For Yoga Teachers

52: How much to charge for private yoga lessons

• Episode 52

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If you’ve ever received an enquiry for a private yoga lesson, and your first thought is ‘Oh no, how much am I going to charge?’, well, yoga teacher, you most certainly aren’t on your own. 

“How much should I charge for….” must be the question I (Holly, hi by the way!) have been asked the most over the ten or so years that I have been working with yoga teachers, so you are most certainly not on your own!

The good news is that defining a pricing structure is actually pretty simple, and once it’s done, it’s done forever! 

And the great news is that over on The Base, we have a pricing matrix template ready for you to put your numbers in, and it’ll pop out your pricing matrix for you. Boom! 

The episode is everything you need to create a pricing matrix that ensures all your costs are covered, that you’re priced in-line with similar offerings in your area (if you want to be), and how to keep the matrix accessible for future you. 


Useful resources:

Get the show notes here 

Episode 51: How to teach private yoga lessons

Shatter Imposter Syndrome Challenge - Join us! 

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 [00:00:00] 

Hello, and welcome to For Yoga Teachers. This podcast has been created to help yoga teachers teach with passion, avoid burnout, and earn a fair living. 

In our last podcast episode, we broke down how to teach private yoga lessons. So, if you haven't listened to that yet, you might want to give it a listen after this episode, it's linked to in the show notes. 

This episode is breaking down one of the questions that without a shadow of a doubt, I get asked the most; how much should I charge for private yoga lesson? 

My intention is that by the end of the episode, you will have a foolproof plan to know how much to charge. And if you're a member of the base, go and head over there because you've got a pricing [00:01:00] matrix template waiting for you. You just have to put your figures in, it'll show you exactly how much you need to charge to cover your costs. Easy peasy. 

This is where we're going in today's episode. 

We'll start with a word from me about why your private yoga lessons do not need to be accessibly priced. 

We'll then ensure that all your costs are covered. 

We'll consider other offerings in your area. 

And then we'll define your price. 

We'll look at when you should offer discounts. 

And then establish a way that your pricing matrix is accessible for future you. 

So let's go.

Why your private yoga lessons do not need to be accessibly priced. 

We talked about this a bit in the last episode, but repetition is the mother of learning. And so it's [00:02:00] only right to mention it here too. Yoga is freely available in books in libraries. It's freely available on YouTube, although you might have to watch 600 ads to get through a class. 

There are some really great, really accessibly priced, online memberships and many studios offer deals on class passes and memberships and some special offers. So hear me loud and clear yoga teacher. Working with you one-on-one is a premium product and it should be priced accordingly. 

Last week, we talked about getting payment upfront, and I want to mention that again here. There's no point, you doing this work to price up your private yoga classes, if you ended up not getting paid at all. So two things, two very, very important things. Working with you one-on-one is a premium product and it should be priced accordingly and you must take payment upfront. 

If somebody gets in touch with [00:03:00] you and they would like to work with you on a one-on-one basis, but they say they can't afford your price, direct them to classes that you teach at studios or gyms or workshops or courses that you have coming up. You could maybe, possibly, consider offering a discount, which is something that we'll look at later on. 

However, this whole podcast, this whole for yoga teachers podcast, website, blog trainings. The whole thing has been created to help yoga teachers teach with passion, avoid burnout, and earn a fair living. Earning a fair living means that people are paying for your knowledge, your attention, your yoga, and your time. So for one last time, at least for now, hear me yoga teacher loud and clear: a private yoga session with you is a premium product and it should be priced accordingly and paid for up front. If you're really [00:04:00] struggling with the idea of your time, your one-on-one time being a premium product, our Shatter Imposter Syndrome challenge is linked to in the show notes. It's free, it's three days, and I would strongly suggest doing that first; knowing your worth, and then doing this work to price up your private yoga lessons. 

Ensuring that all of your costs are covered. 

I think that looking at this before setting your pricing is really important. When I work with yoga teachers on a mentoring basis and we get to this stage, I'll often find that yoga teachers have missed some important outgoings or overlooked something that mean that their pricing structure might not even break even. 

Luckily for those of you on the base, you have your pricing [00:05:00] matrix, that lists out all the possible costs, and you can complete that and make sure that all of your costs are covered. 

If you're not yet a member of the base, use the code community for 25% off your first three months. 

In short, you want to cover costs like the room rental, your travel costs. If you're driving, remember all of the costs of running a car, not just fuel and remember to factor in your car parking too.

You might want to take into consideration that although the session might be an hour, it's probably going to take a minimum of two hours of your time, by the time you've traveled there, you've set up the room, you've welcomed the client in you've taught the class, you've answered their questions afterwards, you cleared up the room and you've got home. 

You also want to take into consideration that this is two hours, or more, that you're not earning money elsewhere. So if a cover opportunity came up in this time, you would have to turn it [00:06:00] down. 

 Consider other offerings in your area. 

Other offerings in your area, it might be other yoga teachers who offer private yoga lessons in your location. Or it might be other yoga teachers who are experts in your field of expertise, especially if you offer private yoga sessions online. 

For example. If you specialise in helping people manage their anxiety, you could have a Google and see what other yoga teachers charge for this. Even if it's just making sure that you're not wildly overpricing or underpricing, what they're charging. Just a note here, that if at this point you would be happy underpricing what other yoga teachers are charging, it's time for a confidence boost. So another note for our Shatter Imposter Syndrome challenge, because knowing your value is really, really important in doing this pricing setting [00:07:00] work. 

Defining your price. 

And this is it, yoga teachers. This is what you came for. It's time to define your pricing matrix. So, what do I mean when I say a pricing matrix? I mean your price for a one off session, bearing in mind here that you should take into account all of the stuff we talked about last week, including getting and understanding the client's intake form. Finding a location to teach the session, the admin and taking the payment, et cetera. 

This is all work that you have to do for the first session, but you don't have to do it for recurring sessions. 

For recurring sessions. You could either say that the first lesson, is X let's say 100 pounds. Because A, I hope you're thinking big! And B it's an easy number to work with.

So to recap, you could say your first lesson is 100 pounds and each subsequent lesson is 80 pounds, for example. 

[00:08:00] Or, you could work these costs into a block. So using the figures, we just mentioned it would be 340 pounds for four sessions or 500 pounds for six sessions. 

However. While I really want you to know your value and to understand that working with you one-on-one is a premium product. I would also really, really encourage you to offer an attractive discount for block bookings. So it would be enough of an incentive, it's almost a no brainer for people to commit to four or six sessions with you, rather than booking them individually. 

So to get your robust pricing matrix in order you need a one-off price, and you need a recurring price, which factors in your work for the first session, but it's attractive enough for a client to consider it. 

You personally might want to consider an online pricing structure and an [00:09:00] in-person pricing structure. And whether one is cheaper than the other will be dependent on your personal circumstances. You personally might much prefer teaching online. You might have a space that's set up, ready to go. You might have a camera and a mic that you can use. In which case, teaching online is a bit of a no brainer. 

But if your house isn't really set up for you to teach yoga, you have kids or pets or other adults actually, who do not understand that you need to be left alone. Um, or you have to rearrange the entire living room you might prefer to simply rent a space out by the hour and teach the lesson in person. 

And then lastly, you need a discount matrix. This is something that you can use if you're really called to work with someone, but they're struggling financially, or you might use it as an incentive for people to book now, for example, book four sessions before the end of September, get [00:10:00] this special summer offer price and so on. 

Establish a way your pricing matrix is accessible to future you. 

The pricing matrix on the base is a Google doc. And we work with Google docs all the time at Yoga Hero. They're always accessible as long as you have an internet connection, there's no version control, so you always have the latest version and they're really easy to share should you need to. 

If you don't want to work with Google docs, you might want to consider emailing yourself the pricing matrix so it's always in your email, saving it to your phone, adding it to something like Dropbox. Basically something; anything, that means that you can respond to queries and give your thought out, defined price, even while you're on the move. 

And that's it yoga teacher. Everything that you need to determine how much [00:11:00] you should charge for private yoga lessons. Let's have a brief recap. 

The steps are first things first, having a chat with yourself about why your private yoga lessons do not need to be accessibly priced. 

Ensuring that your costs are covered. 

Considering other offerings in your area. 

Defining your price. 

Thinking about when you should offer a discount and 

establishing a way that your pricing matrix is accessible to future you. 

So hopefully now there's nothing stopping you from writing up your private yoga sessions and getting people booked in. It is such a rewarding way to share yoga. 

By the way, if you have a spare moment and you've enjoyed this episode, would you leave us a review or a rating wherever you're listening to this podcast, it really helps people who need this information find it. 

But yoga teacher. As always. Happy [00:12:00] happy teaching.