How Much Does It Cost to Run a Teaching Business?

In this episode, Rachel shares how she keeps her teaching business overhead low, manages expenses, and maintains profitability with minimal costs, offering practical tips for educators and entrepreneurs.

Chapters
00:00 Rachel explains her recent weather-related challenges and off-script episode
01:16 Rachel reflects on her teaching career anniversary and business mindset
02:01 How Rachel keeps her overhead at $70 a month
03:33 Using Google Workspace and AI tools to streamline teaching operations
05:39 Investing in Canva Pro and a custom website for credibility
07:00 Setting up scheduling with Calendly and free consultation strategy
11:10 Choosing affordable web hosting and domain setup
13:08 Breaking down monthly costs and profitability for teachers

Resources

Blog: Being a Self Employed Teacher Costs Less Than You Think 

Google Workspace

Canva Pro

Wix Website Builder

Bluehost Web Hosting

Calendly Scheduling Tool

Monthly Expenses vs Income Projects for My French U- July 2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Teacher to Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Siccioni, former classroom teacher turned entrepreneur and mentor to educators building their own unique teacher businesses. This is a space for teachers who are curious about alternatives to the classroom, exploring private practice and other multifaceted work, and for those who want to know what success can look like beyond the classroom. I'm glad you're here. Now let's get into today's conversation. Don't know if you know what was going on weather-wise on the East Coast during 4th of July, but our area where I live was hit pretty hard. In fact, some of the areas just start just got their power back today. Uh we were more fortunate where I live. We were only out for four days. And at any rate, yeah, we were actually very fortunate. All we lost was electricity and a few groceries, and we had to go eat out. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see I'm probably looking a little extra tired. It's harder to sleep because we've also had a lot of heat. Anyway, all of that just to kind of explain why I'm a little bit off script in this episode, might be a little unusual. So what I want to talk about today is a little different than what I originally had planned. I just have the mental or emotional bandwidth to talk about it. I'll get back to that. If you've listened to me for any length of time, I love these full circle moments. And we're coming up on the anniversary of when I submitted my actual letter of resignation to my full-time teaching job. And I had been counting the calendar days down. And I wanted to like really go into that. But like I said, I don't have the mental and emotional bandwidth to really go down that road with everything that's going on here in my hometown at the moment. But I was thinking, what else can I talk to you guys about that would be helpful and meaningful to you? And I decided I wanted to actually go through my books, like my accounting books, as far as what I actually invest in and how I managed to keep my overhead for my teaching business so low. Part of why I'm I realized what an opportunity I had created was because the operating budget for your own teaching business can be really low, lower than what I recommend you sell one hour of your time for. So I was just crunching the numbers. Some things I pay for a year at a time because it's a lower price, and other things I just pay for monthly because it doesn't really make that much of a difference. And I want to, I'm just sort of trying it out. I'm not totally sold on it yet, and they're always coming up with new products. In fact, the husband of one of my former clients is a software engineer, and he is creating an alternative to Tutorbird based on what Gina needs in her business. And so I'm going to be kind of piloting that for a little bit, and I will talk about that more. It's sort of in the beta stages right now, I think. But I wanted to share with you how I managed to keep my overhead down to under $70 a month. Now, a couple years ago, I wrote a blog about how I kept it under $50 a month and everything has gotten more expensive. But even with the extra things that I pay for, that I usually don't tell my clients that they should invest in right out of the gate, I'm still managing to keep it at $69 a month. And I charge $80 an hour for my teaching. So even if I only see one student for one hour a month, I'm still making money over and above my operating costs. So I wanted to kind of break that down for you and let you know, even with one student, one week a month, you're still gonna make a couple hundred dollars worth of profit. And here's how. So when I first start working with my teachers, there are a couple of things that I encourage them to invest in. And that's what I want to talk about. So one of the first things that I do recommend that they invest in is Google Workspace. And they can even go with the cheapest version of it, which is like $7. And I used to do that. I used to use the cheapest version of Google Workspace and then also pay for Zoom. But Zoom has been upgrading its features and I don't need all of those features. So I decided to switch from Zoom to Google Meet. And I just raised my plan up to the business standard. And now I can have up to a hundred people in a meet. I can record, I can use the Gemini AI to create meeting notes for me, which are actually pretty good. I can get a transcript of the entire meeting, which I then oftentimes will feed to an AI bot to have it help me create like summaries for it. And I don't mind doing those things myself, but it does streamline it. When I have multiple students that I want to do this for, or multiple clients that I want to make an edited replay available for them for reference, I want them to be able to jump to, you know, this particular minute or this particular spot of a video where they can rehear that portion of the lesson again. So that's why I use the AI with that. The upgraded version of Google, the business standard, comes to $17 a month, which I think saves me about $7 a month by just moving everything over to Google Workspace. I also use Google Classroom, I use Google Docs, I use Google Slides, I use Google Sheets. And it's nice just having everything in one place. I used to use Jamboard, I love Jamboard. I haven't really gotten into Fig Jam or anything else. I mostly just use the Google Slides now with my students, and that works out fine for us. It hasn't been problematic enough that I needed to find another solution. So that I pay $17 a month. So far, I really like it. I haven't had any issues with it whatsoever. And so I will likely upgrade that to paying yearly, which will give me a little bit more of a discount and bring that price down to me. The other thing that I recommend teachers invest in at some point in time is Canva Pro. Now, most of the teachers I work with are still in the classroom. And so they still have access to Canva Pro as a teacher. But once you transition out of the classroom, if that is your intention, then it comes to $18 a month, or if you purchase the yearly, $10 a month. So when I added up the $18 for Canva Pro and the $17 for Google Workspace Business Standard, that only brought me to $35 a month. Remember, I'm charging $80 an hour for my teaching lessons and $70 an hour for my tutoring lessons. So that's a really good profit margin there. The next thing that I do have my teacher clients invest in, and I think it's worthwhile because it will become a lead generator for you at some point in time. I did not have this for the first year I was in business. But things have changed in the online space in the last six years. And I think this is a worthwhile investment. Other coaches will tell you different things, but if you're listening to me, hopefully it's because you want to know what I think, and I think it's worthwhile. So I do think it's worthwhile having a website with a custom domain. So to have your own website, I personally use Wix. I've tried a lot of different kinds of websites. I think Wix is pretty user-friendly. I do not use all of the features that it offers. For example, I don't recommend using their bookings. Don't like their bookings. Instead, I use Calendly. You can use the free version. With the free version, you can schedule one type of meeting. With the paid version, you can schedule multiple types of meetings. Because I use mine for multiple businesses. I want to be able to differentiate between those businesses. So I do pay for that. And I pay for it yearly, which is $156 a year, breaks down to $13 a month. So that's one of my costs that I pay for. For my teaching business, if I just look at My French U alone, what I like about investing in this one is because you can differentiate the types of meetings. So, for example, I have a new student consultation. When they sign up for their consultation, which is the only live button they can use on my My French U website. I give them a ton of information. If they want to schedule, I want to meet with them. I want us to have a conversation, make sure that our goals are aligned. I can help them achieve their goals and we feel comfortable moving forward before any money changes hands. So that has been true for me in every business that I have ever had, is that I want, if we are going to work together personally, I want to make sure we're both comfortable with that. And so I always offer a free consultation, which is why it's the only live button that will do anything on my teaching website. So they can't schedule their own lessons. They can't just purchase asynchronous courses. I've helped other teachers do that who wanted to have that as part of their menu of services. I can absolutely help you to do that. But personally, I like having a personal touch with my clients. And so I work with my students and my teacher clients personally. And I want to make sure we're on the same page before money changes hands. Just how I like to do it. And I'm my own boss, so I get to. So when someone books their free consultation, I'm able to set up an automation that thanks them for booking and sends them to a Google form where they can fill out a new student information form. That allows me to get some information about them and to prepare for that free consultation. That allows me to prepare for our meeting so we can make the most efficient use of the time that we have together. And if I can tell from that new student information form, if I'm suspicious we're not going to be a good fit, I can have some ideas of where I can refer them. Because if they take the time to schedule with me and we meet and we talk, I want to make sure that they're able to walk away with something that they can use, even if I decide that we're not the best fit. I want to have a plan B that I can offer to them. So that's one type of meeting. The other type of meeting is I allow my students to reschedule a makeup lesson. So part of my terms of conditions that I have established is that if they give me enough notice, then they are allowed to schedule a makeup session. I have specific hours available for makeup sessions. And I have a separate link with that availability that I will give them, provided they've given me the notice that I require. If they don't give me 24 hours notice, well, then they can either try and still make it or they still have to pay me for that session. And that's not an uncommon policy. People are pretty accustomed to that at this point. But that's why I find it worthwhile to at some point invest in paying for Calendly. You can have that with the free version of Calendly. It just requires a little more work on your end. So one of the ways that I have my clients, my teacher clients, set up their free Calendly. We always start with the freest, cheapest way to run the business until we start getting some money coming in. Then, if it makes sense based on our workflow, then we upgrade to the paid version. That's the way my mind works. Other thing that I pay for have to do with the website. And there are two costs involved in that. So I recommend using Wix. It's $214 a year. Get the cheapest version that you can get. You don't need it to be robust. Remember, we're not going to use a lot of their additional features. And so you don't need to do this. I recommend if you know that you want a website ahead of time, which a lot of my clients decide they want to do their website at the same time as setting up their Google Workspace business standard, it's easier to purchase the website and then add in the Google Workplace rather than do the work Google Workplace first and then do the website. Okay, just word to the whys. I did it the reverse way, and it took me a couple of hours of phone calling, trying to get a human at Google, in order to be able to get those two products, the website and Google Workspace, to talk to each other. But if you start with the website first, then do the custom domain, and then add in the Google Workspace, they talk to each other beautifully. Just so you know. It ends up coming out. So 214 for the website with a custom domain through Wix. Remember, you're getting the cheapest version that you can get. That comes to $18. And then the web host for the custom domain. For my French U, I used Bluehost. That was $36 a year, comes out to $3 a month. For the private practice teacher, Namecheap had a better deal and I went with them. There are multiple web hosts that you can use, like HostGator, Namecheap, Bluehost. Just do it and see who you want to work with. Nothing I'm sharing with you today. I have not been sponsored. I don't have an affiliate link or anything like that. These are just you, if you just looked it up, you would get the same prices. So with all of that together, the custom domain, the website, paying for calendly, the monthly payment for that, when I break it down into months, is $34. So $35 for Google Meet and Canva Pro when you need to pay for it came to $35. The things that I pay for yearly comes to $34 for the month, and that brings you to $69 a month. Which tutoring and teaching, if we averaged an hour of your student-facing time, I hit it a whole podcast on pricing, should be around $75. Just working one hour a month, you will cover all of your overhead. And everything else after that is profited. Hope this was clear enough that you could get all of that. Like I said, I know I'm a little extra tired. I will attach the blog post that I wrote. I'll make sure Mary has that so she can add it to the show notes. And then I also just kind of have like July's bookkeeping for My French U. And I'm going to add that too. If you want to look and see what I'm doing this month, my personal revenue in My French U is lower than usual because one of my adult students just had a baby. And so she's going to take a month off, which is totally fine. I'm happy to do that. But still, the expenses for my business are only $69 a month, and I'm still making hundreds on that business. Anyway, that's all I have for you this time. Next week, I'm going to be interviewing Katrina, who is a sales psychologist. I'm super excited for that one. We'll be talking about selling and in ways that don't feel icky or manipulative because they don't have to. And that's something that I really feel passionate about. That if it feels icky, then we're doing it wrong and we're not going to want to do it. And I don't know a single person who started a business because they wanted to do something they didn't, they wanted to force themselves to do something that they didn't really want to do. So that's what I have for you next week. Until then, I hope that you have a great week and that you are safe and healthy and that you're enjoying your summer vacation. Bye. Thank you for listening. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with a colleague or leave a review. This helps the conversation reach other teachers who may need it. You can learn more about what I do and how to work with me at theprivatepracticeteacher.org. Best wishes always.