Okay, so you read The Dance Business and you're in. But there's no studios in your area (or maybe none that fit your vibe). What could you charge for a lesson? Who would come and take lessons? How would they find you? Why would they choose you over someone else?
Let's say you can charge $100/lesson. Just for context, I live in a fair-sized city in the Midwest and people with 40+ years of teaching experience, have a lauded professional career, and have all their judging credentials charge $100/lesson. But let's not take your résumé, location, or demand into account for a minute [cough cough].
PLEASE DON'T CHECK MY MATH ON THIS. IT GETS SUPER SKETCHY.
Self-employement taxes average 15%. Not to mention federal and state taxes, which run about 15% and 8% respectively. So you're making $62. WOW! That's amazing! At a studio, you wouldn't be making even close to that.
Floor fees, IF you can find somewhere to teach that works for you and your students, run $15-$30/lesson. You are now at a generous $47/hour.
Insurance (liability, property damage, bodily injury) runs about $67/month on average.
Website runs $12/month.
OH! And credit card processing fees, because very few people want to use cash or check these days, and want all the options for payments (credit cards, Venmo, Apply Pay, Zelle, PayPal, Google Pay, other things I don't even know exist, etc.).
And that's the things you HAVE to have to exist in the business today.
If you're teaching 20 hours a week, you're still at $44/hours, which is awesome. [But are you teaching 20 hours a week and charging $100 and getting floor fees for $15? Just note that if you charge $90 and work 10 hours in a week with floor fees at $20, you're at $32 at best.]
But then there's intangibles like:
- finding continued training
- scheduling continued training
- continued training might not be at the place you're teaching
- please tell me you're planning on training
- paying for practice space
- travel time, especially if you teach at more than one location
- filing business and personal taxes
- developing a strong sense of place in the industry (what's your niche/specialty? why do people come see YOU?)
- maintaining place in industry
Not to mention the time! OH THE TIME:
- time/money spent creating website (many/much)
- time spent creating socials (relatively easy)
- time/money spent updating website to keep that SEO popping (1 hour/month)
- time spent updating socials (1-2 hours/week)
- time spent organizing student scheduling (1-2 hours/week)
- time spent registering for competitions (1-2 hours/competition)
- time spent marketing and advertising for new students (1-2 hours/month)
- time spent bookkeeping (1-2 hours/week)
Which means, you're teaching 20 hours a week, but probably working 5 more "for free", at best. (That works out to well below $40/hour, btw.) But maybe you're closer to 10 hours/week and then you're making closer to $20 if you're looking at your hourly take-home pay. And that's assuming you have the clientele (or hustle and wherewithal) to get 10 private lesson hours a week.
Also, your students aren't getting the studio experience : there's not an automatic community of people gathering, there's not group classes, there's not social dances. There's very little crossover time from student to student, so interaction between students is few and far between. To boil it down, people are paying for your information delivery (your expertise and your personality).
As covered in previous posts, studios tend to have a charge more per lesson. Studios also pay:
- rent, tax, and CAM on the space
- business, liability, and property insurance (these are all separate)
- electric, gas, and water
- toilet paper, paper towels, printer paper, paper paper paper, WHY IS THERE SO MUCH PAPER
- credit card fees on client payments
- music licenses
- payroll and associated taxes/benefits for teachers
- workers' comp insurance
- lawyers (random legal things happen all. the. time.)
- additional staff
- receptionist(s)
- cleaning services
- manager(s)
- business interruption insurance all being awesome and extra
- extrasssssszzzzzz
- "free group classes"
- staff at socials
- seasonal decor
- food and drink at events
When you're comparing studio pricing to independent pricing, students should take the pros and cons into account. But as a pro, you also need to take your realistic employment opportunities into account. Do you have the training, résumé, and expertise to make money teaching? How will you hustle (or Hustle) to bring in new students? Do you have connections that you can leverage to find yourself teaching jobs? What kind of benefits are you able to offer that other people or places don't?
Are you looking to be the best teacher out there? What kind of teacher? A winner of Top Teacher at USDC? The most lesson hours taught at your world-class studio? Have championship-winning students? Be a sought-after choreographer? Be one of the Ballroom Mafia, who shapes and shifts styles behind the scenes? One who has students of all ages and proficiencies? One who works with primarily college students? A teacher who has long-term adorable couples who just love dancing together?
All of these are awesome aims and all of them have very different paths to get there.
Do you want to dance professionally? Just to do it or because you want to win the world championship? Do you want to do one style or multiple styles? What kind of time/money can you commit to putting in? Are you injury/sickness-prone? How long can you make that commitment for?
If you are long-term planning (and you should be), how are you going to grow in the industry? If you're at a studio and would like to be an independent instructor, how will you exit that position?
Looking way ahead, do you want to have a job in the industry that you'd like to do besides teaching? DJ, video production, photography, MC, scrutineer, judge, coach, choreographer, studio owner, dressmaker, tailor, vendor, marketer, studio manager, the list keeps growing!
If you don't know the answers to these questions, that's okay! This is an insane list that I've thought of or been asked about for YEARS. But if you'd like to explore a career in ballroom dancing, I'd highly suggest thinking about your answers and finding some people to harass about how to you could find your path in this awesome industry.