Salary Coaches vs. Freelance Coaches: Which Is Better?

How to Make the Right Decision when Hiring Personal Trainers for Your Gym

Cardy Brothers
March 17, 2024

Estimated read time: 1 minute 56 seconds.

Dear Fitpreneurs,

When hiring personal trainers for your gym, there are 2 options:

We know studio owners who follow both these approaches with great success.

But which is better for the long-term health of your gym?

You can definitely get more for your money with this option.

There a lot of beginner personal trainers who prefer the security that comes with a salary.

Plus you can create the job role, set the parameters and manage staff holidays.

This can protect the business in the future and means you’re getting someone committed straight away.

When a personal trainer becomes self employed, they’re stepping into the role of a fitpreneur.

This means they have the ambition to create a business out of their skill.

For us at Revamp, we only want to hire fitpreneurs.

Why? Because our entire business model relies on the coaches.

If we don’t have A Star talent welcoming members through the door, we suffer.

We’d rather pay a premium for a world class coach than save a few quid with a mediocre one.

This is a hiring option no-one talks about.

We know one successful gym owner who pays their coaches less per session but makes up for it through benefits.

This can look like:

It’s a great approach as you can still attract top talent but compensate them in other areas.

When we launched our latest studio, we followed this process:

Approach the best coaches in the area
Offer £20 per session with performance based increase. (E.g. When the business hits specific targets, the pay increases by £2.50 - £5 per session).
Request a signed Service Level Agreement with a 6 month minimum term and a 30 day notice period.
Keep the coach up to date on business performance.
Review and improve as we go.

We knew we wanted to have amazing coaches but didn’t have a huge budget because we were brand new.

This way, we could enrol our team on the mission and bump up their pay as we grew.

Within 2 months of the business opening, all our coaches enjoyed an instant pay rise as promised.

I once heard a studio owner say: “I salary my coaches because I want to them to feel part of the team”.

But if you’re relying on the business’ pay structure to define staff morale, there are bigger problems.

How about this: find the best coaches, treat them well, celebrate them in your content and pay a premium.

As you grow, there are always options to increase their pay or promote them in other roles.

That’s it from us. Reply any time…

Cardy Brothers

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