Yoga Teachers: How Much Should I Be Paid?

At some point, every teacher struggles with the question: how much should I be paid?

Yoga teachers often feel disempowered when it comes to setting pay rates. After all, we are auditioning to teach in a competitive market and usually feel like we need to take what we can get. (If you’re scared about having a heart to heart with your manager about pay rates, read this.) But you must create a business that is sustainable. Even if you’re teaching yoga on the side as a passion project, you should feel adequately compensated for your time and effort. After all, you’ve invested at least $3,000 in yoga tuition, plus all those years of practice.

Based on my 15+ years in the biz, here are some brass tack guidelines.

A caveat: every community is different, and market forces in your community may vary. A teacher may make one salary in NYC and quite another in a rural area in Winnipeg. It’s a good idea to canvas your yogi friends and colleagues in your marketplace to adjust for the financial realities of your particular area.

How Studios Pay

Studios pay their teachers in different ways. These include:

• set rate for all classes
• rate based on time (60 minute class is one rate, 75 minute class is another, etc.)
• per head rate
• minimum with a per head bonus (ex. you get $15/ class plus $5 for each student after 10)
• incremental rate (ex. $30 for 1-10 students, $35 for 11-15 students, etc.)
• percentage split

Established studios will pay a flat rate for their classes because they want to know exactly what their expenses will be each month.

Starting Out

When you’re just starting out, usually there’s a time period of “paying your dues.” For the first year after I graduated from TT, I taught several classes for free in order to get experience ($0/class). I also taught classes for free in order to get a toehold at the studio in which I really wanted to (eventually) teach (again, $0/class). I taught at gyms and small studios where the pay was very low ($20-35/class depending on how many students showed up). After about a year of teaching, I started making what I would call a “new teacher” wage.

Class payrates vary city to city (so adjust accordingly for your market). However, as a general rule, you can expect:

• brand new teachers “paying dues”: $0-$30
• new teachers: $30-$40 per class
• moderately experienced teachers: $40-$60 per class
• senior teachers: $60-$80 in smaller markets, up to $90 in a larger market such as New York City.

Studio Realities

Unless you’re a corporate entity, running a yoga studio is usually not that profitable. A senior teacher in a prime time slot may look around and think, “There are 30 students here paying $20/class, that’s $600! Why am I only making $60?”

Here’s what the teacher is not seeing:

• the other five yoga classes that day that only had 6 students (but the studio is still paying the teacher $50/class to show up)
• even though $20 is the advertised drop in rate, no one is really paying that. With all the memberships and promotions that the studio has to run to stay in business, the real drop in revenue is about $11/head.
• rent, utilities, insurance, props, staff, laundry, cleaning, marketing: all the other fixed costs that go into running the business
• the owner needs to pay themselves: usually they’re the last ones to get paid

With all these expenses, the only way out of the “glass ceiling” of class pay rates is to teach at a studio that splits the revenue. For example, we have a by-donation studio here in Vancouver that pays the teacher 70% of the class revenue. I taught for them when they first opened, and it sucked. No one came. I left class with maybe $10 (sometimes $0). But now their business is booming. The teachers who have the primetime slots take home an excellent wage (if there are 30 students paying $10 each, the teacher walks out with $210).

There are very few for-profit studios that run this way (because it’s impossible to budget when you’re paying everyone something different); however, if you’ve hit the glass ceiling at your current studio, it’s worth checking around.

How To Earn More Money

If you want to earn more money as a yoga teacher, you have some other options: privates, corporates, workshops and teacher trainings.

• Private yoga classes tend to pay more than public classes: $70 (new teacher)-$150 (experienced teacher)
• Corporates: $100-$300/class (Depending on organization. Work for Facebook and you can even charge more!)
• Workshops: usually a revenue share with the studio (you should get 70% as the teacher)
• Trainings: teacher trainings usually charge $3000-$4000/student. If you’re hired by a studio, you may earn $50-$100/hour.

I, of course, specialize in coaching people how to create amazing teacher trainings, so they have a special place in my heart! However, here’s my strong advice: don’t take on any of these options simply for the money! These offerings must align with your vision for yourself as a teacher. If you’re considering alternate branches of revenue, determine first which offerings align with your personal mission as a teacher (Pssstt, you can take this module for free and it includes a section on crafting your mission as a teacher. If you haven’t done that yet, go check it out and just do that part, it’s worth it.)

Tips for Conversations About Money

When you start teaching at a studio, have a candid conversation about pay rates and the process for increases. (If you have a hard time with challenging conversations, check this out. If you want to quickly see how much you’re earning per year based on your hourly class rate, check out this easy calculator.) Unless you’re teaching at a corporate yoga studio or gym, the studio probably won’t have a system in place for reviewing teachers or regulating pay increases. (If you’re working at a corporate yoga studio as an employee, though, they may.) Most teachers are independent contractors and there is little oversight of their work after they are hired. Often the teachers who get pay increases are simply the ones that ask for them. (Although participating in the community, having large classes, and continuing to work on your education may all be factors in your manager’s willingness to say yes.)

When you start teaching at a studio, find out if the studio offers workshops or teacher trainings. If these programs resonate with your teaching mission, it’s a good idea to connect with your manager ASAP to find out how you can apply to be involved.

Last Words

Being a career yoga teacher is challenging.

My hand to god: in my fifteen years of teaching, I had a one-month period of teaching more than twenty classes per week. After that, I said, no thank you. The time spent commuting and the energy output made such a lifestyle unsustainable. I have far preferred to teach 6-10 classes per week and earn my living through other means (albeit within the yoga world as a studio manager, teacher trainer, and educational designer).

There are so many ways to be a yoga teacher; it doesn’t have to look one particular way. Give yourself permission to be creative about your offerings and gives you time for self–care. Let your teaching serve your life.