Life 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.
Life coaching
The surface seam: easy to reach, worked by everyone.
- Hourly
- $75 to $200/hr
- Crowding
- Picked over
- Who buys
- An individual paying from their own pocket, usually at a turning point.
- Where work comes from
- Instagram, Referrals, Word of mouth
- You need first
- A specific transition you can name. Testimonials more than credentials.
- The catch
- The easiest niche to enter and the hardest to monetise, because the outcome is the least measurable. Almost everyone who struggles to price coaching is competing here.
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.
Life coaching is easier to enter. A specific transition you can name is the main gate, against lived experience, which buyers treat as qualification here on the other side.
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.