How much do piano lessons cost

Price of a full term: $420
The same rate for a half hour: $35
The same rate for a full hour: $70
Paid to the teacher, per lesson: $21

Every figure on this site comes from the numbers you enter and the method printed beside them: your lesson length, your term weeks, your rate, your teacher split, your room cost and your travel. Where a guide names a published document it names the document and the date it was read. This site publishes no teacher's prices and no studio's fees.

Your numbers

What you charge for one lesson, in dollars The rate you charge today, or the one you are thinking of moving to. This site publishes no teacher's prices; the figure is yours.Length of the lesson, in minutes The half hour is the usual beginner lesson. Enter 45 or 60 to see the same rate scaled to the lesson you actually teach.Lessons in a term The number of lessons you bill for in one term, after the weeks you do not teach.Share of the lesson paid to the teacher, percent Enter 0 if you teach it yourself. A teacher who brings their own pupils and uses your room usually keeps more than one who does neither.Room cost per hour, in dollars What the room costs you for an hour, whether that is rent, a share of the studio's rent, or nothing because it is your front room.Travel cost per lesson, in dollars For lessons taught at the pupil's home: fuel and the time it takes, priced the way you would price an hour.

The figures shown are a worked example for a small teaching studio: $420. Change them for yours.

Download the How much do piano lessons cost worked example (CSV)

The Lessonvo workspace open on Registers and term invoices, showing a saved rate card called Rate card, fall term, 30 minute piano lesson, filed against the pupil Amara Whitfield and the week 9 piano lesson. Its inputs read $35 a lesson, 30 minutes, 12 lessons in the term, 60 percent to the teacher, and no room or travel cost; its worked outputs read $35 for a half hour, $70 for a full hour, $420 for the full term, $21 to the teacher per lesson, $14 left to the studio per lesson and $168 left per term. The sidebar counts 2 pupils, 4 lessons and 1 saved register. — What Pro kept: the rate card that priced a $35 half hour, filed against the pupil and the lesson it was worked out for.

How much do piano lessons cost is the question a studio has to answer twice: once for the parent asking, and once for itself, because the rate that sounds normal in a town is not always a rate that leaves anything behind. This rate card works it from your own figures rather than a published average. Put in the length of the lesson, the number of lessons in a term, the rate you charge or are considering, the share that goes to the teacher who teaches it, what the room costs for the hour and the travel involved, and it returns the rate per half hour and per hour, the price of a whole term, and what is left per lesson and per term once the split, the room and the travel are paid.

Where the constants in this tool come from

Internal Revenue Service, Self-employed individuals tax center, on the income and expenses a self-employed teacher accounts for.

Internal Revenue Service, About Schedule C (Form 1040), where a teaching studio's profit after the room, the travel and what it pays its teachers is reported.

Internal Revenue Service, Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare taxes), the rate a self-employed teacher owes on the net earnings this sheet stops short of.

What a studio owner asks before running the How much do piano lessons cost

How much do piano lessons cost?

It depends on three things this sheet asks you for: the length of the lesson, whether the teacher is paid a share or a wage, and whether the room is yours or rented. Rather than repeat an average that fits no studio, the sheet prices YOUR lesson: enter the half hour, the term weeks and the split, and it prints the lesson price, the term price and the margin left.

Should I price by the lesson or by the term?

Price the lesson and bill the term. A per lesson figure is what a parent compares, a term figure is what your bank sees, and the sheet prints both from the same inputs so you can quote one without losing sight of the other.

What should the teacher's split be?

That is your decision and it varies with whether the teacher brings their own pupils and whose room they use. The sheet takes whatever split you set and shows what is left after it, which is the number worth arguing about before you agree a rate.

Does the sheet publish what other studios charge?

No. This site publishes no teacher's prices and no studio's fees. It works out yours from your figures, and prints the method beside them so you can check the arithmetic.

Is what the sheet leaves me the same as what I keep?

No, and the gap is worth knowing before you set a rate. The sheet stops at what is left after the teacher's split, the room and the travel, which is the studio's margin, not take-home pay. A self-employed teacher still owes self-employment tax on the net earnings under it: the IRS puts that rate at 15.3 percent, being 12.4 percent for social security and 2.9 percent for Medicare, before any income tax. Work the margin here first, then take it to whoever does your return.

Lessonvo Pro

Keeping the register between terms

Upgrading turns the sheet into the register. The rate you settled on becomes the rate on the pupil's record; each lesson in the timetable is marked taught, missed or made up on the day; and the term invoice adds up what was actually taught rather than what was planned. Export is always available, so the register and the invoice history are yours whether or not you stay.

Keep the rate you worked out, so next term starts from it instead of from a blank sheet.
Put this term's rate next to last term's, or a thirty minute lesson next to a forty five, and see the difference.
Print the sheet with the studio's name on it and without ours.
Send the term invoice or a lesson reminder to a parent from the record it came from.
Connect the studio's own Stripe account so parents can pay the term invoice.
Connect the bookkeeping the studio already files with, so the term's income lands there.

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