If you’ve spent any time in the online business world, you’ve probably heard the pitch a thousand times: coaching is the ultimate way to make money online. High ticket prices, low overhead, work from anywhere in the world. It sounds perfect, doesn’t it?
And look, I’m not here to tell you that coaching can’t be lucrative. It absolutely can be. In fact, from a pure profit margin perspective, it’s hard to beat. You’re essentially trading your expertise and time for premium rates, often charging hundreds or even thousands of dollars per session. There’s no inventory to manage, no shipping costs, no complex funnels to maintain. Just you, your knowledge, and clients willing to pay for transformation.
But here’s what nobody talks about when they’re selling you their course on how to become a six-figure coach: the relentless grind of actually doing the work.
Every single dollar you make in coaching comes from showing up on a Zoom call with another human being. And while that might sound appealing in theory, the reality is exhausting in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. You’re constantly “on” in a way that other online business models don’t require. Each client needs your full attention, your energy, your empathy, and your problem-solving abilities in real time.
There’s no automation here. You can’t record it once and sell it a thousand times like a course. You can’t write it once and earn passive income like an ebook. Every client session is a fresh performance, and you need to bring your A-game whether it’s your first call of the day or your fifth. Try maintaining genuine enthusiasm and presence when you’re explaining the same foundational concept for the fortieth time that month to someone who didn’t do the homework you assigned.
And then there’s the emotional labor of dealing with people’s problems, resistance, excuses, and sometimes their personality quirks that make you question your career choices. Some clients are absolute dreams to work with. Others drain every ounce of your patience. You become part therapist, part cheerleader, part accountability partner, and part punching bag when things don’t go as planned in their business or life. The boundaries between professional relationship and emotional caretaker can blur uncomfortably.
The scheduling alone can feel like a part-time job. Coordinating across time zones, dealing with last-minute cancellations, rescheduling when someone’s kid gets sick or they simply forgot to show up. You’re constantly context-switching between different clients, different problems, different personalities. By the end of a coaching-heavy week, you might be making great money, but you’ll also feel like you’ve run an emotional marathon.
What really gets me is how coaching scales terribly. Want to double your income? You need to double your facetime hours or double your prices. There’s a hard ceiling on how much you can earn unless you’re willing to spend more of your life on video calls with strangers. Some coaches try to escape this trap by creating group programs, but then you’re managing group dynamics, which brings its own special brand of chaos.
The irony is that many people get into coaching because they want freedom and flexibility, but they end up trapped by their calendar, beholden to their clients’ schedules and needs. That beach laptop lifestyle? Sure, as long as you’ve got stable wifi for your 6am call with a client in Sydney and your 9pm session with someone in New York.
None of this means coaching is bad or that you shouldn’t do it. If you genuinely love working directly with people, if their breakthroughs energize you rather than deplete you, if you don’t mind your income being directly tied to your available hours, then coaching might actually be perfect for you. But let’s stop pretending it’s this effortless path to online riches. It’s hard work that requires a specific personality type and a high tolerance for human interaction at scale.
The best way to make money online isn’t necessarily the one that looks best on an income screenshot. It’s the one that aligns with how you actually want to spend your days and what kind of energy exchange you’re willing to make. For some people, that’s coaching. For many others, it’s the beautiful realization that there are other paths that don’t require quite so much exhausting facetime with strangers who need you to solve their problems.
