This page is a resource for people considering Earth-Based Institute’s advanced coaching certification: Nature-Based Integration Coaching. If you are wondering what this work pays, whether there are enough clients to build a practice on, or what it costs to get started, that is what this will help you to understand. Every number here is sourced, so you can check any of it yourself and make your own calculations based on your situation.
These rates come from industry surveys and from practitioner pages that publish their prices.
| Integration, median of 32 coaches | $175 a session |
|---|---|
| Grief and life-transition, median | $140 an hour |
A typical integration engagement runs about six sessions. At the median, that is roughly $1,050 from one client.
As an example, to generate $50,000 a year on those terms, you would need about 48 clients. That is four new people a month. Every month, with no gaps. Most of the work becomes finding the next person rather than doing the work itself.
| Three-month package | $1,500 to $3,000 |
|---|---|
| Six-month package | $3,000 to $6,000 |
We are seeing evidence across the field that coaches are structuring their offers this way. These are the rates they publish.
In the middle of that range, at $2,250, one client is worth about twice what the same six sessions bring in by the hour. The same $50,000 now takes about 22 clients in a year instead of 48. Fewer than half the people, for the same income.
The package holds better for the client as well. Integration rarely resolves in a single hour, and a minimum of three months allows the work to follow its natural arc and process.
We use $50,000 here as a reference point rather than a target. At $2,250 a package, $25,000 is about 11 clients in a year and $100,000 is about 45. We encourage you to use these numbers to calculate your own targets based on your financial goals, and to work out whether this is feasible for you. Rates are not set in stone, so use them as a starting point rather than a limit.
Integration work can support anyone who has been through a life-changing experience, intentionally or unintentionally, and is now trying to make sense of their reality.
Here are some examples we were able to find data on, shown as annual US rates applied to three sizes of catchment area. Do not limit yourself to these categories. Ask yourself instead: what life-changing experiences do my clients encounter that I can help integrate?
| In a year | Small town 25,000 | City 250,000 | Metro 1 million |
|---|---|---|---|
| Used a psychedelic | 683 | 6,825 | 27,300 |
| of those, psilocybin | 488 | 4,875 | 19,500 |
| Turned 65 | 313 | 3,125 | 12,500 |
| Became a parent | 268 | 2,675 | 10,700 |
| Got married | 153 | 1,525 | 6,100 |
| Went through a divorce | 60 | 600 | 2,400 |
At a $2,250 package, the example $50,000 income is gained through about 22 clients over the course of a year. That is under two new clients a month, each staying with you about three months.
Competition is thinner than people assume. The largest public directory that breaks the category out lists 218 integration practitioners in the whole of the United States. The title is unregulated and no registry exists, so the real number is most definitely higher, but nothing published puts the number of known practitioners anywhere near the number of potential clients.
So neither the client pool nor the competition is the constraint. But practically, it is worth noting that very few of those people will go looking for a coach on their own. In other words, the more important question is not whether there are enough clients. It is: how will I find them? Or better yet, how will they find me?
Advertising has its place, but what is more effective are two or three referral relationships that send people steadily: a retreat center, a ketamine clinic, a therapist who does not do this work and would rather refer than turn someone away. Building those referral relationships is an important part of the business mentoring we offer you in the NBIC program. And professional certification, along with the track record you build one client at a time, goes a long way in forming and securing those connections.
A peer-reviewed survey counted 298 psychedelic retreat organizations running 648 different retreat experiences across 440 sites, close to two thirds of them based outside the United States. Because most of those sites are overseas, people travel for the experience and then return home, where there is usually no aftercare in place and no licensed provider anywhere nearby.
Official annual US rates applied to the area sizes above. Psychedelic use is from the 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
In addition to your tuition, here are the other expenses to plan for.
Based on our research, we estimate these at about $1,250 across the first year and about $770 every year after that. Those are bare-bones figures at the low end of what it takes to operate. Add one-to-one ICF Mentor Coaching, ongoing Coach Supervision, full practice-management software, or any real marketing spend and the number climbs from there.
One item is worth checking before enrolling anywhere, including here. A licensed clinician planning to add coaching to an existing malpractice policy should call the carrier first. We know of at least one major carrier that declined to add coaching to a licensed therapist’s policy because she did not hold an ICF credential.
ICF reports that credentialed coaches earn an average of $10,000 a year more than coaches without one. NBIC pairs with our NCC program for the ICF Level 2 route whenever you decide to take it.
If you have followed all of the steps and participated in all of the requirements, and you still have not landed at least one paying client by the time the program is done, your mentoring and supervision continue at no cost for another six months. The requirements are the capstone, the five practice milestones, and attendance at the business mentoring calls.
Earth-Based Institute has been here since 2004 and has been certifying and training coaches since 2008. We would rather keep working with you until your practice is up and running than hand you a certificate and wish you well.
Every figure on this page is public. Here is the source for each one.
Coach and package rates were collected from published practitioner pages in August 2026. Rates change over time, and we update this page when they do.
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Earth-Based Institute is an ICF Level 2-accredited training organization. We've certified Nature-Connected Coaches since 2008, alongside offering programs for personal growth, leadership, and 1:1 coaching.
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