By: Dr. Sean Pastuch
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Pricing within a few percent of everyone else is the worst position. Aim to be categorically more expensive, and clearly the best value.
- Luxury is not addition. It’s subtraction — the removal of friction for the client.
- Build the service you’d run if you could charge anything and everyone said yes. That version is genuinely better for clients.
- You can still serve people who can’t afford you: full price for those who can, free for those who can’t, funded by the time and money the first group frees up.
- Expect criticism for being the most expensive. It comes with the territory, and it’s rarely from the people who actually worked with you.
Stop trying to be priced like everyone else. The goal is to be the most expensive option in your market and, just as obviously, the best deal in it.
Dr. Sean Pastuch built Active Life's flagship into the most expensive gym in its town. Here's the pricing logic behind it, and the mindset most coaches have to change before any of it works.
The worst place to price is the middle.
Most coaches end up within a few percent of everyone else in town. That's the weakest spot there is: you're just another version of the same thing, forced to defend small differences. Being a little more expensive doesn't signal "better" — it signals "slightly more expensive." The move is to be categorically different, in a different conversation entirely.
Luxury is subtraction, not addition.
Think about the doctor's office: the book of forms, the questions no one reads, the 15-to-45-minute wait, every single visit. Nobody raves about that. Find everywhere your business creates that kind of friction and remove it.
"Luxury is not addition. It's subtraction. Luxury is the absence of friction for your client or customer."
Build the business you'd run if everyone said yes.
Imagine you could charge whatever you wanted and everyone agreed. Design that service. You'll notice it's a better service: clients get better results, faster, and they tell more people because of how good and how frictionless it was. Sean lived the opposite first — 80 to 90 hour weeks for under $40,000, spread so thin he couldn't be the coach he wanted to be. A mentor made him cut to 50 hours, then he cut to 20. His prices went up 5x and demand went up 10x.
Two prices: free and full.
The fear is always "I don't only want to work with people who can afford me." You don't have to. Take full price from the people who can pay, and use the time and money that buys you to help the people who can't, for free. Two prices, free and full. It's how you actually serve everyone instead of underpricing for everyone and burning out.
You will catch hell for it.
Being the most expensive in your market invites criticism — to your face, and in reviews from people who were never your clients. It stings, and it gets louder as you grow. The people who actually worked with Sean are the ones saying they'd have paid more for what they got; the noise usually comes from people who only ever heard the price.
"Being hated by idiots is the price you pay for not being one of them."
And this is where "most expensive and best priced" clicks. If someone asked $10,000 for a sandbag, you'd laugh. If someone asked $10,000 for a house, you'd ask what the catch is — because the value so obviously exceeds the price. That's the feeling your offer needs to create: a big number that's just as obviously worth far more.
Charging a premium only works when you can deliver a result people can't get anywhere else. The L1 workshop is where coaches start building exactly that.
Start inside the assessment system. The L1 Biomechanics & Assessment Workshop is two days, live online, $19 (it was $1,500 in-person).
GRAB A SPOT — $19FAQ
A: "Accessible" pricing is partly a myth — someone always can't afford even your current price. Charge full to those who can, and serve those who can't for free with the time it buys you.
A: The value has to obviously exceed the price. $10,000 for a sandbag is insane; $10,000 for a house makes you ask what the catch is. Build the second feeling.
A: If you're the kind of person who takes care of everyone around you, it's in everyone's interest that you have money. If you believe money makes people bad, you'll never let yourself earn it.
A: Expect it, and expect it to grow as you do. It rarely comes from people who actually worked with you. Let the idiots be idiots.
A: The $19 L1 Assessment Workshop. Four hours, live online, and the lowest-risk way to see if this is the work you want to be doing.
Adapted from Dr. Sean Pastuch. Watch the full video above.
📖 Every coach should read this one.
Live More. Hurt Less. by Dr. Sean Pastuch is the thinking behind the method — how pain actually works, and why the members who've "tried everything" are still stuck. Read it to sharpen how you coach, then put it in your clients' hands.
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