What are the retention figures, and how good are they?
| Figure | Value | Source | Credibility |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6-month retention, 1:1 coaching, considered strong | Above 70% | Zanfia, coaching client retention systems (2026) | Low. Practitioner rule of thumb, no dataset shown |
| 12-month retention, 1:1 coaching, considered strong | Above 40% | Zanfia (2026) | Low. Same source, same caveat |
| Level at which retention signals a delivery problem | Below 50% at six months | Zanfia (2026) | Low. Rule of thumb |
| Clients still active at month 3, 6 and 12 | 82%, 65%, 45% | Coachway, dataset of 5,666 Nordic online fitness clients | Moderate. Real sample, but one niche, one region, published by a coaching software vendor |
| Typical length of an online coaching relationship | 5 to 10 months | Coachway | Low. Author states it is general context, not a sourced benchmark |
| Healthy monthly retention for online coaching | Low to mid 90s percent | Coachway | Low. Same caveat |
| Churn in the first 30 days, recurring businesses | Often above 20% | Alex Hormozi, The Game ep 967 (via Shortform summary) | Moderate. Experienced operator, cross-industry, no dataset shown |
| Churn inflection at month 3; steady state by month 6 | About 10%; about 2% per month | Hormozi, ep 967 | Moderate. Same caveat |
| Monthly churn, high-ticket coaching memberships | 3 to 5% typical | Kourses, member retention benchmarks | Moderate. Vendor data (membership platform), no sample stated |
| Profit effect of retention | 5% fewer defections, 85% more profit, at one bank | Bain and Company, Reichheld | Moderate. Classic study, not coaching; often misquoted as 25 to 95% |
| Average client retention, Video Business Academy | 2 to 3 years | Scale With Fulfillment client | Named data point, not a benchmark |
The Scale With Fulfillment figures on this page come from two named clients, Acquisition Ace (Ben Kelly) and Video Business Academy (Nick Metzger), and are not typical. We do not yet have enough completed engagements to state an average outcome and will publish one when we do. Results depend on your offer, price, team and market. Diego Miescher also builds Ben Kelly's website, a material connection. See our earnings and testimonial disclosure. How we handle claims.
What does the curve look like?
Put the Coachway curve and the Hormozi inflections together and you get a shape we see in nearly every audit. The steepest loss is in the first 30 days, before the client has a result to hold on to. A second drop comes around month three, when the novelty is gone and progress has to be visible to justify the next payment. After month six, whoever is still there tends to stay. Coachway's numbers make it concrete: 18 out of 100 gone by month three, another 17 by month six, then 20 more across the second half of the year.
Two cautions. The dataset is online fitness in the Nordics, and fitness has its own seasonality. And it measures clients still active, which is not the same as clients still paying, so a monthly-billed program may look better on paper and worse in cash.
Why is there no proper benchmark?
Because nobody with a large enough sample has published one. The software vendors who could see across thousands of coaching businesses publish rules of thumb rather than tables. The people who run the businesses treat their retention numbers as private. Most coaching businesses we audit cannot state their own six-month retention, let alone compare it. That is the gap our State of Coaching Fulfillment survey is meant to close.
What should you do with these numbers?
- Compute your own three points: share of clients still active at month three, six and twelve. Use start cohorts, not a snapshot.
- Compare against the Coachway curve (82, 65, 45). If you are below it at month three, the problem is onboarding. If you are level at three and below at six, the problem is visible progress.
- Treat 70% at six months as the floor for 1:1 and expect group programs to run higher, as Zanfia notes.
- Track the first 30 days separately. It is where the largest share of churn happens and the cheapest place to fix it.
- Make client success rate, the share of clients who reach the promised result, a reported number. Retention follows it.
How does Scale With Fulfillment use this?
Our Results Tracking system gives every client a health score and fires a drop-off flag when it falls, and we review the whole cohort every week. The point is to act at the first sign of drift rather than at the cancellation. At Video Business Academy, where that system has run for years, average retention is 2 to 3 years. That is one client's number, and it sits at the top of the table above for a reason.
