I’m writing this at the kitchen table with a dog asleep against my foot, which is roughly the level of ceremony this deserves.
Because the question we get asked more than almost any other is: what should I charge for a class? And for me, that’s the wrong question. Not a silly one. Just the wrong one to start with, because it can’t be answered from where you’re standing.
Here’s the one I’d swap it for.
Price versus cost
Write those two words down. Price versus cost. They get used as if they’re the same thing and they’re nothing like it.
Price is made up. That’s not a criticism, it’s just true. You look at your costs, you look at what’s around you, you pick a number. There may be good reasoning behind it. It’s still, in the end, a figure somebody decided on.
Cost is the real thing. And there are two of them, which is the part almost everyone misses.
There’s the cost of doing something. Your hour, your travel, the hall, the planning nobody sees.
And there’s the cost of not doing something. What does it cost her not to come to your class? Not in money. In the sleep she doesn’t get, the back that doesn’t settle, the hour a week that was hers and now isn’t.
That second one is usually much the larger number, and it never appears anywhere.
When to use this
- Before quoting for a new class, private client or venue
- When you’ve noticed the apology at the end of your own sentences
- Before a term where you know you’ll be asked
- If your prices vary depending on who’s asking, without you deciding they should
Affordable, never cheap
There’s a distinction worth holding here, and I’d say it’s the single most useful one in this whole area.
Be careful between cheap and affordable. Always go for affordable. Never go for cheap.
People don’t value cheap. They’re suspicious of it, and they should be. Cheap usually means something has been taken out. Affordable is different. Affordable says: this is worth what it’s worth, and I’ve made it reachable.
Cheap competes on the one thing you’ll always lose at, because somebody can always go lower. Affordable competes on what it’s actually for.
Then the mechanics
The apology at the end of the sentence, but obviously, if that’s difficult, we can sort something out, isn’t a confidence problem. Nobody asked you to say it. It arrived on its own, and by the time you noticed, it was out.
What’s happening is that you’re setting the price and reporting the price in the same breath, in front of the person who has to pay it. Anybody wobbles doing that. They’re two different jobs. Doing them in the same moment is what makes the sentence collapse.
Separate them and it steadies. That’s most of the work.
### Decide it away from the room
Set the number on a Tuesday morning, at your own table, with nobody in front of you. Three inputs, in this order.
What an hour actually costs you. The real figure, once travel, planning and the annual costs are in. If you haven’t worked that out, do it first. Everything else here is guesswork without it.
What the room can carry. Local rates, the venue, who comes. Real information. It tells you the range, not the answer.
What you need it to do. How many of these hours make a week that works. A number that only functions at fourteen students isn’t a price, it’s a hope.
Somewhere in those three is a figure you can defend without being defensive. Write it down. That’s it decided.
### Decide the concessions too, before you need them
This is the bit that catches people, and it’s where the get-out clause comes from.
Somebody is going to ask. A student who’s lost work, a friend, someone who’s been coming nine years. If you haven’t decided in advance you’ll improvise, and improvising in the moment is how the price ends up slightly different for everyone and faintly random.
So decide now. Two places a term at a reduced rate, no questions asked. Or a quiet block rate. Or nothing at all, which is a legitimate answer if the numbers don’t stretch.
Whatever it is, it’s a structure you chose, not a discount you gave because you felt awkward. Then when someone asks, you’re not deciding anything. You’re telling them what the arrangement is.
### Say it out loud, before you need to
This sounds daft and it’s the bit that works.
Say your number aloud, six times, on your own. Just the sentence, ending where it ends. It’s twelve pounds a class, or sixty for the block of six. Full stop. Then nothing.
The silence afterwards is the whole exercise. It’ll feel long. It isn’t. About a second, and the other person doesn’t experience it as anything at all. But if you haven’t rehearsed the stop, you’ll fill it. And what you fill it with is the apology.
### When someone pushes back
Most don’t. When they do it’s usually a question rather than an objection. They want to know what they get, or whether there’s a cheaper way in.
Answer the question. Don’t move the price in the same conversation.
If you want to offer something, offer the thing you already decided on. There’s a block rate that works out cheaper if you’re coming most weeks. That’s not a climbdown. That’s the structure doing its job.
And if they say no, that’s a normal outcome. Not everyone comes, at any price. True of every teacher you admire.
Action steps
- Write down the cost of not coming to your class. In her terms, not in money.
- Set the number away from the room, using the three inputs.
- Decide your concession structure now, before anyone asks.
- Say the sentence aloud six times, stopping where it stops.
Related resources
- What an hour of your teaching actually costs
- Raising it
You may go through all of that and land on the number you already had. Plenty of people do, and that’s a perfectly good outcome. You’ll just be able to say it without the sentence falling over at the end. That’s the bit that was costing you.