If you are a personal trainer or fitness professional who takes in-person clients, you must have thought about the possibility of pivoting online. Online personal training is scalable and when done right, it can be extremely profitable!
Whether you are a seasoned Personal Trainer looking to pivot online or a new Personal Trainer looking to start online, we've got all points covered for you. We will talk about how we can build a profitable, revenue growing Online Personal Training business that brings in a sizeable income of $100K/year.
Here's what we will cover in this post:
What is online personal training
Online personal training is a fitness service provided remotely through digital platforms such as websites, apps, video conferencing, email, or messaging. It allows individuals to access personalized fitness coaching, guidance, and support from certified trainers or coaches without the need for in-person meetings. Online personal training has gained popularity due to its convenience, flexibility, and accessibility...and most importantly, scalability.
Services offered in online personal training
Online Personal Training (unlike in-person training) can be more valuable if it's tailored to be deployed over a screen. Here are different services you can think about offering as an online Personal Trainer.
1. Customized Workout Plans: Trainers create tailored workout plans based on the individual's goals, fitness level, preferences, and available equipment. These plans may include strength training, cardio, flexibility exercises, and more.
2. Nutritional Guidance: Trainers offer personalized nutrition advice, meal planning, and dietary recommendations to help clients achieve their fitness goals. They may also track food intake and provide feedback to ensure clients are meeting their nutritional needs.
3. Virtual Coaching Sessions: Trainers conduct one-on-one coaching sessions via video conferencing platforms like Zoom or Skype. During these sessions, they provide instruction, support, and motivation, as well as form correction and exercise demonstrations.
4. Progress Tracking and Monitoring: Trainers use digital tools to track clients' progress, such as fitness apps, spreadsheets, or online platforms. They monitor performance, track measurements, and adjust workout plans accordingly to ensure continued progress.
5. Accountability and Support: Trainers offer ongoing support, motivation, and accountability to help clients stay on track with their fitness goals. This may include regular check-ins, communication through messaging apps or email, and encouragement to stick to the program.
6. Group Fitness Classes: Some online personal trainers offer group fitness classes conducted via live streaming or pre-recorded videos. These classes can cover a variety of workout formats, including HIIT, yoga, pilates, and more, catering to different fitness levels and interests.
7. Educational Resources: Trainers provide educational content on topics such as exercise techniques, injury prevention, mindset, and lifestyle habits to empower clients to make informed decisions and maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Formula for creating a successful online fitness business
Success = Strong Niche + Client Success + Right Tools
If you want to succeed in the online universe, you need to get 3 things right to drive a higher income, repeat clients, and career fulfilment.
Strong Niche
What does a niche mean? It means you have carved yourself a unique and specific piece of the market where you have a competitive advantage over your peers. You need to identify what brings your clients back day after day and why they signed up with YOU in the first place.
Identifying a strong niche will save you advertising costs and drive up client referrals which will give your business great economics. Don't skip this part.
This detailed guide will show you the step-by-step approach to identifying and carving yourself a strong niche.
Client Success
If you think about it, any business is meaningless without clients. Everything is made for and monetized by your clients so it's essential that this is part of your strategy.
Getting client success will give you a loyal, paying client base and referrals.
So what is client success? Client success means that your clients are so thrilled with the results and service you provide that they voluntarily spread the word to their friends and family.
If you are not sure whether you are getting client success, the truth is you're probably not. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to get your first client, how to convincing clients to join you, and most importantly, how to get clients to become advocates!
In Online Personal Training, here are a few factors to keep in mind to drive higher client success:
1. Clear Communication:
Effective communication between the trainer and client is crucial. This includes clearly defining goals, discussing expectations, providing feedback, and being responsive to inquiries.
Start by offering a free trial or assessment where you share a workout program and an estimate of the type of results they can expect. Be sure to include a disclaimer - all bodies are different and require different kinds of programs. Here's where case studies work the best!
2. Personalisation:
Tailoring workouts, nutrition plans, and support to meet the individual needs, preferences, and goals of each client enhances the effectiveness of online personal training.
3. Share Client Results:
Providing regular check-ins, progress tracking, and accountability measures helps clients stay committed to their fitness journey and motivates them to achieve their goals.
This is key. Clients are paying for a service usually because they themselves don't know what to do or don't have the will power to stick through a self-driven program. A Personal Trainer (online or offline) needs to hold the client accountable through tracking results.
Personal Trainers who track and share client results retain clients for longer
4. Expertise and Qualifications:
Trainers with relevant certifications, experience, and expertise inspire confidence in their clients and deliver high-quality guidance and coaching.
If you're looking to understand all the different certifications and qualifications out there and what is right for you, check out this detailed guide to Personal Training Certifications.
5. Accessibility and Convenience:
Online training = flexibility + convenience to clients
Offering flexible scheduling, easy-to-access resources, and user-friendly platforms makes it convenient for clients to engage with their training program consistently.
6. Motivation and Support:
Providing encouragement, motivation, and support helps clients overcome challenges, stay focused, and maintain momentum towards their goals.
7. Technology and Tools:
More on this below....
effective digital tools, fitness apps, video conferencing platforms, and other technology will make or break the online training experience. This is integral in the online world.
8. Tuned In to Latest Education and Trends:
Staying up-to-date with the latest research, trends, and developments in fitness and nutrition allows trainers to provide evidence-based guidance and continually improve their services.
9. Build a Community:
Creating a supportive online community or group where clients can connect, share experiences, and motivate each other fosters a sense of belonging and enhances the overall training experience.
10. Results-Oriented Approach:
Focusing on delivering measurable results and celebrating achievements reinforces clients' progress and satisfaction with the training program.
Use a free app like EZbook to track and share results in 1-click.
Sharing client progress is the best way to driving client retention
Right Tools
Online training is all about giving your clients the convenience and 5-star experience that they are not able to receive in-person. Not only do you have to compensate for not being there in person, you have to prove your value through seamless technology and convenience.
Online training is all about convenience and accessibility for your clients
Here are a list of the top free tools in 2025 to scale your Online Training career:
Live or Recorded Video sessions
For live 1on1 sessions: Zoom or Google Meet
For recorded video sessions: Youtube private (free), Loom.com
Website
Simple one-pager that you can spin up in 15 minutes: carrd.co
Detailed website builder: wix.com, webflow.com, yola.com, carrd.co (not free but very affordable and convenient)
Sell subscriptions or guides: Detailed website builders offer paid plans to sell content
Business Management Software
Online calendar bookings: ezbookapp.com, calendly.com, setmore.com
Tracking packages and client sessions: ezbookapp.com (free)
Tracking revenue and payments: ezbookapp.com (free)
Tools to track and share client progress
Track and share client progress: Google sheets (free), EZbook app (free)
Communication platforms
Use friction-less communication platforms like SMS, emails, WhatsApp, Slack, or Messenger for quick communication and support.
Key is to use what your clients already use and not to introduce a whole new communicating system. It's all about convenience.
Complementary apps for clients
Nutrition tracking: My Fitness Pal, Lose It!
Content creation tools
Video recording for exercise videos, tutorials, and more: loom.com
Video editing: canva.com, invideo.com
Social media content: canva.com
Create guides: canva.com
Store and share guides: Google Drive, Dropbox
Additional monitoring devices for clients (optional)
Fitbits, Smart watches, weighing scales
How to transition to Online Personal Training: Step-by-Step Guide
Pivoting to online can bring you a lot more reach and there are several tools in the market that can help you. I don't recommend switching all-in initially. As with any new venture, it's important to test the waters and iterate your offering until it's competitive. That will get you great results (relatively with lower stress + costs).
Here's how you should make the transition:
1. Carve out your niche: What is your strength or competitive advantage? Why do your clients stick with you or join you over others? Understanding this and then using it to market yourself online will give you a stronger reach online. You don't want to be lost in a sea of online trainers with rising advertising costs.
You can go back to the top of this guide to learn more about your niche.
2. Start with a specific, small niche: Once you know your niche, start small and test it. Ask your current set of clients if they know anyone looking for online/virtual personal training. You can get a great set of leads from here to begin with.
If that isn't possible, you can also run a test ad on Facebook / Google and see what kind of demand you see for the type of personal training you're offering.
3. Iterate till you see results: Start testing with a small cohort of clients only online. This will help you streamline any kinks in the process and experiment with pricing. Your goal is to make this small set of clients successful and extremely happy - so happy that they spread the word. Always ask clients for feedback to improve your online coaching. Each time you get a new client, incorporate this feedback.
4. Pivot once your offering is solid: Once most (if not all) of your online clients have given you great feedback, you are ready to make the full pivot to online-only. Now you can invest in a website, some marketing courses, and start advertising to a much larger pool of clients. You know your niche, your offering, and the type of clientele that is a great fit. You can target this specifically.
If you want more details, here's a useful guide on how to grow a successful fitness venture.
What it takes to make $100K in revenue
To make $100K in revenue, you need to optimize two levers:
Revenue = # of sessions x price / session
# of sessions
There are two ways to grow your number of sessions.
More sessions per client
Add more sessions for your existing clients.
Renewals: Make sure each client of yours renews their package
Packages: Push for packages over single sessions. This drivers loyalty and you can show results over a longer period (vs. a single session)
Multiple services: Push for multiple services for each client. For instance, you could add a nutrition package along with a personal training package.
More clients
This one's intuitive. Adding more clients will give you a bigger bump in sessions and hence revenue.
Drive higher client referrals: Ask your existing clients to bring you more clients. This is free and the most effective marketing tool you can use. An existing client referring their friend or family member is a persuasive way to grow your client base.
Advertise: With online programs, you can use Google Ads or social media ads to drive more traffic to your website and hence get you more leads.
Pre-recorded courses: Selling pre-recorded courses can help you add additional income streams. You can test out a course with your existing client base and get feedback before you begin advertising.
Guides: Selling workout programs through guides is not a very new thing but it can be an effective way to make scalable income. Like pre-recorded courses and unlike 1on1 training, it takes a one time investment of effort and time to create a smashing guide that can be sold to thousands of customers. The best part? You can cross-sell your customers from pre-recorded courses and guides your 1on1 training programs which can have higher pricing and margins.
Price / session
Experiment with pricing
Keep pushing the price: When you are just starting out your business, it helps to experiment and test differing pricing. Initially, you may have to discount to get a few clients but once you have a reputation and strong credibility, you can start experimenting.
Every time you get a new client, test a price point that is 10% higher than the previous client. Use a free app like EZbook to track what price you have charged which customers automatically. This app can help you renew clients at the same price which makes your life easy.
You will never know the true value of your training until you test the price.
Every time you get a new client, test a price point that is 10% higher than the previous client.
Sell multiple services
Sell add-ons: You could sell a client multiple services or packages to increase the price / session. For instance, a Nutrition + Personal Training package could be $100 / session vs. only Personal Training could be $80/session.
Sell multiple content formats: While you can continue to sell 1on1 packages with clients, the beauty of online programs is that you can also push different content formats. This could mean monthly events that you sell at a different prices or group classes. For instance, you could sell your existing Personal Training clients a 2-hour workshop for mobility or do a joint-session with a yoga instructor and do a yoga workshop. The possibilities are endless.
Combinations to reaching $100K in revenue
In the real world, you will likely sell 1 or more services if you pivot to online. You may also continue offering in-person training if you currently offer that. There's not hard and fast rule that you should only do 1 thing. In fact, diversifying and testing can open up multiple different revenue streams for you.
Here are two online scenarios of getting to $100K / year. For the sake of simplicity, we've modelled out 1 service at a time. This is to show that it is more than possible to make this income with only 1 service. If you add on more, that's a bonus!
Scenario 1: Only 1on1 Personal Training with 10 clients
1440 sessions x $70 / session = $100,800
Assumptions
Let's say you have 10 clients
This means you'll charge $10K / client per year
This means ~$833 / client per month.
If you do 12 sessions a month for each client, thats a price of ~$70 / session ($833/12 = $70).
That's a total of 1440 sessions in a year (12 sessions x 10 clients x 12 months)!
Selling e-guides at $39 / guide
Let's say for the sake of simplicity, you only sell guides. This is the math that will take you to $100K/year.
214 purchases / mo x $39 / guide = $100,152
Assumptions
Let's say you sell multiple guides that come up to $39 / guide
This means you'll need $100,000 / $39 = ~2,564 purchases in a year
This could be existing customers buying multiple guides or new customers. In a month, you'll need ~214 purchases.
Let's say each new customers buys at least 2 guides from you (first 12 weeks, then second 12 weeks). This means you need 214 / 2 = ~107 new customers each month.
The key to reaching $100K / year is to track your monthly growth and progress. While you can use a Google sheet to do that, running a business while providing services can be a waste of time.
Use a free, automated system like EZbook to track sessions, revenue and payments each month. You keep experimenting and ensure you hit your monthly targets!
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