Terms and conditions for a life coach

A life coach needs terms that deal with packages paid upfront, sessions the client misses, the boundary between coaching and therapy, and a fourteen-day cancellation right that applies to almost every online sign-up. I draft a full set of customer terms around how your practice sells and delivers, for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days.

Who this is for

Life coaches in England and Wales working one to one, in groups, or through a mix of live sessions and recorded material, whether you trade as a sole trader or a limited company. Most clients are consumers paying personally, which brings the full weight of consumer law. Some coaches also invoice employers for staff or executive coaching, and the terms need to handle both.

What matters in a life coach's terms

What you are selling, and what you are not

Coaching is not a regulated activity, so the boundary between coaching and therapy, medical advice, financial advice or business consultancy is one you draw yourself, in writing. The terms should describe the service as a defined number of sessions over a defined period, say what support exists between sessions, and state plainly that you do not diagnose or treat. This is commercial as well as legal: under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 information the client relies on when booking is binding, so what your sales page and your discovery call promise becomes part of the contract.

Packages, prepayment and unused sessions

Most life coaches sell a block of sessions paid upfront or by instalments. The terms need to say when each instalment falls due, whether the balance is still owed if the client stops attending, and how long the package stays live. Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 a term keeping a prepayment on cancellation without a matching obligation on you sits on the grey list of terms likely to be unfair, so an expiry date needs a reason and a proportionate consequence. Where an employer is paying, the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives you interest and fixed compensation on a late invoice.

The fourteen-day cancellation right

Sign-ups agreed by email, on a video call or through a checkout are distance contracts under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, and the client has fourteen days to cancel. If the first session falls inside that window you need the client's express request to begin, and a client who then cancels pays a proportionate amount for what they have had. Where the cancellation information is missing the period can extend by up to twelve months, which turns a completed package into a refund. Recorded modules released in the period need express consent and an acknowledgement that the right is lost.

Missed sessions and rescheduling

Clients cancel the session they most need. The terms should set a notice period for moving a session, say how many reschedules a package allows, and state what happens when a client does not appear at all. A late cancellation charge is defensible where it reflects the slot you held and could not fill, but one set at a punitive level risks treatment as a disproportionate default charge under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and will not be enforced. The same clause should cover what happens when you have to move a session, which is where goodwill is kept or lost.

Confidentiality, boundaries and liability

Clients tell coaches things they have told nobody else. Your terms should say what you hold in confidence, the limited circumstances in which you would not, and that you will pause or end the coaching and point the client towards other support where what they are dealing with needs clinical help. On liability, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 prevents you excluding liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence and prevents you limiting liability for a service to less than the price. The useful work is done by describing the service accurately and by making clear that decisions the client takes remain theirs.

Materials, recordings and group programmes

Workbooks, frameworks, recorded modules and session recordings are your copyright, and the terms should license them to the client for personal use rather than hand them over. If a freelancer designed your course or your workbook, under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 it belongs to them unless they assigned it to you in writing. Group programmes need rules of their own: what members may repeat outside the room, whether calls are recorded, whether a place can be transferred, and what removal from a group means for the fee already paid.

What it costs

Customer or supplier terms and conditions, £995. One set of terms, customer-facing or supplier-facing, drafted around your business. Five working days.

Review of your existing terms, £495. You already have terms and want to know how much of a problem they are. Returned marked up with my amendments and an explanation of the changes. Three working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the terms and conditions drafting page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A full set of terms drafted around your business, not a template with your name inserted
• A covering note in plain English explaining every commercial choice I made and why, so you can defend the terms in a negotiation without ringing me
• Liability, payment, termination and IP provisions set at a level that will survive a procurement review
• Consumer-facing wording drafted to be enforceable where you sell to consumers
• Guidance on how to incorporate the terms properly, which is where most businesses actually fail
• One round of amendments after you have read them

What is not included

• Negotiating your terms with individual customers
• Sector-specific regulatory compliance beyond the contract terms themselves
• Website privacy notice and cookie compliance, which I quote separately
• Terms governed by the law of another country

Questions I am often asked

Can I say in my marketing that clients get results?

Claims about outcomes become part of the contract, because information a consumer relies on is binding under the Consumer Rights Act 2015. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 also bans fake reviews and drip pricing, so testimonials must be genuine and a headline price must include every mandatory charge. Describe what you do rather than what the client will achieve.

When do the terms have to be put in front of the client?

Terms bind when the client had a real chance to read them before paying, not when they turn up attached to an invoice. A tick box beside a link, with the terms in a form the client can store, is what the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 expect of an online sign-up. I explain how to fit that to your booking process.

I coach individuals and also hold corporate contracts. One set of terms?

One set can serve both where it carries a section applying only to consumers, covering cancellation and the rights they cannot give up, with separate wording for invoicing an employer. What fails is a corporate coaching agreement handed to an individual paying from their own pocket, because the protective parts are simply absent.

Related guidance and services

• Terms and conditions drafting, £995, the service this page describes
• Consultancy and contractor agreements, £595
• Ask Caesar, £495 a month
• Terms and conditions for a counsellor or coach in private practice
• Terms and conditions for a career coach

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.