Career coaching or adhd and neurodivergent?
Both are real options. They differ most on who signs the cheque, which decides almost everything else: the fee, the sales cycle, and what you have to prove before anyone pays.
Career coaching
Worked steadily, pays on urgency.
- Hourly
- $100 to $250/hr
- Crowding
- Steadily worked
- Who buys
- Someone mid-transition, often under time pressure and paying themselves.
- Where work comes from
- LinkedIn, Referrals, Marketplaces
- You need first
- Credibility in the client’s own industry. A CV and interview toolkit.
- The catch
- Urgency supports a high single-session price but rarely a long engagement. Clients leave when they get the job, which is the point.
ADHD and neurodivergent
Newly opened, unusually rich for its depth.
- Typical annual
- Not broken out
- Hourly
- —
- Crowding
- Barely worked
- Who buys
- An adult recently diagnosed, or a parent, looking for function rather than insight.
- Where work comes from
- TikTok and Instagram, Community, Clinician referrals
- You need first
- Lived experience, which buyers treat as qualification here. Practical systems, not theory.
- The catch
- Demand is real and rising, but the audience is price-sensitive and frequently in the middle of exactly the executive-function problems that make long engagements hard to sustain.
The short answer
On income these two are close enough that money should not decide it. Pick on the work and the buyer instead.
Both take about the same effort to enter, so entry difficulty does not break the tie.
ADHD and neurodivergent is less crowded. That matters more than most niche advice admits: being the hundredth entrant into a well-paid seam is usually worse than being the fifth into a moderately paid one.
If your background already points at one of them, take that one. Credibility you already have is worth more than a slightly better band you have to spend three years earning.