Table of Contents
- Methodology
- Questions and Rationale
- Errors
- Distributions
- Takeaway
- Download 2025 Coach Compensation Survey Report
The 2025 Checklick Compensation Survey once again provides valuable insights into coaching and instructor pay within the Checklick community.
Each year, this survey helps clubs, organizations, and coaches better understand current compensation trends so they can make informed decisions when planning budgets, hiring staff, or negotiating pay.
We are somewhat disappointed that the number of responses this year was lower than in previous years. We attribute this primarily to the change in timing: we typically run the survey in October and November, but this time we shifted it to early in the new year, which appears to have affected participation.
Despite the reduced response volume, the participation remains strong enough to provide reliable insights. Similar to previous years, the average hourly pay continues to trend upward. As always, we report both the average and median hourly pay to offer a more complete and accurate picture of the data.
Read on to learn more about this year’s survey, including our methodology, how the data was processed, potential sources of error, and the key distributions and takeaways. You can also download the infographic at the bottom of this blog post for a visual summary of the results.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in the survey—we truly appreciate your input.
Methodology
As in previous years, the survey was distributed primarily to coaches and instructors who use Checklick.
Survey details:
- 234 respondents
- Survey open for approximately 1.5 months
- Previous response counts:
- 224 in 2020
- 220 in 2021
- 217 in 2022
- 326 in 2023
- 294 in 2024
- 234 in 2025
Coach Compensation Survey: The survey was shared via email, as well as through a coaches- and instructors-only pop-up on the Checklick website and application. Social media also helped increase participation. In addition, we received support from partner organizations that shared the survey within their coaching networks.
The survey included the same core 14 questions as previous years so results can be compared over time. These include:
- Hourly pay
- Currency
- Country
- Age
- Experience
- Certification level
- Lesson type
- Youth vs adult coaching
- Non-monetary benefits
This year we also continued collecting information about additional benefits beyond pay, such as equipment access, food, discounts, and facility use. This data will be analyzed in a future post.
All questions were written as clearly as possible to reduce confusion and incomplete responses.
Data was collected using Google Forms, and final analysis was done using the raw data export.
Questions and Rationale
Hourly compensation was entered as a short answer value. Each response was cross-referenced with the selected currency and converted to Canadian dollars for comparison.
Exchange rates used for this survey:
- 1 EURO = 1.60 CAD
- 1 USD = 1.37 CAD
All compensation values were converted to hourly pay.
Rules used during processing:
- Weekly pay was divided by 40 hours
- Daily pay was divided by 8 hours
- Ranges were averaged (example: 25–30 → 27.5)
- Non-numeric responses were removed
- Volunteer / unpaid responses were recorded as $0 but excluded from averages
- All values were converted to CAD before calculating statistics
The rest of the survey questions remain consistent with previous years, allowing for year-to-year comparisons.
As in past surveys, the data still heavily represents the sport of sailing, particularly within Canada.
Errors
Although the survey questions were designed for simple responses, some irregular entries still occurred.
Examples include:
- Weekly or daily pay instead of hourly
- Currency not specified
- Text instead of numbers
- Ranges instead of single values
- Volunteer or unpaid responses
To keep the data consistent:
- Non-numeric answers were excluded from averages
- Volunteer responses were excluded from pay calculations
- Ranges were averaged
- Weekly and daily pay were converted to hourly
These adjustments allow the results to remain comparable to previous years.
Distributions
As in previous years, we provide visual distributions of the results in the infographic below.
The distribution shows:
- Hourly pay ranges
- Experience vs pay
- Certification vs pay
- Coach vs instructor differences
- Lesson types
- Youth vs adult coaching
- Additional benefits
Most responses fall within the 20-25 CAD per hour range, with higher pay typically associated with more experience, higher certification, and evaluator-level coaches.
Median pay continues to provide a more accurate picture than the average due to a small number of very high responses.
Takeaway
Hourly pay increased again this year, continuing the trend we have seen over the past several surveys.
The results suggest that:
- Entry-level instructors are typically paid between 18-22 CAD per hour
- Experienced coaches are commonly paid between 22–28 CAD per hour
- Senior or evaluator-level coaches often earn 30 CAD per hour or more
Overall, coaching compensation has steadily increased over the last several years, making coaching and instructing a more sustainable role than it was previously.
In future posts, we will take a closer look at the data, including:
- Pay by experience
- Pay by certification level
- Pay by region
- Pay by lesson type
- Non-monetary benefits
These deeper insights help clubs stay competitive when hiring and help coaches understand current market rates.
In the next posts, we take a closer look at the survey results and explore the data in more detail. Part 1 focuses on the roles, activity levels, locations, ages, and experience of today’s coaches, while Part 2 examines pay, certifications, and benefits reported across sailing programs.
For a deeper dive into the findings, be sure to explore our follow-up posts:
Coach Compensation Survey – Insights Part 1
Coach Compensation Survey – Insights Part 2
You can also Download the 2025 Coach Compensation Survey – Full Report to explore the complete data and insights.
