CPA for online fitness & strength coaches
Altius is a tax and accounting firm for online fitness and strength coaches. Coaching subscriptions, program launches, affiliate deals, sponsorships, apparel — we know how the money actually moves in this industry, and we make sure you keep more of it.
Licensed CPA · Fully remote · Clients in every time zone
Lumpy income is normal. Being unprepared for it isn't.
What to set aside from every launch, every month, without guessing.
Structured properly so you stop paying tax you never actually owed.
Books current all year, so filing is a formality instead of a fire drill.
The problem
Most coaches we talk to are doing well on paper and quietly anxious about it anyway. The revenue is real, but nobody can tell them what's actually theirs — and there's a low hum of worry that they should have figured this out by now. You track every client's numbers to the gram and the rep. Nobody ever set your own business up the same way. That's not a discipline problem, it's a structure problem, and it comes in three parts.
New Year's rush, a spring challenge, then a summer where nobody wants to train. Nobody told you what to set aside from the good months, so April's payment comes out of whatever happens to be in the account.
You went from training people in a gym to running a real business, and the paperwork never caught up. Past a certain profit level an S-corp can meaningfully cut what you owe — but only if the salary is set right and payroll actually runs.
Coaching subscriptions, program sales, affiliate commissions, a sponsorship, apparel margin. Fees and refunds come off before it hits your bank. Untangling that by hand at tax time is where deductions go to die.
You spent years learning how to get people results. Nobody should expect you to have learned tax law too.
Who you're working with
Sole proprietor, no entity, nothing saved for retirement, and a preparer who saw them once a year. Restructuring alone found $15,000–$20,000. Adding a solo 401(k) found another $6,000–$10,000 a year — the full case study is here.
By the time most accountants get involved, every decision that could have saved you money is already made.
I'd rather be in the conversation before the launch and before the entity election, when it still counts.
I only work with fitness and strength coaches. It means I already know your platforms, your deductions, and your seasons.
Erik Oswald, CPA — Founder, Altius
Bookkeeping and taxes are the 2 things I hate the most about running a business. I just needed someone to take care of it and get it done WELL! He found me deductions I was missing and helped me restructure my business to cut my tax bill almost in half.
Andres Rodriguez-Story — Social media agency owner for personal trainers[Placeholder — a fitness coaching client quote with a specific outcome: a dollar figure saved, hours returned, or the month the books stopped being a problem.]
Client name — Online strength coachThe plan
Tell us what you sell, roughly what you're bringing in, and how your books are set up now. We walk through all three plans together and land on the one that fits — including saying so if that's a smaller one than you expected.
In your first 90 days we clean up the books, review your entity and payroll setup, and build a tax projection for the year. You come out of it knowing your number and what to set aside each month.
Monthly books, quarterly planning calls, estimates calculated before every deadline, and your return filed at year end. A real person on email who answers in a day — not a portal that opens in February.
What's at stake
Run your numbers
Two numbers, side by side, in about ten seconds. No email required and nothing gets sent anywhere.
Revenue minus everything you spend to run the business, before paying yourself. Online coaching businesses commonly land between 40% and 70% — higher if it's just you, lower once you're paying coaches or shipping product.
Revenue is only part of it. These are the things that actually change how much work your books are — and there are a few more we'd cover on a call.
Estimated annual self-employment tax savings
From electing S-corp status, after the added cost of payroll and a second return. Before income tax, which you owe either way.
Want these numbers checked against your actual return? That's the Tax Blueprint.
This is an estimate, not advice or a quote. It assumes a reasonable salary set at 45% of net profit, a Social Security wage base of $184,500, and roughly $900/yr in added payroll and filing costs — all figures that change annually and vary by situation. Self-employment tax is federal, so your state doesn't change the savings, though it does change what you should set aside. Your actual reasonable compensation is determined individually and is the single most scrutinized number in an S-corp. We'll work through it properly on a call. The fee shown is your plan's flat price plus the complexity factors you ticked — a few others (foreign income, employees, how current your records are) only come out in conversation.
Start here
Send us your last return and your current numbers. Two weeks later you get a written plan showing exactly what you're overpaying, what you're not claiming, and what to change before December 31 — plus 90 minutes together going through it line by line.
No retainer and no obligation afterward. Plenty of coaches take the blueprint, implement it themselves, and we never speak again. That's a fine outcome.
Our guarantee: if we don't find you at least what the blueprint cost, you don't pay for it.
What you get
If you start a monthly plan within 90 days, the full $1,000 comes off your onboarding fee.
Pricing
One flat monthly fee per plan — no hourly billing, no invoice for asking a question. Each plan covers the same three things: the work, the access, and the tools underneath it. Your number depends on which plan fits and how complex the books are, so the estimator above will get you close and we'll confirm it on the call.
For coaches who keep their own books and want the tax side handled properly, without the extras.
Services
Support
Technology
For coaches with real revenue, several income streams, and a tax bill that's now a serious number.
Services
Support
Technology
For established coaching brands with staff, product, or partners — and a need for answers the same day.
Services
Support
Technology
Within each plan, the fee moves with your revenue. A handful of things move it further: each additional state or entity, employees beyond you, more than 150 transactions a month, selling across more than two platforms, inventory, or a second owner. Nothing gets added after the fact — the number we agree on is the number.
The first 90 days are the heaviest lift: cleanup, entity review, and building your projection. That's a one-time onboarding fee of $500–$2,500 depending on the shape your books are in, quoted before you commit. Monthly fees are reviewed once a year, in the open, before anything changes.
Already have an accountant?
This is the reason most coaches stay with someone they've long outgrown — not loyalty, just the assumption that moving is a mess. It isn't, and you don't have to wait until January.
We send the records request on your behalf. Most handoffs happen entirely between accountants, and yours never has to become a conversation.
Switching in June means we can still change the outcome for this year. Switching in February means we're just reporting it.
They're the normal starting point. Cleanup is part of onboarding, quoted up front, and we've yet to see a set of books that shocked us.
We pick up where they left off. Nothing already filed gets redone, and nothing already paid for gets billed again.
Before you book
No. Plenty of clients start as sole proprietors and stay that way — below a certain profit level the S-corp genuinely isn't worth the overhead, and we'll tell you that rather than sell you a structure you don't need. If and when the math turns, we handle the election and the payroll.
Often yes to all three, and this is where coaches leave the most on the table. Equipment you use to film or train clients, a space used regularly and exclusively for the business, certifications and CEUs that maintain your existing skills, travel to shoots and events. The rules are specific and the documentation matters — but "my accountant said no" usually means your accountant didn't understand the business.
Separately, which is the point. Affiliate commissions, supplement or equipment sponsorships, and product margin all behave differently for tax purposes than coaching revenue does — and free product you receive can be income. Tracking them apart is also how you find out which parts of the business are actually worth your time.
Not for us — everything runs remotely and clients are spread across time zones. It can affect your state filing situation and it changes what travel is deductible, which is exactly the sort of thing worth sorting out early rather than discovering in April.
We don't do audits, business valuations, or legal work, and we don't sell investments or insurance. If you need any of those we'll point you somewhere good. Everything in your plan's scope is covered by the flat fee, including the questions you send between calls.
That's most first conversations, and it's usually a sign the business grew faster than the admin did. Cleanup is scoped and quoted as part of onboarding so you know the cost before you commit, and it's one-time — once the books are current, keeping them current is the easy part.
Usually within a week or two of the call, depending on how many onboardings are already in flight. The roster is capped, so occasionally there's a short wait — we'd rather tell you that than take you on and do a worse job.
Nothing, immediately. Your fee is locked for the year. We'll adjust your reserve target and quarterly estimates right away, because those need to reflect reality, and we'll talk about the fee at your annual review — never as a surprise line on an invoice.
Free, no strings
Twelve deductions fitness coaches routinely miss — equipment, home gym space, certifications, filming gear — plus the profit level where an S-corp starts paying for itself and a simple rule for what to set aside. Three pages, no fluff, no sales call attached.
Free PDF, three pages. No email required and nothing to unsubscribe from.
Working on this year's numbers? There's also the year-end checklist — what to do before December 31.
Fifteen minutes, no pitch deck. Bring your last return and a rough revenue number, and you'll leave with something useful either way.
