 flat facility fee — the package nets $46.00/hr against $63.00/hr charging full price per session.

Why does a makeup-owed policy turn a safe-looking discount into a loss?

Because a no-show that must be made up is not actually saved hours — it is deferred hours. Pay-per-session, a no-show simply frees that slot: 10% no-shows on 10 sessions means 9 hours worked. With a makeup owed, all 10 hours are eventually worked at the discounted rate. A 22.67% package discount sold to cover a 10% no-show rate ends up paid on every hour, not just the ones attended, which is deeper than the risk it was meant to price.

Why does a flat facility fee hurt a package more than full price?

A flat fee is the same dollar amount no matter what you billed the client. On the worked example, a $12 facility fee is 16% of a $75 full-price session but 20.69% of the $58 package-equivalent rate — the same fixed fee eats a bigger share of a lower price. A percentage revenue-share cut does not do this: it takes the same share of both, so it scales the comparison down without changing which pricing model wins.

Does waiving the makeup fix the problem?

It helps, but does not fully close the gap. On the same worked example, dropping the makeup obligation raises the package's net effective hourly pay from $46.00/hr to $52.44/hr — because a package no-show now frees the same hour a pay-per-session no-show would. It is still below the $63.00/hr of charging full price per session, because the flat facility fee and the discount itself still apply to every hour that is worked.

What package price would have hit a $45/hr take-home target instead?

$570 for the same 10-session, makeup-owed, $12-flat-fee package — $10 less than the $580 in the worked example, because $580 already overshoots a $45/hr target by a dollar. This is not a rule of thumb; it is solved directly from your own rate, no-show rate, makeup policy and venue cost each time you run the calculator, since every one of those numbers changes the answer.