How much to charge for a yoga class

Most yoga teachers set their price by looking at the studio down the road. That tells you what people are used to paying, but not whether the price covers your costs. Start from your own numbers, then compare. You only need a few figures.

1. Add up what one class costs you

Put everything a class needs into one number:

• The teacher: their fee for the class, or what your own hour is worth if you teach it.
• The room: your monthly rent and bills divided by the classes you run, or the hourly rate if you hire a room.
• Everything else: insurance, mats and props, cleaning, software, card fees and marketing, again divided by the classes in a month.

Say the teacher costs €35 and the room and everything else come to €25 a class. One class costs you €60 to run.

2. Find your break-even price per student

Divide that cost by the number of people who actually come, not by the number of mats. If your room fits 18 mats and classes are about 65% full on average, around 12 people come. Each of them needs to bring in at least €5.13 for the class to pay for itself.

Call that your floor. Every price you set, including the cheapest per-class price on your biggest pack or unlimited pass, has to stay above it. If it can’t, the class is too expensive to run at that size: find a cheaper slot, a smaller room or more students before you lower the price.

3. Set the drop-in price well above the floor

The drop-in is the price people compare between studios, and the most expensive way to come. One-off visitors cost you the most: they need more help, book late and miss more often. Most studios charge them one and a half to two times what a regular pays per visit, which lands at roughly two to two and a half times the floor. In the example that suggests a drop-in of about €12.

Now look at what studios near you charge for a similar class. If you’re well below them, you can probably charge more. Being the cheapest rarely fills a small studio, because people pick a yoga class mostly by the teacher and the time. If you’re well above them, make sure the reason is visible: smaller classes, a better room, more experienced teachers.

4. Reward the people who come every week

Regulars should pay less per class than drop-ins, through class packs and a monthly pass. In the example, packs of 5, 10 and 20 would be €50 for 5, €95 for 10, and €170 for 20, and an unlimited monthly pass about €79. The guide to pricing class packs explains the discount steps, expiry dates and the regulars who come every day.

5. Price special classes on their own

• Hot yoga costs more to run, because heating the room adds to every class. Work out its floor separately, and charge more or count it as more than one class from a pack.
• Workshops of two or three hours with a guest teacher are priced per event, usually from the teacher’s fee plus the room, divided by a realistic number of people. Take payment or a deposit when people book.
• Private sessions carry the whole cost on one person. Price them by the hour, at several times your drop-in.
• Intro offers for first-timers can sit below the floor, since you pay for them out of your marketing budget. Keep them to one offer per person, for a short time. See how to turn trial classes into regulars.

6. Check it every few months

Your floor changes when classes fill up, rent rises or a teacher’s fee changes. Once a quarter, look at how full each class really was and redo the sum. Raise prices in the open: tell people a month ahead, say why in a sentence, and let them buy one more pack at the old price.

Work it out for your studio

The class pricing calculator runs these steps for you: enter what a class costs, how many mats you have and how full classes usually are, and it suggests a drop-in price, three packs and a monthly pass, and flags any that fall below your floor.

How Groopla handles this

In Groopla you set a drop-in price on each class and create the packs and passes you sell. Students pay by card when they book, and each booking uses the pass that runs out first. Hot yoga, workshops and intro classes are their own activities with their own price. Reports show how full each class is, so redoing your sums takes minutes. More about payments and passes.