Executive coaches get paid for leadership questions by pricing short written asks as Paid Questions and document-based work as Custom Work. Both run from one Brillay link, with no calendar, no monthly fee, and no follower minimum. The coach sets the price and reply time, and a platform fee applies only when someone pays: 8% when a follower pays for work, 5% on tips and goals. Paid Questions let a follower pay upfront to ask one private question, and you send one written reply on your own time — no live call or scheduling.
What a coach pays is set out on the pricing page.
Most executive coaching revenue is booked in blocks: a six-month engagement, a standing Thursday slot. The questions do not arrive on that schedule. They arrive at 7:15 a.m. before a board call, or the night a director resigns. The gap before the next available session is where unpaid advice happens.
How do executive coaches get paid without a call?
Executive coaches can get paid without a live call by charging for a written answer instead of an hour. On Brillay, a client asks one private question, pays upfront, and receives one private written reply within the window you set. Brillay provides a written reply with no live call, no scheduling, and no follower minimum (how it works).
Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 report found that manager engagement fell five percentage points between 2024 and 2025, from 27% to 22% (Gallup). Managers under that kind of pressure ask short, urgent questions between scheduled sessions rather than during them.
Paid Questions turn leadership advice into a clear paid exchange: the client pays upfront, and you reply in writing on your own time.
What leadership questions work as a paid message?
The leadership questions that work as paid messages are the ones a coach can answer in writing without seeing a file, a deck, or a recording.
Questions that fit cleanly include:
- "My best engineer just gave notice. What do I say to the rest of the team on Monday?"
- "How do I tell my CEO that the Q4 target is not achievable without sounding defeatist?"
- "How do I give hard feedback to someone who reports to me and used to be my peer?"
- "What do I say in the first 10 minutes of a reorg announcement?"
Gallup's most-cited management finding explains why one such question is worth paying for:
"Gallup's most profound finding -- ever -- is probably this: 70% of the variance in team engagement is determined solely by the manager." — Gallup, How to Engage Frontline Managers (updated January 19, 2024)
One well-answered question to one manager reaches the whole team that manager leads, which is what an executive client is paying for — and why an asynchronous answer is not a discount version of coaching.
Use this table to decide where an incoming request belongs:
| Incoming request | Fits which Brillay offer | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "What do I say Monday after a resignation?" | Paid Questions | Text in, one written reply |
| "Redline my performance review draft" | Custom Work | The client attaches the document; delivery can include files |
| "Watch my all-hands rehearsal and critique it" | Custom Work | Recording upload plus video or voice delivery |
| "Can I legally fire this person for this reason?" | Neither — refer to an employment attorney | A legal judgment sits outside coaching scope |
How much should executive coaches charge per question?
You set the price for Paid Questions. The coach sets the price and reply window and can edit the public card title and description. Anchor the number to reading and thinking time, not to a fraction of a live hourly rate.
Executive coaches set those prices inside a growing market: the 2025 ICF Global Coaching Study counted 122,974 coach practitioners worldwide, up 15% since 2023, generating an estimated $5.34 billion in annual revenue (International Coaching Federation).
The figures below are editorial starting points for this article, not survey data, market averages, or earnings guarantees.
| Format | Illustrative price* | Illustrative reply time* | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single leadership question | $50–125 | 24–48h | One decision, one situation |
| Extended written question | $125–250 | 48h | A layered situation described in detail |
| Script for a conversation you have to lead | $150–300 | 48–72h | Tone and delivery matter as much as the words |
*Illustrative only. Coaches set their own figures based on client seniority, depth of answer, and workload.
How much to charge for a coaching call covers the live-session side of the same pricing question. A written answer is priced against the reading and thinking it takes, not against an hour held open in your week, which is why the two formats can sit at very different numbers.
Where to sell a leadership document review?
Sell document-based leadership work through Custom Work rather than Paid Questions. Custom Work accepts attached files from the client, and the coach delivers text plus files of any allowed type and/or a link. The coach sets the price and delivery time, and Brillay caps delivery at up to 5 days.
Custom Work fits defined work such as a performance-review redline, reorg communication review, board-update critique, or all-hands feedback; you deliver once with the scope and delivery time written down. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 1.7 million layoffs and discharges in July 2026 in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (BLS), so reorg and separation messaging is recurring work for executive coaches rather than an edge case.
| Service | What the client sends / you deliver | Illustrative price* | Illustrative delivery time* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Performance review redline | Client uploads a draft review; you return an annotated version | $150–350 | 48–96h |
| Reorg or layoff comms review | Client uploads the announcement; you return rewritten talking points | $250–500 | 48–72h |
| One-on-one system audit | Client sends agendas and notes; you return a written restructure | $200–400 | 72–120h |
| Board update review | Client uploads the deck narrative; you return written notes | $200–450 | 48–96h |
| All-hands rehearsal feedback | Client uploads a recording; you return a written or video critique | $150–300 | 48–72h |
*Illustrative editorial starting points only — not benchmarks, quoted rates, or guarantees.
Followers pay upfront; you can decline a request. A smaller version of the same deliverable — one document, a tighter turnaround — belongs on its own listing with its own published price and delivery window, so the client chooses a tier instead of opening a negotiation.
Why does async coaching fit distributed leadership teams?
Asynchronous coaching fits distributed leadership teams because the client and the coach never have to share an hour. A director in Singapore can send a written question at the end of her day and read your answer later, without finding a shared hour or rescheduling a call.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 13.8% of U.S. workers usually worked from home in 2023, more than double the 5.7% who did so in 2019 (U.S. Census Bureau). Remote and hybrid leadership teams generate coaching demand that no shared office hour absorbs.
Gallup reports that global employee engagement fell to 20% of employees in 2025 and estimates that low engagement cost the world economy approximately $10 trillion in lost productivity, or 9% of global GDP. Gallup also found that the manager engagement gap is not fixed:
"In 2025, Gallup found that within best-practice organizations, 79% of managers were engaged at work — nearly quadruple the global average." — Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 (gallup.com)
What should executive coaches decline to answer?
Executive coaches should decline questions that require a legal, medical, or regulated judgment. A coach can help a leader frame a difficult conversation, but determining whether a termination is lawful, whether a complaint triggers a mandatory investigation, or whether a severance clause is enforceable requires a qualified employment attorney instead of a coach.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 88,531 new charges of discrimination in fiscal year 2024, an increase of more than 9% over fiscal year 2023 (EEOC Annual Performance Report). Employment disputes at that volume are the reason a coach's referral line has to be explicit.
The safe pattern is to answer the leadership question inside the legal question. "How do I have this conversation without making it worse?" is coachable. "Can I fire this person for this reason?" is not, and the honest reply names the limit and refers the client onward.
Career coaches handle the employee-side version of these same conversations.
How do you set up an executive coaching link?
Set up an executive coaching link by publishing one Paid Questions listing and one Custom Work listing, then placing that single Brillay link where senior clients already read you. Brillay has no monthly fee or follower minimum, clients can pay without creating an account, and coaches can receive payouts in 41 countries.
LinkedIn is the obvious first placement for an executive coach, because LinkedIn reports a community of more than 1.3 billion members.
Practical placements for an executive coach:
- LinkedIn profile link and Featured section
- Newsletter footer, under every leadership essay
- Podcast show notes and conference speaker bio
- The auto-reply you send when your calendar is full
The coach redirects people from social DMs to the link, where the published price, scope, and delivery window turn each inquiry into a defined request that the client pays for upfront. The same page can also carry Personalized Videos for a recorded pep talk before a promotion panel, Tips for one-time thanks with nothing owed back, Goals for one named goal such as a leadership curriculum, and Brand Collaboration Inquiries to route sponsorship requests into a separate inbox.
Frequently asked questions
Can an executive coach charge for a single written answer?
Yes. Paid Questions are a one-time exchange: the client submits one private question, pays upfront, and the coach replies in writing within the reply window the coach set. It is one time, with no membership or scheduled session.
Can a client upload a deck or performance review to a paid question?
No. Work involving a document, deck, or recording belongs in Custom Work, which accepts client attachments and supports delivery as text plus files of any allowed type and/or a link.
Does an executive coach need a large following to use Brillay?
No. There is no follower minimum, no application and no eligibility review — a practice with 900 senior connections publishes the same link as one with 90,000. Executive coaching audiences are small and senior rather than large, which suits a link that charges per interaction instead of per subscriber.
What does Brillay cost an executive coach?
No monthly fee, you only pay a small platform fee when you get paid. 8% platform fee when a follower pays for work, 5% platform fee on tips and goals. Card processing is separate. Stripe's typical US online-card pricing is 2.9% + 30 cents per successful charge, and the exact rate varies by card type and country. Payouts reach the coach's bank once Stripe is connected.
Does Brillay replace live executive coaching engagements?
No. Brillay gives clients a written answer with no live 1:1 call or scheduling. Brillay handles paid questions and document reviews between sessions. Retainers, workshops, and assessments stay wherever a coach already runs them.
Create your free Brillay page and put a price on the Monday-morning leadership question you are already answering for free at 7 a.m.
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