If you’re working as a coach, you’ve probably noticed that group coaching programs are getting more attention. And when you think about it, that makes sense. There are only so many individual coaching sessions you can fit into your calendar. At some point, if you want to earn more, you either have to raise your prices or work more hours. Neither option is always practical.
The coaching industry itself is growing. According to the International Coaching Federation’s 2025 Global Coaching Study, annual coaching revenue reached an estimated $5.34 billion, an increase of 17% compared with the previous study. And within this expanding industry, group coaching is becoming an attractive option for coaches looking for different ways to develop their businesses. What’s also interesting is that the traditional format of group coaching is changing. You no longer have to deliver everything live, with everyone attending the same Zoom meeting at the same time. Hybrid programs, which combine prerecorded content with live coaching sessions, are worth looking at, particularly if you’d like to work with clients from different countries.
Why Group Coaching Makes Financial Sense
Let’s say you’re charging $100 for an individual coaching session. To earn $4,500, you’d need to deliver 45 sessions. Now imagine you develop an eight-week group coaching program for 15 participants, each paying $300. That’s also $4,500 in revenue. But instead of delivering 45 individual sessions, you meet with your group for two hours each week. That’s 16 hours of live coaching. Quite a difference, isn’t it?
Of course, there’s a catch. You still need to create the program, promote it, find 15 people willing to pay for it, and prepare your sessions. And if you’ve ever tried filling a group program, you probably know that finding 15 participants isn’t necessarily easier than finding individual clients. But once you’ve developed a program that works, you can offer it again. You don’t need to start from scratch every time, and that’s where group coaching can become financially interesting.
There’s something else I’d consider before jumping into it, though. Coaching 15 people isn’t the same as coaching one person 15 times. You’re working with different personalities, different expectations, and different challenges, all at once. You need to know how to facilitate a group, not just how to coach an individual. And bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. Sometimes, a group of six people can offer a much richer coaching experience than a group of twenty. It really depends on the purpose of your program and how much individual attention you want to provide. So while the financial potential is attractive, I wouldn’t choose the group size based on revenue calculations alone.
Hybrid Group Coaching: An Interesting Option for International Coaches
Now, here’s something I’d pay particular attention to if I were planning to develop an international coaching business. Imagine you’re based in Europe (as I am), but some of your participants live in the United States, Australia, or Asia. How do you organize a weekly Zoom session that works for everyone? You probably can’t. At least not without someone having to wake up in the middle of the night or join the session while everyone else in their household is having dinner.
This is where hybrid group coaching becomes interesting. Instead of teaching everything during live sessions, you record the educational parts of your program in advance. Your participants can watch those videos whenever they want, complete exercises, and prepare for the next meeting at their own pace. Then, when you meet live, you actually coach. You work with their questions, discuss what they’ve experienced, help them explore their challenges, and give them an opportunity to learn from each other.
Someone in Australia can watch your lesson on Monday afternoon, while someone in California might watch it on Sunday evening. Nobody has to rearrange their entire schedule just to listen to a presentation. Of course, you’ll still have to figure out the live sessions. You might offer two different meeting times, rotate the schedule, or make some sessions optional. But at least you’re not asking everyone to attend live for material they could easily study on their own.
And there’s another advantage for you as a coach. Once you’ve recorded the educational part of your program, you can use it with future groups. You can update it whenever necessary, but you don’t have to repeat the same lessons every time you run the program.
I would be careful about one thing, though. If your participants are simply watching prerecorded videos and occasionally joining a Q&A session, you might be offering an online course rather than a group coaching program. There’s nothing wrong with online courses, of course. But if you’re calling something group coaching, I’d expect the actual coaching to play an important role. Otherwise, what’s the point of bringing people together?
Thinking About Starting Your Own Group Coaching Program?
If you’ve been working exclusively with individual clients, I wouldn’t suggest starting with a big group of 20 people. Why not begin with five or six? Choose a specific challenge you already help your clients with and develop a six- or eight-week program around it. You’ll learn a lot from that first group, not just about what participants need, but also about what kind of group facilitator you are.
You might discover that you enjoy working with smaller groups where everyone gets plenty of individual attention. Or you might find that you prefer larger groups with more opportunities for discussion and different perspectives. And if you’re thinking about working internationally, I’d explore the hybrid format from the beginning.
Ask yourself something simple: Which parts of my program really need me to be there live? If you’re explaining a concept or introducing an exercise, could you record that in advance? And could you then use your live meetings for something more valuable, like helping participants apply what they’ve learned to their own lives?
Related article: If you’d like to see how this could work in practice, I’ve put together a practical 8-week hybrid group coaching template with examples of recorded lessons, live coaching sessions, and between-session exercises. You can use it as a starting point for developing your own program.
Personally, I think that’s one of the most useful things about hybrid group coaching. You can spend less of your live time explaining things and more of it actually coaching people. And if I were developing a new group coaching program today, especially for an international audience, I’d definitely give that option serious consideration. After all, why make everyone attend another Zoom meeting just to listen to something they could have watched whenever they wanted?
