Do they refer to themselves as “Doc”, or “The Doc”?
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The going rate for 30 minute private lessons given by the college varsity swim team kids is $25 per 30 minutes. They have a steady supply of parents bring their 2 year old to 8 year olds (typical age) to them, including my family. That’s $50 an hour for 18 to 20 year old.
Certifications matter to some point, but I know some super talented people without certifications.
This cannot be emphasized enough. I’m a project manager. The universally accepted certification for project managers is a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. I have known PMs who have their PMP & they are terrible project managers. They know the material in theory, but they cannot execute. Similarly, some of the best PMs I have ever worked with never even studied for or tried to get their PMP because they let their qualifications & experience speak louder than a certification would.
What makes a good coach is almost intangible, and personal skill in the sport doesn’t always translate to good coaching. Michael Phelps may be the most decorated swimmer ever, but for all we know, he may be a miserable coach.
To echo what others have said, you need to see what your coach is doing for you & your group. If he’s showing up with a workout on a whiteboard & clapping & cheering everyone along, but no one is improving, you can get that from a book & save a lot of money. If he is studying everyone’s stroke, making corrections, pushing you harder while knowing your individual skill, and everyone is seeing improvement, then I would say he is worth it.
That’s roughly 2.5x the market rate for a masters coach here in the Baltimore metro area. And for $63 an hour I’d expect a super coach, bringing in lots of people, out marketing, season plans that align with local competitions, at meets and other competitions, the works, a truly fantastic coach.
Some people seem to be comparing to one on one work with video, that’s usually billed at a much higher rate than group workouts.
So are you paying a high rate, if you were in Baltimore I’d say yes. Are you paying too much? That depends on what is being delivered.
If you had mentioned $63 per hour for masters coaching at the latest usms masters coach certification I was it, you’d have had a lot of takers :-).
That’s roughly 2.5x the market rate for a masters coach here in the Baltimore metro area. And for $63 an hour I’d expect a super coach, bringing in lots of people, out marketing, season plans that align with local competitions, at meets and other competitions, the works, a truly fantastic coach.
Some people seem to be comparing to one on one work with video, that’s usually billed at a much higher rate than group workouts.
So are you paying a high rate, if you were in Baltimore I’d say yes. Are you paying too much? That depends on what is being delivered.
If you had mentioned $63 per hour for masters coaching at the latest usms masters coach certification I was it, you’d have had a lot of takers :-).
It’s hard to be this definitive without knowing more details. How many hours get billed for a workout and how much time goes into the planning/prep and other activities? I certainly wouldn’t coach a masters team if it was $50 3x a week and it took at least 2hrs of my time each workout and I had to travel some distance to get to/from the pool. If it was more hours and I was a student at a university pool or something like that, it would be good money.
That’s roughly 2.5x the market rate for a masters coach here in the Baltimore metro area. And for $63 an hour I’d expect a super coach, bringing in lots of people, out marketing, season plans that align with local competitions, at meets and other competitions, the works, a truly fantastic coach.
Some people seem to be comparing to one on one work with video, that’s usually billed at a much higher rate than group workouts.
So are you paying a high rate, if you were in Baltimore I’d say yes. Are you paying too much? That depends on what is being delivered.
If you had mentioned $63 per hour for masters coaching at the latest usms masters coach certification I was it, you’d have had a lot of takers :-).
Do you mean for someone work who’s working as an employee rather than as an independent contractor? Then I could possibly see only $25 / hour for a fairly knowledgeable professional. If they’re working as in independent like most of us do, and they’re a legitimate professional, carrying all their insurance along with all the other costs of operating a business, and doing the session prep work “off the clock”, then $63/hour is more like the minimum that they’ll charge in the Mid-Atlantic region.
FWIW, $60 / hour is the minimum that I’ll charge for personal training or coaching, and that’s for either inside my studio or for work that’s on a recurring schedule like the OP asked about.
If the coach knows their stuff, and he’s carrying his own insurance, doing the planning outside the billable hours, etc, then they’re probably getting a fair deal.
That’s roughly 2.5x the market rate for a masters coach here in the Baltimore metro area. And for $63 an hour I’d expect a super coach, bringing in lots of people, out marketing, season plans that align with local competitions, at meets and other competitions, the works, a truly fantastic coach.
Some people seem to be comparing to one on one work with video, that’s usually billed at a much higher rate than group workouts.
So are you paying a high rate, if you were in Baltimore I’d say yes. Are you paying too much? That depends on what is being delivered.
If you had mentioned $63 per hour for masters coaching at the latest usms masters coach certification I was it, you’d have had a lot of takers :-).
Agree with Kevin. I have been coaching for over 25 years, including starting my own masters program in 1997 (with a few swimmers who have set world and national masters records, multiple national champions, top 10 swimmers every year) and I don’t make anywhere near $63/hour…not every half of that! Our program pays around $16-$17/hr for coaches who sub for me. My HS coaching rate works out to MAYBE $20/hr, and I think that is on the high end around here in the Philly suburbs. Summer club was supposed to be $25/hr but didn’t include time writing line ups and communicating with parents so that extra time easily cut that rate in half. A local aquatics club thought $25 was way too much to pay a swim coach so I turned them down as that was the bare minimum I would accept as a successful coach with over 20 yrs experience.
Now, $63/hr take home for privates sessions (after paying the pool) sounds about right but not for coaching standard weekly masters workouts. Please tell me where they are paying $60+ an hour, and I will seriously consider relocating if there is at least 10 hours of coaching per week!
-leh
Here in b.c. my wife charges 60 dollars an hour for one on one swim coaching. She has her level 2 nccp certification and has coached swim clubs for 5 plus years. She also has a very good athlete cv for triathlon. We cater to triathletes for the one on one’s. Small group is 20 dollars per person up to 3-4 people. A head swim coach at a small club makes around 30 grand a year for season from september to june. not much money but many coaches will also coach for summer. The large swim club coaches can make as high as 70 grand a year, maybe higher for the really good ones. My wife for one on ones and small groups gets a lot of business, so the charge is definitely not out of the ball park
Here in b.c. my wife charges 60 dollars an hour for one on one swim coaching. She has her level 2 nccp certification and has coached swim clubs for 5 plus years. She also has a very good athlete cv for triathlon. We cater to triathletes for the one on one’s. Small group is 20 dollars per person up to 3-4 people. A head swim coach at a small club makes around 30 grand a year for season from september to june. not much money but many coaches will also coach for summer. The large swim club coaches can make as high as 70 grand a year, maybe higher for the really good ones. My wife for one on ones and small groups gets a lot of business, so the charge is definitely not out of the ball park
If you go to a bigger market like Ontario, the swim caches are making 100k+ a year for full time work.
It would be far better to know how much the entire contract is work per week/month/season instead of just an hourly rate. Like many have said, $63 an hour depends on the circumstances.
The market helps determine the cost. In my situation the masters program is aligned with a local USA Swimming club. As part of the head coach’s duties coaching morning masters workouts are included (this coincides with the morning age group practice). The assistant coaches of the USA Swimming program are paid $15/hr to fill in when he is gone. The masters program only has a handful of regulars. The pay $75 for 30 swims ( a supervised hour workout). Masters only swim M-F, 0500-0600. We have limited pool daily pool time (1 hour in the morning and 2-2.5 hrs in the evening).
Private lessons prices vary but the local market is notoriously cheap. I charge $30/hr, pay the pool $5 per person and carry my own liability insurance.
I would pay somebody $1,000/hr to transform me from a 2:00/yd swimmer to a 1:40/yd swimmer over 2.4 miles over 6 sessions.
as I said the contracts for swim coaching go from september to June… as for hourly wage it’s hourly because there is no contract in our situation…
That is crazy for a masters coach!!! I am living in the Toronto area, NCCP level 3, also ASCA level 4 have coached Olympic finalist and I bill at a rate of just under $40 for group workouts. Yes I charge more for private or video analysis, but would not even dream of charging over $60 a hour for a masters group as simple math would make to program not affordable to most people. By any chance are you from north of Toronto because I can think of one club that I know of that has crazy fees and this would explain itOur Masters swim club recently discovered that because of poor financial planning, our swim season will either be cut short, or we will have to chip in to fund the last month of swimming before the summer break. In looking at the financial report to figure out where we went wrong, we discovered that we’re paying our coach $63/hour for coaching, and our asst. coach less than half that. Our head coach also gets an admin fee of approximately $11/hour of coaching time to do ‘stuff’ (mostly responding to athlete emails). I was surprised by these figures.
I’m wondering whether this is a normal rate, or if we’re overpaying?
**Basic qualifications: **
Certified High Five trainer
NCCP level 1+
NLS+first Aid and CPR Certified
Red Cross and LSS Instructor
Sears I Can Swim Conductor Trainer
Former World Cup Swimmer
Good gravy their are some pricey swim lessons out there! $50 an hour will get you instruction from a pool of club coaches who currently have 2 Oly Trials kids under their care. One of whom got their 4th trials cut over the weekend.
As someone who loves to coach swimming, $63/hour to coach an entire team is not unreasonable. I’ve been paid anywhere from $10/hour when I was 16-18 to $25/hour when starting a small masters team in the Skokie, IL area. However, I’ve also been a part of a few masters teams where I coach from the water. If you just need someone to call out workouts and intervals, that’s something that can be done from the water. Be sure to give them a gift card or pay their usms fees, etc. Coaching from the water is fun, because I get to do my workouts and drag people along with me…plus I don’t have to analyze anyone’s technique. THAT’s why you pay for coaches, and you’ll lose that if you run workouts from the lane.
The coach might have a contract for $100k, but that might be a ‘coaching services’ contract out of which they have to pay assistants, etc. I am highly skeptical that more than one or two coaches are earning $100k, unless they are in a scenario where they can double dip and coach both a university team and an age group team at the same time.
I agree that the hourly rate is inappropriate for an age group coach, because coaches have admin time, supervisory time, meet time, travel time, etc. that need to be considered.
Can you guys promote the assistant coach to a new head coach to keep the season alive?
That would be ideal – I contend I get more out of the Asst than I do out of our head coach.
Unfortunately, the head coach appears to have the final say on who is coaching – the assistant coach is coaching half of what she had coached last year.
That would be ideal – I contend I get more out of the Asst than I do out of our head coach.
Unfortunately, the head coach appears to have the final say on who is coaching – the assistant coach is coaching half of what she had coached last year.
How many hours is the head coach billing per week?