I hate asking for money.

[ewt]

It's time to put my teaching rates up again this fall. I haven't had a payrise since Autumn 2004.

I currently charge £25/hour for teaching piano. Bear in mind that I travel to my students and I do not charge them extra for the travel time and so on. I am thinking of putting my rates up to £27 or £28 per hour. £28 would make for slightly easier arithmetic (most of my students have half-hour lessons), but I'm not sure if it's too much. On the other hand, I would expect to pay at least £30/hour for music lessons myself, or possibly quite a bit more.

The other thing is that many of my students need longer lessons. Even then we won't be able to do everything every week. I generally start students on 30 minutes a week, but once they start working toward exams and so on it really isn't enough time - not if I want to teach them thorough musicianship, rather than just how to be an exam monkey. As things currently stand I frequently teach longer than I'm paid for, and that's not cool on several levels. Of the ten (probably soon to be eleven) students I normally teach on a Sunday, easily four or five of them should be having 45-minute lessons instead of 30 minutes. Some teachers won't teach for less time than that at all. My during-the-week students are probably fine as they are; trumpet student usually gets an hour anyway, and my Thursday student in Kentish Town is too young to concentrate for 45 minutes.

I don't think there are any families I teach who genuinely couldn't afford both the increase in time and the higher rates, but I am worried about the objections. Whether people can afford something and whether they are willing to pay it are different, and I don't want it to seem like I'm grasping for money. I know when I spoke to one parent about adding a 15-minute theory lesson every other week she was against the idea on the grounds that when she was studying violin they just did that as part of the lesson... but I seriously doubt she had half-hour lessons (although she seems to think she did) and learned the violin well and had theory tuition on top of that.

I don't want to lose students because I'm putting my rates up.

So I guess I have to put the rates up, and suggest longer lessons for those students serious about taking exams and so on, and accept that some families won't want the longer lessons.

Do I put the rates up at the beginning of summer and then suggest the longer lessons in September when I'm re-scheduling? Or do I suggest the longer lessons for those students who continue through the summer, and put the rates up in the autumn? Either way some students will end up being asked for longer lessons and higher rates at the same time, because not everyone studies through the summer.

Really, once a student is at the point where they can sit and concentrate for 45 minutes instead of just a half hour, there is not usually a good educational reason to keep them on 30-minute lessons. This will vary from student to student, as all things do, but I'm thinking that it might be wise to adopt a policy along the lines of "I normally teach children for 45 minutes if they are over seven years of age and 60 minutes if they are over the age of 10" and see what happens.

Your thoughts?

Comments

[fwuffydragon.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I charged £20 per hour for ages and only put it up last year to £22. They all have to come to me though so I don't need to worry about travel time / travel costs AND I'm not in London. I should really charge a bit more but I'm not doing that much teaching nowadays AND I have a day job in an office so the teaching is for fun rather than "need to eat" money.

I also end up teaching for longer than I'm paid for for a couple of students, who really need longer lessons but one of them is one of five children and her parents really can't afford any more. I HAVE to get her down to the half hour she's paying for though ... she's just done her grade 6 cello and we REALLY need more time ... Rrrr!

What I did was I gave them all a term / half a term's notice and said "as of 1st April my fees are going up to ****" so that way they had time to think about it / make appropriate financial arrangements.

Given where we are in the year now, you could say you're putting them up as of September, and that you think little so&so could do with a longer lesson so why not try it out between now and then to see how they get on and if they don't think it's worth it they can put it back down to the old length once the rates go up...

I don't do theory as standard with mine, (though I know I should!) and if they want to do it I tell them they have to have an additional lesson.

They progress so much faster with a 45 minute lesson than they do with a 30 minute lesson, especially the cello as it takes time to get it out / tuned etc.

I tend to group mine by standard rather than by age, but I find that adults need longer as they ask more questions!

Sorry for going on lots!

[fwuffydragon.livejournal.com]

FYI_ Some people I know charge more "per hour" for a half hour lesson than they do for an hour lesson - e.g. £12 for half hour (24ph), £16.50 for 45 mins (22ph), £20 for hour (several years ago) to allow for extra hassle time of getting there etc. It can be an effective incentive for people to have a longer lesson ...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Do you know why they don't want an hour? Is it the cost, or does the pupil not want that long? I don't know what your rates should be, but can you make it more representative, eg. half a lesson more than half the cost of a lesson? Except that'd be a big jump at once, and people might be scared.

[reddragdiva]

Your icon needs pink hair and glasses.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

It doesn't need the glasses now. :(((

[reddragdiva]

Oh, buggre!

[vampwillow]

when I had (piano) lessons as a child (age 6 - 16) istr that they started as half-hour but got longer. They didn't include theory. In my mid-teens I had Clarinet lessons at school and they were 45min, and music theory (and composition, etc) were part of my music class which was either 1x45min or 3x45min.

I'm thinking that it will depend as much on how much pressure the paretns put on the child to practice regularly (for me it was to do two hours per day and I usually managed at least one) or whether they just do ad-hoc pracxtice between tuition sessions.

None of my lessons were at home, btw - always had to travel.

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

You can always let them talk you down to a lower price if they look like they're going to cancel?

[fwuffydragon.livejournal.com]

but that gets really complicated when you're trying to bill them, and if they talk to each other it can make for hassle!

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

True, although you could try coming up with a plausiblish reason why the cheaper people are cheaper.

All gets complicated though, I suppose.

[fwuffydragon.livejournal.com]

There is always the "long term loyalty discount" thing, or the "two of you live close together so you can have a bit of a discount cos it saves me on travel time thing", but again it's tricky.

[ewtikins.livejournal.com]

you assume people will be honest about the 'I think this is too expensive' bit. Most of them would rather just decide to 'take a break for a while,' and find another teacher - probably someone less thorough who can't teach very well.

[fwuffydragon.livejournal.com]

If you're good enough, word will get around through recommendation etc. so the odd one cancelling won't hurt too much as new ones will keep coming in!

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Would it be possible to put your rates up for the 30 minute lessons but keep them the same for 45 minute and 1 hour lessons - with the extra income there coming from the travelling time saved? (And giving the parents more of an incentive to have longer lessons?)

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

I think putting asking people to do longer lessons in the summer and the rate increase in september *sounds* like the better option. Don't know about how that would work with finances or how it would affect people's learning but asking for longer lessons when people might be free-er and a price increase at the start of the academic year both sound reasonable.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think you should put the rates up in autumn, because it will look more reasonable being the start of the academic year.