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If you’ve been in the music industry (or looking into the music industry) for any length of time, you’ve stumbled upon advice that looks like this:
Making it in as a performer is hard. If you want stable income, become a teacher.
At its very basic, I agree with this statement. Your chances at a stable income as a musician are much higher (and more in your control) than a lot of other areas in the industry. That coupled with the allure of flexibility to make your own schedule and the potential for a great hourly rate makes teaching seem like a no-brainer.
But.
There are hidden costs of being a music teacher that no one talks about, and many teachers don’t even realize why they’re feeling so burnt out with the wage they make – so let’s talk about it.
The bottom line here is that $60 an hour to teach music sounds great, but if you’re charging $60/hour, your take-home is going to be… less. I’m going to break down real costs with real numbers, and then we’ll talk about how to handle them. Let’s jump in!
What are the hidden costs of being a private music teacher?
- Unpaid admin time
- Cancellations and sick days
- Self-employment taxes
- Unpaid prep time
- Continuing education, certifications, etc.
- Materials and equipment
- Studio or travel costs
- Marketing and student acquisition/scheduling
- Processing fees
- Burnout & opportunity costs
The 10 Biggest Hidden Costs of Teaching Music Lessons
A little PSA for this section: I am going to be talking in this section about a few things that cost time, rather than literal money. However, as a music teacher, you have already placed a value on your time, and that is whatever you are charging for your hourly rate. Realistically, every hour that you work unpaid cuts into your hourly wage. So there is an actual cost to your time, which is how I am going to put those in terms of real dollars:
1. Unpaid Administrative Work
Scheduling, rescheduling, reminder emails, billing, tracking down missed payments, student communication, tracking expenses for taxes, website maintenance… when you are running your own business, you fill the role of admin as well, and those hours are unpaid.
Let’s say you take 2 hours a week for admin work – if you charge $60 an hour for your time, that’s $120 in free labor each week. That’s $480 a month.
2. Cancellations and Sick Days
Something people don’t often talk about when advising people to start teaching private music lessons is that if you don’t teach, you don’t get paid. If you get sick and miss a few days of teaching, you miss out on that income. Assuming a rate of $60 an hour with 20 students a week, 4 hours a day, a simple cold could cost you up to $480 if you just miss 2 days of teaching.
If a student has a family emergency, you don’t get paid. If they no-show, you may not get paid (depending on the terms of your contract). While that may open up an hour in your schedule for a break, or to do that admin or prep work, it’s still unpaid, and you’re out $60 for the week.
3. Self-Employment Taxes
In the US, the average self-employment tax rate is 15.3% (compared to 7.65% rate for W-2 employees), since you are paying the both the employer and the employee portion. Most private music teachers have a nasty shock their first year paying taxes – my husband and I (both categorized as self-employed) owed several thousand dollars our first year.
Many self-employed people opt to pay their taxes quarterly, making the owed sums a little bit more manageable. That does take time, and often money to pay for those filings.
4. Lesson Planning and Preparation
If you are a private music teacher, your lesson prep is not paid. In an established school, you may get a prep period, but that often isn’t enough time to fully do your prep.
I personally would take 5 or so minutes after a lesson to make notes, and 5-10 minutes before to prepare for a standard lesson, more if new rep needed to be found and/or prepared. That worked well for me, but it essentially lengthened my lesson time so instead of $30 for 30 minutes, I was getting $30 for 45-ish minutes of work.
5. Continuing Education & Training
Continuing education and training is an important part of being a music teacher. Even things like business or marketing classes can have big impact on your bottom line, and further certifications can give you the impetus for raising your lesson prices. But you know what those cost? Time and money, and many certificates require yearly renewal fees. For example, NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) memberships are $129 per year as of this post. Not too bad, and they offer resources and furthered education, but it is still a cost.
6. Equipment & Materials
Whether you need to purchase or rent your instrument, there will be costs involved. Upkeep costs money, and replacements cost money.
The more expected expense would be lesson materials – lesson books, sheet music, etc. I recommend digital subscriptions for sheet music like Tomplay, but even that has a monthly or yearly cost associated with it ($15 a month or $120 per year).
7. Studio Costs or Travel Expenses
If you’re renting studio space, then you have that rent to pay. Many music studios/schools offer hourly or monthly rates to teachers, and the cost can vary wildly based on location and amenities offered – often somewhere between $20 and $70 per hour.
If you are traveling to your students homes, then you are paying in gas and time. Much like the prep-work strategy I use, commute time needs to be factored into your lesson time both for your schedule and your “hourly rate.”
8. Marketing and Student Acquisition
Some of us fill our schedules by word of mouth or free marketing in Facebook groups – that’s great! You are still taking unpaid time to work to fill your schedule and onboard new students.
If you’re paying for marketing, that’s a higher cost. You’re spending both time and money to get your offer in front of people.
9. Payment Processing Fees
If you do digital payments, chances are you get charged to process those payments (2% – 3% is typical). While that doesn’t seem like a lot, it does add up over time and cut into your true hourly rate. If you are teaching 15 hours a week at $60 an hour, and there are no illnesses or excused absences, your invoiced income will be $3600, but you will actually receive $3456 after processing fees.
10. Burnout and Opportunity Cost
Like I mentioned above, if you don’t teach, you don’t get paid. That means your income is not only dependent on your ability to fill your schedule, but also the reliability of your students. The grind that that situation creates can be really stressful and causes a lot of teachers to burn out chasing a living.
It also causes a drive to fill your schedule to the brim, with no wiggle room. Going 100mph every day of the week is a recipe for burnout as well.
Woof. That’s a lot, I know. What does this look like in real numbers?
Realistic hourly rate for private music teachers (after costs)
Assuming $60 per hour charge for lessons, at 15 hours a week (being conservative here), the take-home pay for the month is $3600.
Subtract processing fees: $3456
Subtract taxes: $2961
We’ll estimate $200 for rental space or travel expenses: $2761
2 student cancellations loses $120: $2641
Materials costs estimated $15 for the month: $2626
With a total take-home of $2626 after expenses, we can now calculate the hourly rate:
15 hours of students a week, with 2 cancellations: 58 hours worked teaching
Let’s add 25% (15 minutes per lesson) to each lesson for commute and/or prep time: 72.5 hours
2 hours per week of admin work: 80.5 hours
That works out to a grand total of: $32.62 per hour
Upwards of $30 per hour is nothing to sneeze at, but it is a far cry from where we started at $60 per hour.
Get specific: calculate your actual hourly rate & what you should be charging for your target income.
How to Price Your Lessons to Cover Hidden Costs
So what do we do to mitigate these costs? Some of them are unavoidable, like the taxes. But you can plan accordingly:
Build extra costs into your rate
Something I implemented that helped with the extra commute time, gas costs, and mileage I was eating on my car was an extra charge for in-home lessons. Just an extra $5-$10 “convenience fee” did one of two things: it either got me some extra money, or it incentivized the students to come to me.
Shift to a tuition rate
Flat rates for a month, semester, or year, can be really helpful in a couple of different ways:
- You can set up recurring invoices to save time on admin work
- Eliminates the cancellation/no-show headache (if set up correctly, read below)
- It helps you and your student to plan financially
Create clear policies
The absolute best thing you can do to stop the money suck that cancellations are is to have a solid (SIGNED) policy in place. If you need help writing that up, or want to hear my story about implementing a student contract, read this blog post.
Raise rates when necessary
Some of you may be reading this post and thinking… I should have been charging more a long time ago. Don’t worry, I get it. Do some research on the going rate for teachers in your area (with similar qualifications), and start by raising your rate just $5-$10.
When things happen like gas prices go up, or studio rent goes up, the best thing you can do is communicate that to your students and then implement a rate raise – always communicate with them well in advance so they (and you) have time to plan.
Ways to Lower Your Costs as a Music Teacher
The best way to go about combatting hidden costs is a two-fold approach: price your lessons effectively, and lower costs where you can. Any ways you can lower your costs will result in higher take-home pay for you.
Be smart about scheduling
Especially if you commute to a separate space, scheduling your students in batches can really help cut down on commute costs.
Another really important thing for scheduling: schedule (and track!) your admin & prep time. Allowing for 15-20 minutes between lessons gives you some breathing room to prepare, and keeping track of how much time you spend doing unpaid work will help give you a clearer picture of your business.
Use admin & scheduling tools and/or automations
Something that really changed the way I ran my business was when I discovered Square (you can click here to read all about why I think Square is awesome for running a private music studio.) While it isn’t a software specific to music teachers, the scheduling program, contracts management, invoices, and automated appointment reminders were a game changer for me. Plus, there was a free version that did what I needed, they just charged a processing fee when invoices were paid. Worth it, in my opinion!
Anything you can use to simplify your admin work is well worth it to cut down on unpaid time.
Consider group lessons
If you have the space/capacity for group lessons, they can offer a real boost in income without asking students to pay more. Even a master class every quarter or every month can really help your bottom line without too much overhead.
Track your expenses
Yes, self-employment taxes suck. However, we do get a lot of tax write-offs that other classifications don’t. Tracking your expenses for tax write-offs is one of the most important things self-employed people can do! Whether you track them manually or use a service like Keeper, implement that today.
FAQ: Private Music Teacher Costs
Yes, there are a lot of hidden costs of being a music teacher.
But here’s what I want you to take away from this post: running a music teaching business can still be a sustainable career, you just have to price and plan accordingly.
If you are happy with your current pricing and workload, I am so happy for you. If you aren’t, here’s what I want you to do: do an audit of your prices. Tally your expenses and do the math to figure out exactly what your hourly wage is at your current state. Then, if you need to, make adjustments. I promise you this can be an awesome career with a living wage, you just have to approach it the right way.
