Someone asked this in a CS community last week. They'd looked at a few coaches, and every site had a "book a call" button where the price should be. The question sat there for hours. Then someone guessed a number and put a question mark after it.
That's about as much as anyone knows publicly about what this costs.
So here are real numbers, mine included, plus what you actually get at each level. You should be able to read this, buy nothing from me, and still work out whether a price someone quotes you is fair.
Why almost nobody publishes a price
Three reasons. Two of them are fair enough.
The work is different every time. Looking over your resume and running your whole job search for three months aren't the same job, and the gap between them is huge. One number on a page gets both wrong.
A call sells better than a page. On a call, a coach can hear your situation, build some trust, and answer your worries. A price on a page lets you rule yourself out before any of that happens. That's a sensible business decision, and most coaches make it.
Some prices move. The number shifts depending on how senior you are, how urgent it is, and what the coach thinks you can afford.
The first two are fine. The third is worth knowing about, and it leads to the one rule I'd apply to anyone here, me included:
If a coach won't give you a number before a call, the number probably changes depending on how the call goes.
That doesn't mean they're ripping you off. It does mean you're negotiating with no idea what normal looks like, which is a bad place to start from.
What you're actually buying
Coaches use a lot of different package names. Underneath, there are four kinds of work. Working out which one you need is most of the decision.
Someone tells you what's wrong. They go through your materials and come back with what's holding you up. Usually a day or two. You end up with a list of problems and a sense of which one matters most.
Someone rebuilds something for you. Your resume, your LinkedIn, your interview answers. Usually a week or two per piece. What you get is the finished thing.
Someone gets you ready for interviews. Your story, examples you can draw on, answers for each round, and practice. One to three weeks, depending on how soon your interviews are. If you want a sense of what you'll be asked first, the common CS interview questions are worth a read before you pay anyone.
Someone runs the whole search with you. How you position yourself, which roles to go after, interviews, and often the salary conversation. Thirty to ninety days. On that last part, going in with current CS salary data does more for you than most negotiation advice.
Two things should make you pause. Paying four figures for someone to just tell you what's wrong means you're paying rebuild prices for an opinion. And if anyone guarantees you a job, walk away. Nobody can promise that. The decision sits with a company neither of you controls.
What makes the price go up or down
Four things, and they explain most of the difference you'll see.
Calls or writing. Calls are what make coaching expensive. There are only so many hours in a week, and a coach doing calls has to price around that. Written work doesn't have that limit, so the same scope usually costs less.
They do it, or you do it. Telling you how to rewrite your resume costs less than rewriting it. Both are fine. Just know which one you're buying, because the work on your end is completely different.
How fast you need it. Rush jobs cost more because they push other work aside. A 48-hour turnaround costs the coach something. It isn't a surcharge for being in a hurry.
How senior the role is. Getting a CSM ready for an interview and getting a director ready for a VP search are different jobs. Expect the second to cost more.
Once you know those four, you can look at any quote and see what you're paying for.
What I charge
I publish my prices, so here they are.
- CS Positioning Audit, $295, one business day. I go through your resume, your LinkedIn, and up to two roles you're targeting, then write up what's costing you traction.
- Interview Intensive, $995, seven days. Your interview story, a set of examples to draw on, answers for each round, and practice with feedback.
- CS Career Accelerator, $2,995, thirty days. Everything rebuilt, help picking the right roles, and coaching the whole way through.
Single pieces of work and longer engagements are on the coaching page, each with a price and a turnaround.
Everything I do is written. No calls. You keep the materials and can reuse them, and neither of us is juggling calendars across time zones. That suits some people and not others, which brings me to the next bit.
When you shouldn't hire a coach
If you want to say it out loud, I'm not your person. Some people need to hear themselves talk through their experience before an interview, and practise until it sounds right. That's a real need and a good instinct. It's also live conversation, which I don't sell at any price. Someone in a CS Slack group or on Reddit will often do this for free, and do it well.
If you're just having a look. Coaching is worth it when you're actively searching and something specific keeps going wrong. If you're browsing, save the money for later.
If you haven't applied to many roles yet. You can't spot a pattern in four applications. Get to twenty or thirty, see where things actually fall apart, then decide. There isn't much a coach can tell you before that.
If the problem is how much you're applying. Getting interviews and losing them at the last round is worth paying to fix. Sending five applications a month is a free fix, and there are CS roles going up daily to work through.
What to ask before you pay anyone
Ask these of any coach. Me too.
What do I get, and when?
A list of what's coming, with dates. Vague now means vague later.
What happens if I'm not happy?
Ask what the terms are and where they're written down. "We'll sort it out" isn't terms.
Are you doing the work, or am I?
These sound the same in a sales chat and feel completely different a month in.
How many people are you working with right now?
Someone with twenty clients is running a different business from someone with four. Neither is wrong. The experience isn't the same.
Can I talk to someone you've worked with?
Anyone doing good work has clients happy to vouch for them.
The point
Prices here are hidden, and they don't need to be. The work varies, which explains a range. It doesn't explain a blank space where the number should be.
You've now got a way to read any quote you get: what kind of work it is, what pushes the price around, and what to ask before you commit. Use it on me as well.
