So, you’re ready to enlist the services of a nutritionist but the question on your mind is ‘How much does a nutritionist cost?’
We will answer that question for you by exploring several topics that are associated with the prices nutritionists set for their services, including:
- What Services Do Nutritionists Offer?
- The Average Price of a Nutritionist In The UK
- How Can Your Location Affect The Cost of a Nutritionist
- The Cost of a Nutritionist Can Also Be Influenced by Other Services
- Cost of a Nutritionist Vs Dietitian: Which Offers Better Value For Money
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What Services Do Nutritionists Offer?
If you searched for a nutritionist, you probably will have come across the term dietician as well.
At first glance, these two professions might appear to offer the same services, but it’s important to recognise there is a distinction between nutritionists and dieticians. Each profession has different responsibilities and different educational backgrounds.
A nutritionist’s responsibilities primarily focus on giving clients generalised advice that can help them improve their physical health.
Dieticians, on the other hand, have a more targeted approach with their clients, working on improving their diets based on conditions they might have such as diabetes and obesity.
Now that you understand the difference between the two, let’s further explore what tasks you can expect a nutritionist to carry out when you hire one:
- Initial Assessment- They will assess your eating habits and identify your current health conditions. This will help them offer nutritional advice tailored to your needs.
- Meal Planning- Write meal plans to make sure your nutritional needs are met, whilst also analysing your food intake.
- Offer guidance- On the nutritional benefits of specific foods that they’re recommending.
- Monitoring- Tracking your progress to make sure their advice is working and making necessary adjustments where needed.
- Collaborate with other health professionals- To make more informed decisions about clients’ nutritional needs, sometimes a nutritionist may refer you to another expert
It’s important to understand that whilst nutritionists can help you in a lot of ways, there are limitations to their scope of practice.
For example, you may request a consultation with a nutritionist to address underlying health problems, but can a nutritionist help you in this scenario?
The answer is yes, but only in a general capacity. They can’t assist or help manage health problems such as diabetes or high blood pressure or prescribe exact dietary changes.
The Average Price of a Nutritionist In The UK
Now that you understand the services you’ll receive when you hire a nutritionist, next, you’ll want to know how much it costs to see a nutritionist:
Prospects offer great resources to help answer the question ‘How much is a nutritionist in the UK?’, with research that found:
- Cost of a nutritionist consultation: £60 – £120
- Follow-up sessions (each): £50 – £100
- Recipe/diet analysis report (each): £60 – £200
However, you should remember that this can change depending on the level of expertise the nutritionist possesses.
Helen Jane Nutrition in Liverpool, for example, charges a minimum of £90 for 45-minute consultations that you can book as a ‘Pay as You Go’ service after hiring her for an initial consultation of £150 for 75 minutes:
Helen Jane’s initial consultations are used to establish meal plans and advice suitable for your goals. The subsequent meetings will be used to track progress and to offer further support and encouragement.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for a nutritionist to take a deeper dive into your health history, including your family’s, then you’ll probably benefit from purchasing a more premium service.
Megan Hallett focuses on improving Women’s health with a range of nutrition plans, including her ‘Basic Plan’ for £250 highlighted in orange below:
The initial consultation and follow-up sessions in this basic plan are longer compared to other available nutrition plans, extending up to half a day.
This allows Megan to create a ‘hyper-individualised’ plan to address the health concerns that come with recommendations for nutrition, meals, shopping lists and adjustments to your lifestyle.
When you shop around for a nutritionist you’ll notice that some will be transparent with their costs, whilst others won’t, choosing instead to disclose their fees after an initial consultation.
Before you commit to seeing a nutritionist, it’s important to ask what rates they charge and compare the price to the services they provide. Ask yourself, ‘Am I getting value for money?’.
This will inform your decision-making process and allow you to choose a nutritionist who offers affordable and beneficial services.
How Can Your Location Affect The Cost of a Nutritionist?
Just like any other service in the UK, location matters for nutritionists. If a commercial gym, restaurant or bar operates in London, their services will cost more than similar companies operating in other areas of the UK – This goes for nutritionists too.
The simple reason for this is that London has a large job market which results in a high demand for places to live, which explains why you see a range of prices for nutritionists in the UK, with the capital being the highest.
Take a look at this chart at Bark which shows prices of nutritionist services across the UK:
This is reflected in real terms when you compare nutritionists from two areas of the UK. To make sure this research was fair and impartial we made sure that both nutritionists were offering similar services.
Starting in London, Nutritionist Therapist offers a ‘New Client Package’ that offers consultations, plans and email support for £600:
Now if you compare these services with other areas of the UK, you’ll come across nutritionists such as Eat for Life, based in Somerset. They offer the same services but at a much lower rate of £275:
We can therefore confidently state that when looking for online nutritionists the cost will always be affected by location.
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If you’re passionate about nutrition why not pursue this career yourself? To help with this process, here are 3 handy articles to help kickstart your career.
- How To Become A Nutritionist
- FREE Nutrition Courses: Are They Worth It?
- How to Write A Nutrition Business Plan (2021 Guide)
The Cost of a Nutritionist Can Also Be Influenced by Other Services
Understanding how nutritionists determine their pricing is essential once you know the costs involved.
Different factors can lead to nutritionists charging higher fees for their services, including:
#1 The Packages Nutritionists Offer
One of the factors that allows these experts to charge more for their services is the inclusion of nutritionist meal plans.
Alongside their initial consultations and follow-up appointments, some nutritionists like to include meal plans and offer time-restricted packages to clients.
This is something that Carbon Nutrition provides, with a meal plan included in their range of weekly packages to suit different people’s needs:
As you see, when it comes to this specific example, the more you pay, the more you’ll receive. The pricer packages offer more benefits to clients than the cheaper alternatives, such as more follow-ups which will lead to a stronger working relationship.
#2 The Different Areas Nutritionist’s Specialise In
When it comes to understanding how nutritionists’ prices are determined, it’s important to consider a nutritionist’s level of experience and any specialisms they hold
If you visit the ‘About Me’ section of different nutritionist’s websites or even their social media bios, you’ll get an indication of the level of experience that they hold in specific areas.
For example, Rejuvenate Health and Nutrition’s bio page indicates that her Nutrition experience comes from working with clients who have IBS and gut disorders.
So if you suffer from these conditions, you would feel more confident to enquire about their services further and may even be willing to pay a higher fee.
We’d therefore recommend carrying out the right level of research can help you discover the experience different nutritionists have gained, which can help you find the most appropriate expert for you.
Remember, just like education, the more experience a nutritionist has, the more likely they will charge more for you to secure their services.
Cost of a Nutritionist Vs Dietitian: Which Offers Better Value For Money
To briefly recap, nutritionists help with general needs and health aspirations, whilst dietitians offer a more focused approach and can work with patients to treat various health conditions.
You can find out more about these differences by checking out this OriGym article, discussing becoming a nutritionist with and without a degree.
Since both nutritionists and dietitians come from different educational backgrounds and offer a different range of services, their pricing structures as a result will be different too.
Dieticians are recognised medical professionals who undergo extensive training and as a result, will charge more for their services. They’ll also be required to have a licence and complete continuing education requirements to maintain their practice.
Their training will allow them to conduct more detailed assessments and offer more hyper-focused dietician plans for their clients, which will command a higher fee to retain these services as a client.
This level of expertise can be seen in the price differences between dieticians and nutritionists, as outlined below from the Dietician Fit website:
In contrast, nutritionists, whilst also possessing scientific knowledge, have a broader scope of practice compared to dieticians. Hence, unless you have a specific medical requirement, it would be a better financial option to choose a nutritionist.
For further insight into their total earnings, please check out our article detailing the average salary of a nutritionist.
Before You Go!
Now that you have a better idea about the costs associated with hiring a nutritionist and what services you should receive in return, you can confidently explore the industry and find a professional that’s right for you.
If you have a passion for nutrition and want to transform it into a future career, enquire about our Level 4 Nutrition course or download our course prospectus for more information.
