9 Innovative Ways To Earn Passive Income For Personal Trainers

Whilst working in the fitness industry, you may question ‘What passive income for personal trainers is out there?’

In this article, we will guide you through 9 sources of passive income that might complement your work as a personal trainer.

Before we begin, you can earn additional income with a our Level 4 Sports Nutrition Course. This highly sought-after specialism helps expand your knowledge, allowing you to work with a lucrative new client base.

You can also explore our entire range of courses here at OriGym by downloading our free course prospectus.

#1 - Selling Premade Workout Programmes Is An Easy Way To Make Passive Income As A PT

One of the ways you can earn a personal trainer passive income is by selling premade workout plans that customers can purchase.

They can provide customers with structure and guidance while exercising to achieve fitness goals, including:

• Tips on how to maintain weight loss
• Improving cardio
• Building muscle 

The plan would be sold as a one-off purchase which the customers can follow themselves to monitor their progress.

You can maximise your earning potential in this area by offering a variety of plans, such as 12-week cardio plans or 24-week IronMan preparation plans for professional athletes.

To create a premade workout plan that is effective for its targeted audience, there are 5 key areas to consider: 

1. Goal: strength, hypertrophy, fat loss
2. Skill level: beginner, intermediate, professional
3. Duration: 4 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks or 24 weeks
4. Days Per Week: 1 - 7 days 
5. Type: Muscle endurance, strength training   

Once these have been addressed, you can write a weekly workout plan that compliments the goal that specific groups of clients are looking to achieve.

Muscle and Strength provide an insight into how this could look if you were planning to offer customers a workout plan for muscle building: 

After you’ve written your fitness plans, you’ll want to promote them to start generating this personal training revenue stream.

You can promote them on social media by uploading ads onto your business account and including a link to your website so people can view the plans you’re selling.

This is something IM Coaching & Nutrition offer their clients, providing fitness plans to help them get personal training clients through Instagram and providing a link to view further information on their website:

When you’re selling your plans on your website, you can create a section on your site specifically for them. 

On each plan you offer, you could detail its difficulty, length, fitness goals and price. You can offer cheaper plans for beginners and more expensive plans for professionals or niche fitness goals.

On Training Peaks, this information is present on the plans they offer for strength training plans people can purchase depending on their skill level and training goals: 

To maximise your earning potential through this stream of passive income for personal trainers, you could also include a review page on your website. 

This will allow potential customers to read the results other customers achieved by following your plans, proving their effectiveness to people considering purchasing a plan.

#2 - Market Pre-Recorded Workouts As A Form Of Earning Passive PT Income

Another way you can make a passive income for personal trainers is by generating a library of pre-recorded workouts. 

There are tons of benefits to doing this, including:

• Cost-effective - You can maximise your earning potential with pre-recorded material, unlike a live stream, this material will always be available to people across the world, allowing you to sell workouts to a wider audience.
• Accessibility - The pre-recorded workouts can be viewed whenever people need them, meaning you can make money as a personal trainer at any time. This allows customers to visit the content as many times as they feel necessary to improve their fitness.
• Promotion - You can use short clips from your library to make people aware of your services through social media. The clips you use can link back to your personal training website to allow users to explore your entire library and the other services you provide.

There are two payment models you can offer customers to view your library of pre-recorded workouts: a subscription-based model or one-off purchases.

A subscription-based model allows customers unlimited access to your video content and renews monthly. 

Offering subscriptions carries with it many benefits, including: 

• Customer loyalty
• Recurring revenue
• Improved customer engagement and retention

This is a service that Loves to Move offers customers, allowing them unlimited access to their exercise library for a monthly charge of £23.50:

Alternatively, for the more budget-conscious customers, you could offer 24-hour access to one workout video that they wish to view. 

This is something The Den Yoga offer customers, with 24 hours to view the one day they have purchased for £3: 

When creating your library of pre-recorded videos it’s important to make sure your website hosts enough memory to store the videos you want to make available to customers. 

It’s also important to make sure they’re easy to locate on your site. For example, on The Den Yoga’s website, they are found under the ‘Classes’ tab under ‘Pre-recorded classes’.

Alternatively, if you’re worried about storage space on your website, you can create a private playlist of your videos on YouTube.

Once a person has purchased access to this content, you can share a link to this library of material with the customer.

Prime Coaching Sport on YouTube has created a private playlist for their intended audience to view:

However, you do need to be careful when sharing links with customers to a YouTube playlist as they can potentially share it with their friends which can undermine your earning potential.

#3 - Create & Sell An eBook To Earn Additional Passive Income As A Personal Trainer

Another passive income personal training that can help you earn is through writing your ebook. This could be on a specialism you’re knowledgeable about (such as weight loss, or meal plans for clients) or passionate about (like exercises to build muscular strength).

When you’re writing a book, it’s important to follow steps to make sure it’s accurate and understandable to the reader. This includes: 

• Understanding what you want to achieve with the ebook
• Developing a knowledge of the subject you’re writing about
• Learning how to structure your book
• Writing drafts and editing consistently
• Choosing a writing style to help with consistency

For example, if you’re writing a book with strength-building exercises, you may want to introduce each exercise with:

• The name of the exercise
• Diagrams to perform the exercise
• Written instructions
• The benefits of that exercise

If you’re looking for inspiration, you can see what other fitness enthusiasts have written to help you find your specialist subject. 

Michael Matthews, for example, has written The One Year Challenge to help people gain muscle who are willing to commit 3 - 5 hours of training per week, over 12 weeks to see results:

If you want to write a book to help people compete in competitive sports, then M Laurence’s book MMA Cardio can help you get insight into the content you should be writing: 

The book offers a 6-week programme of weight training, cardio, yoga and nutrition for people to follow and achieve a mixed martial arts physique. 

When writing your book it’s important to set a schedule for people to follow, such as a 6-week or 12-week programme. This will help readers follow a structure that means they’ll start to see results, and ultimately be happier with the product you offer.

Once you’ve written your book, you can self-publish the book on Amazon to ensure it is accessible to a large number of people.

To achieve to have it published, you need to have a KDP account, which allows you to:

• Set up your publishing company
• Add a bank account to get paid
• Enter tax information

When your book is ready to be sold, don’t be afraid to promote it on all your available platforms to maximise your earning potential.

This is something that Laura Hoggins promotes on her website, along with reviews to increase her book sales potential: 

Using your personal training social media platforms is also a great way to promote your publication, and can even allow your audience to ask questions or share with friends.

#4 - Sell Supplements To Earn Passive Income As A PT

If you’re looking for another way to generate a personal trainer passive income, you could try selling supplements through your website or social media.

Many professionals in the fitness industry will be surprised to discover that it is not illegal to promote and sell supplements as a PT. 

It is possible to be held liable for any recommendations you promote to customers should their purchase of these products result in a negative experience.

Since you’re providing nutrition recommendations as a PT, you should sell products from a reputable company to mitigate this risk.

One of the ways you can sell these products online is by purchasing products in bulk from a wholesale provider. 

Bodybuilding Warehouse is one website that you could visit to secure the items you’re looking to purchase:

They can supply supplements to online stores and personal trainers which makes them a distributor that might be worth investigating further if you want to pursue this revenue stream.

Once you’ve purchased the items you wish to sell, you can create a designated page to promote these items. 

Old Ironworks Gym, for example, has a ‘Protein and Supplements’ page under their ‘Services’ to sell their supplements:

Before supplements are sold on your website or social media, it’s beneficial to make sure they’ve been tested by a third party to make sure they’re safe for consumption. 

Informed Sports, for example, certifies supplements with their logo after the product has been tested for banned ingredients.

- - - -

Enjoying this article? Check out these ones below to see how you can make your career more exciting:

• A Complete Guide To Personal Training Over Zoom
• Where Do Freelance Personal Trainers Work?
• Continuing Education For Personal Trainers

#5 - Join A Fitness Affiliate Scheme To Bring In Passive Income

If you don’t want to sell supplements, you can join an affiliate scheme to generate passive income for your personal training business.

If you’re unsure what PT affiliate schemes involve, you’ll be recommending products or services to people who visit your personal training website and social media platforms.  

An affiliate scheme carries benefits for you, including: 

• Gathering data on what people products and services people are interested in
• Allowing you to devote as much time as you want to promote products
• Opening you up to future opportunities based on the success of your affiliate scheme

If you have a strong following on social media, this could reap many financial benefits for you as a personal trainer.

Many affiliate programs run each year. For example, Hidrate Spark offers you the chance to promote their water bottles with digital technology to monitor hydration levels: 

Once you’ve signed up for this affiliate scheme, it allows you to earn a 10% commission on all sales that come from the affiliate’s link records. 

Alternatively, you could promote sportswear as part of an affiliate scheme to generate your income.

Under Armour, for instance, offers you the opportunity to promote their products including HeatGear to performance training sportswear: 

Once you’ve signed up to Under Armour’s affiliate program, you’ll be paid monthly for the times a user purchases items on their site using one of the links you’ve provided with them.   

Once you’ve decided on an affiliate program to participate in, there are a few locations where you can promote your partnership and discount links, such as social media, your website, and your YouTube channel. 

On social media, you can promote your affiliate links by including: 

• A photo of the products on offer
• A written description of what’s on offer
• The discount offered
• A link or code to purchase discounted items 

Personal trainer Andrew Phillips offers a great example of this on his Facebook page, with 15% off Protein Life products by using a discount code for these products:

You can also include discounted links/codes on your website under a services area that people click on to use the free discount code. 

Out-Fit, for example, provides visitors to their website with a 15% discount for Mountain Fuel products using the discount ‘OutfitPF15’:

Finally, you can include a discount code on your YouTube channel if you have one. You can include this discount code in the description or as part of the video content. 

In Joanna Soho’s video, she offered a 25% discount on FIO plans for people who downloaded her app, included in the description of her video: 

So when you sign up for an affiliate program, don’t be afraid to utilise all your available platforms to maximise your earning potential through this stream of passive income for personal trainers.

#6 - Selling Branded PT Clothing Offers A Superb Way To Bring In Passive Income

Similar to selling supplements, another way to make passive income when personal training is by selling branded clothing.

Not only will you be creating a direct stream of income by selling clothing with your brand on it, but you’re also building a simple way to advertise your brand.

Once you’ve decided on the sportswear you wish to sell containing your fitness logo and brand (we’d suggest selling cost-effective t-shirts or hoodies), you’ll need to find a custom clothing retailer.

Personal Trainer Clothing is one retailer you might want to purchase your branded clothing from as they offer different clothing types to produce branded apparel:

You could purchase t-shirts for £22.50 each and receive increased discounts if you increase the number of t-shirts you order:

Once you’ve received your order in the post, you can begin promoting it on social media and your website to increase sales.

This is something Savage Fitness Personal Training did through social media to promote their range of coloured hoodies for £20:

It was also used by Innovations Fitness on their website, which had a dedicated ‘Sportswear’ page for their branded clothing: 

When you have branded clothing to sell, it’s important to make sure you have payment methods available for your personal training website to make these purchases as convenient as possible.

#7 - Rent Out Your Gym To Earn Additional Passive Income As A Personal Trainer

If you have a studio or space that is not being used at times throughout the working day, you can offer to rent it to other fitness professionals as a way to increase revenue for your gym space.

When you have a quiet period during the day, this will provide you with a revenue stream whilst another trainer wishes to use your space with their clients.

To make this a cost-effective opportunity, it’s important to promote it online to help increase the reach of the space you’re advertising. 

In the advertisement, it’s important to make sure you include: 

• The price you’re offering the gym space for (per hour, daily, weekly or monthly)
• What’s included in the price (use of equipment, bills)
• What it’s ideal for (Small classes, large classes, yoga, sports massage therapy, etc.)
• Contact details

Teach Fresh Gym advertised a small space on Facebook for £300 per month with bills included:

Once you’ve advertised the space on all the available social media platforms, you may also wish to advertise the space on websites that specialise in renting space.

Hotpatch is a great example of a website that can help people rent your space from your listing, allowing you to offer your space on an hourly basis:

To advertise your space on this account you have to create an account and create a free listing which includes:

• A description of your space
• Photos
• Amenities
• Capacity
• Quantity
• Patch rules
• Location
• Pricing
• Availability

Once your space has been rented, Hot Patch will take a 5% service charge for the successful advert you posted on their site.

#8 - Monetise Your Personal Training Blog To Earn Extra Passive Income

Another personal trainer passive income you should consider to maximise your earning potential is to make money from fitness blogging.

If you’re already writing content on fitness, you may as well generate profits from your blog.

To monetise your blog it’s important, for you need to make sure that you're creating great content. So, make sure your writing meets the following criteria:

• Have a clear topic for your post - Are you writing about your passions, for example, weight loss? Or are writing about a topic that is trending?
• Give your post structure - Include an introduction, main body of content and conclusion, allowing the reader to understand what’s been discussed.
• Include paragraphs and subheadings - This makes the text easier to read but helps provide structure to the information you’re providing.
• Include keywords in the blog - Using keywords that appear in a Google Keyword Planner search, will help rank higher in Google results for your topic post.
• Link to content that has already been posted - This demonstrates your authority on the subject by including links to topics already featured on your site but improves your rankings on Google.
• Proofread content before publishing - This will make sure your blog looks professional and adheres to SEO standards to reach a wide audience.

Once you’ve written blogs that you want to monetise on your site, you can populate the content with adverts to generate a passive income. 

Google AdSense is a great tool to help you earn money from your site, as it optimises desktops and mobiles to feature adverts.

This has true earning potential for your website. Using the adjustable metrics on Google’s AdSense you could earn £2,650 per month if your health blogs are visited 50,000 times in total. 

Fit Bottomed Girls is a website that utilises adverts to generate passive income on their blogs. Their treadmill bike review blog includes several adverts to inform their readers of different products:

If you’re strategic with the structuring of your article you can also use adverts to break the content of your blog.

This will help them appear less invasive to the reader and allow readers to click on adverts that relate to the subject you’re discussing and start generating revenue for you.

#9 - Start & Monetise A YouTube Channel To Bring In Additional Passive PT Income

One of the last notable streams of passive income for personal trainers you might want to consider is through the creation and monetisation of your YouTube channel.

To make this a viable option, you will need to be posting content regularly, as YouTube’s algorithm favours content with a high-watch time.

This will help expose your content to a wider audience as people will see your videos appear in their recommendations. 

To join YouTube’s Partner Affiliate Program, you will need to meet the six minimum requirements they have listed as their criteria below:

Once you’ve met these requirements, you can generate revenue on YouTube through one of several means: 

• Display Ads - Appear on a desktop viewing your content on YouTube, they normally appear to the right of the screen. They also contain no sound to prevent them from intruding on the audio that features on your video.
• Overlay Ads - These appear on the bottom of your screen to promote products and services without distracting the reader from the content they’re viewing. These can be turned off by clicking on the close button that appears on the advert. 
• Video Ads - These are adverts that act as intervals between your video content. The adverts are chosen using meta-data and whether your content is user-friendly. 

This means you could earn approximately £2.50 - £4.10 per 1,000 views according to Save the Student depending on the ad services you activate on your content.

To increase audience engagement and ad revenue potential, Influencer Marketing Hub advises uploading your videos on Friday, Saturday and Wednesday between 5 pm and 9 pm.

To understand what content is popular, it's also worthwhile to use YouTube Analytics. It will help you generate similar content to boost audience engagement and exposure to ads, which can further inform your strategies for earning passive income.

Check out the screenshot below for an insight into what YouTube Analytics can tell you:

To boost your earning potential through monetisation on YouTube, you could also seek collaboration with other YouTube creators.

This will attract new viewers to your channel who can then be converted into subscribers to view your future content. 

Don Maguire Fitness created a collaboration video with Irish Bodybuilder Leigh Ferry for their Bulking Vs. Cutting video: 

This would have helped Don Maguire to attract views and potential subscribers based on their interest in Leigh Ferry’s work.

If this is something you’re interested in, Google provides you with some useful tips to seek out collaborators.  

Before You Go!

After reading this article, we hope you’ll find new ways to generate a passive income for your personal training business.

Remember, you can maximise your earning potential by enrolling on our Level 4 Sports Nutrition Course, which can help you reach a new demographic to train, as well as provide additional options for passive income.

You can also read about our additional courses by downloading our course prospectus.