An Inside Look: my formula for pricing private yoga lessons

Yoga and Money: Part One

There is an inherently complicated nature when working at the intersection between being a spiritual teacher and needing to make a living wage. As yoga teachers we live in this place, and I imagine that almost all of us find some part of this situation challenging. Every week I have teachers reaching out to me with nuts and bolts questions about how to make a living as a yoga teacher. I began to write a series of blog posts answering these questions and I realized I could not stay silent about the challenges we face when we choose to support ourselves and our families by offering healing and spiritual teachings.I would like to take the next few blogs to explore this topic and use the same framework as I do in my teacher training.  In The Science of the Private Lesson™, the first few modules begin by discussing the more surface level topics as we learn how to create the container for good, deep work to be done with our private students. As we move further into the training we start tackling meatier subjects. The first two blog posts in this series will address the surface level issues yoga teachers have with money, and the last one will dive deeper into the heart of the issues. This is a vulnerable place for me to take a stand, and I need some time to synthesize my thoughts on this sensitive subject.To kick us off, let’s start with this question::

“What should I be charging for my private yoga sessions?”

Some variation of this question shows up in my inbox, or on my Facebook page, almost every week. I want to be able to give an easy answer, but it is actually a kind of complicated question! There are many factors that come into play when you are creating pricing and I cannot easily answer that question for everyone at the same time. Factors that impact pricing are:

• cost of living in your area
• amount of training you have
• amount of teaching experience you have
• how busy you are

What I can do is give you a formula to use when coming up with pricing!

Step One:

If you are coming up with new pricing from scratch, do as much market research as you can. Look at the price of a wide range of therapeutic, exercise, and bodywork sessions. The different modalities will vary quite a bit in price, and this is a good thing! You want to get a sense of the full price range people in your area charge for 1X1 wellness sessions.Start by finding out the pricing in your area for:

• private yoga sessions offered in-studio {and in-home if you can find any examples of that}
• group yoga classes {for reference}
• personal training sessions both in the home, and at the gym {I expect this will be on the lower end of the services you are looking at}
• private pilates sessions
• acupuncture {this will be one of the more expensive services you’ll see, I’d imagine}
• chiropractic work
• massage {both in a spa, and if you can find any numbers of bodyworkers who travel, that would be great!}
• craniosacral therapy {this should be on the more expensive end}
• any other healing, therapeutic, movement, exercise, bodywork sessions you can find pricing for! What am I leaving out?

Step Two:

Take that price range, and find a number somewhere in the middle that takes into account these factors:

• amount and kind of training and continuing education you have done
  • trainings in therapeutics, anatomy, and complementary healing modalities will often be most useful for students, and therefore quite valuable
• number of years teaching and numbers of hours taught over the course of those years
• how busy you are
  • the busier you are, the more expensive your time is
• general cost of living in your area

So take the median price of wellness sessions and multiply it by your training, add your teaching experience, then finally take into account how full your teaching schedule is:Median Price for Wellness Sessions  X Your Training + Your Teaching Experience + Amount of Free Time in Teaching Schedule = Price of a private yoga session with you!I have seen teachers use complicated formulas based on the time and distance they have to travel to see clients. I don’t do that: you can if you want to, but I really recommend against sharing that process with your clients. It is more information than they need, and makes things unnecessarily confusing.I know this can feel like an uncomfortable or stressful topic. I never like coming up with pricing either. How can you: a. charge money for, or  b. put a price on: physical healing and spirituality? But the bottom line is that you are {I am assuming} a well educated professional who is constantly studying and learning and working to become a better teacher. You take your work seriously, and want to be able to help your clients and students as best you can.

You cannot take care of anyone else if you are not taking care of yourself.

Part of your own self care should mean charging appropriately for your work. We are all in this together, and if we want the healing benefits of yoga to reach as many people as possible, {I do! Don’t you?} we have to carry ourselves as professionals who can afford to take continuing education classes, pay for quality health care, buy healthy food, and save for retirement and vacation. That means you have to charge for your work, and you have to charge appropriately.

Let me help you figure out what that means.

This post is only the start! I know you have more questions for me about pricing for private yoga sessions! This is the place to ask them! {PS. Next time on the blog we will talk about accepting payment, offering packages, and changing rates. Save those questions for next time!}