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Price Increase Tips (All Teachers)
Hi guys,
My name is Frank Lucas and I’m a guitar teacher in Swindon. Matthew has mentioned that a few of you have or are considering raising prices and I’d like to tell you my experience with it and hopefully help some of you. Feel free to comment if you have any questions.
I’d kept the same prices for over 5 years and I thought this year was a good time to increase. Before being approached by Matthew my prices were £12.50 per half hour and £20 per hour. When I started the website I increased the hours to £25 but only to new students.
As most of my students are with Matthew now I wanted to increase the half hours to £15 and ask my old students to raise up to £25 to match my new ones.
Luckily no one caught on that some of my students were paying less and I always felt it unfair so a fixed price for everyone was essential.
I had some good advice from Matthew and used some of his ideas to implement.I started by writing a short note, I gave a date about 2 months into the future and explained that due to rent increase, rising costs and having kept the same prices for over 5 years I have decided to raise the lessons fee.
By taking the blame out of my hands and a later date most of my students didn’t mind.
I would also give the note at the end of the lesson, as they were packing up so it wouldn’t be an awkward talking point during the lesson.
This has worked really well and it didn’t cause me to lose any students. I was mostly worried about the £20 to £25 increase my old students had to do, but no one minded.
Hope that helps!
Frank -
7 Replies
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Hey Frank, that’s such a good idea. I haven’t had to do the price increase myself, but this is a great way of doing it! I’ll definitely use this technique when the time comes. Another good thing about your price increase is that going from 12.50 to 15 means no more fiddling with loose change. Awesome!
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Hey Frank,
Sounds like you made a great move – blaming it on external factors takes the pressure off yours and the student’s relationship. I had to increase my prices from £25/hour to £35/hour after taking on a Masters and moving to Guildford. I think when you’ve built up a lot of goodwill with students over the course of your lessons, the students become your advocates. If you spin it the right way, they can actually be supportive of the change!
But sounds like you did all the right things:)
Matt:)
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Lol, I didn’t realise my student video would come out quite so large. It now looks like I’m doing a massive plug. (Maybe I am?!)
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Matt Pocock was an excellent help with this for me. It’s always a scary move, especially with existing students who have been with you for years!
So I used to be £25 for 45 mins and £30 for an hour. In January, I finally made the bold move to up the prices to £30 for 45 minutes. (I now only offer 45 min lessons, as it’s actually a lot more lucrative when you do back-to-back lessons like I do, without sounding too greedy!!)
But with my existing students, I chose to only increase to £27.50 for 45 mins. With Matt’s help, I communicated the price change to my current students with this email (which you are welcome to steal – I actually stole some of the wording from Matt anyway!!)
Dear Students/Parents,
Firstly I want to thank you again for those involved in the Perfect Day video. It’s had a positive response in the media and the video plays are growing and growing – keep sharing!
Secondly, I want to thank you for your continued lessons and I hope you feel you are making good progress because I certainly do and am very proud
Unfortunately, due to having to expand the business and take on a PA in the new year, I’m having to increase the prices of my lessons. Yep, it’s a little annoying, I know. But I didn’t think it was fair to load you with an extra bill for the same lessons you’ve had before. So instead of a £30 lesson for 45 minutes, the students who were here before the price increase (that means you!) will get a discount of £2.50 per lesson.
So as of the new year, or the start of your next block of lessons, the price of 45 mins will be £27.50 per lesson including your discount.
Please feel free to call me on the number below if you want to discuss anything – I’m always happy to help.
Best Wishes,
Eliza
I didn’t lose any student! And now I have around 50/50 on the old and new price format. It’s all worked out well! Hope that’s helped.
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Just about to raise my prices and referring back to this now has been so helpful! Thanks all:)
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Hi all,
Increase the price of our lesson is something we all have to face at some point.The price of your lesson is perceived many times by the new student as the quality of the lesson they are gonna get if the student is new and after if the quality of the lesson is high and the students are happy with their progress they won’t mind to pay an extra amount of many if we as a teachers explain why the increase
is happening.Most of the student understand and are quite empathic with the teacher if the conversation and the explanation is honest.There great advices here in the matter.Thanks for your advices here guys.:)
Gael
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Hi guys, you can read more on this topic here – https://musicteacher.kinsta.cloud/community/groups/music-teachers/forum/topic/advice-putting-prices/
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