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Summary: Pricing a yoga teacher training program requires more than matching competitors. Trainers should consider actual business costs, curriculum development, faculty payrates, rental costs, student resources, mentorship, assessments, and delivery format. Trainers can create sustainable programs that reflect their true value.
Pricing your yoga teacher training can sometimes feel as challenging as creating the training itself. A huge amount of time, knowledge, and effort goes into building a quality program – but how can you translate all of that into a price that feels fair to your students and sustainable for your business?
Hi, I’m Rachel Scott and I have had the pleasure of working in the yoga teacher training space (as faculty as well as on the studio management side) since 2008. Pricing your YTT is not simply about looking at what another studio charges and choosing a similar number (though that may give you helpful information). Your YTT curriculum, training structure, resources, faculty, experience, format and business costs all matter.
Here are the things I encourage studios yoga teacher trainers to consider when setting their price:
One of the easiest mistakes to make is pricing reflexively without actually looking at your costs. We sometimes get scared of charging too much, thinking, “What if people cannot pay that much?” We also want to make the training price accessible for students who may be financially disadvantaged. So we lower your price. But – and this take a moment to get your head around – a lower price does not mean more students. And in fact, it can make your training financially unsustainable.
To start with, we need to take a clear eyed look at the actual numbers. I recommend using Google Sheets or Excel to calculate your true costs.
Consider:
Once you have established your expenses, see what your “break even” point is for different tuition costs and different numbers of students. How many students can you reasonably expect to get? What payment terms may they need? It’s very important to establish clear payment due dates and “cancel by” dates so that you can determine when you can confirm your training for all involved.
Your faculty costs will be your biggest expense. I’ve written other blogs that dive into what you should pay your faculty in more detail, but suffice it to say that your faculty represent your training and make the difference between success and failure. They need to feel well-compensated for their efforts. To give you an idea, faculty should be paid more than their regular class pay rate (if they’re usually paid $30/class, they should be paid more per hour of YTT) and you need to consider if they are bringing in YTT materials or using materials that you own. A very experienced yoga teacher training could expect $100 an hour for their work (putting your overall faculty cost for 200 hours at $20,000). Now, there is a range, but you should have a sense of what you will be paying them in advance.
It can be tempting to have your faculty bring in information to teach. Unless it’s a one off specialized subject, this is a bad idea.
As a studio owner or yoga teacher training, you really need to own the rights to the material that you are using. Otherwise you are relying on faculty to create course and you don’t own the rights to the intellectual property. This is a precarious situation and also can create a “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario where different faculty teach different methodology. “Bullet-proofing” yourself from this scenario means creating the curriculum on your own, paying developmental costs or purchasing a high-quality yoga curriculum. Creating a comprehensive YTT curriculum will take hundreds of hours.
You can research ready-made lesson plans, editable student manuals, structured assessments, and established training frameworks to reduce the amount of behind-the-scenes work required to launch your program. Your goal is not to avoid doing the work; it is to spend your time where your expertise has the greatest impact.
Not all yoga teacher training programs provide the same experience. One program might include a comprehensive manual, mentoring, practice teaching, assessments, and ongoing support. Another might provide a great experience as a practitioner, but not actually help trainees learn to teach. When deciding your price, look at the complete student experience. What does your training include?
Are students receiving:
The more clearly you define what students receive, the easier it becomes to communicate the value of your training.
Hybrid and online YTT programs often raise the question: “Should I charge less?” Not necessarily. An online or hybrid program – when done properly – takes a lot more time to create than an in person training. (And let’s be clear: creating an effective hybrid training takes more than creating a library of some classes and lectures and throwing them online.) A proper online ecosystem includes engaging activities, effective technology, student support, and meaningful assessments.
Do not automatically discount your online or hybrid program. Think about whether the learning experience delivers comparable value. Price the experience, not simply the delivery method.
Correctly pricing your yoga teacher training is about more than choosing a number that feels good. Create a price that is viable given your expenses and needs. If you want to create more accessible pricing options, then you do so while honoring the true costs of your training. For example, offering workstudy, early bird discounts, and special needs scholarships are all ways to create flexible pricing without undercutting the value of your program.
Rachel supports yoga teachers and studios around the world to create transformational education experiences that help them thrive in their business, share their passion, and inspire more people to practice yoga. Her extensive knowledge and experience include: earning two masters degrees, authoring three books, leading 4,000+ hours of TT, building a teacher training college for a national yoga company, and working behind the scenes in yoga studio & teacher management for more than fifteen years. As a writer and speaker, she continually wrestles with the juicy bits of life: relationships, authenticity, and discovering meaning in this crazy, wildish world. E-RYT 500, YACEP, BA, MFA, MSci. Learn more about Rachel.
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