How Much Should I Charge For Music Lessons?

We’ve put together a handy guide on how much you could (and should) charge for music lessons based on national and international averages.

When you’re thinking about how to get started as a music teacher, the subject of how to price lessons will always come up. But before you just throw a random price out there you need to think about a few different aspects such as overheads, competitor pricing and market pricing.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the national averages on how much music teachers charge and how much music lessons cost and some of the key factors you need to consider when pricing your music lessons.

We’ll start with what you need to consider when building a price plan for music lessons and talk about the national averages further on down the page.

There are a few key considerations you need to take into account when pricing up your music lessons, which we’ll discuss here. Whether you want to become a full-time music teacher or just earn some money on the side, will depend on how much you charge too.

Before setting pricing you should consider

Let’s explain further…

Whether you’re self-employed or you’re just starting a side hustle teaching music, you’ll have overheads. You need to calculate these expenses. If you’re self-employed and full-time you need to charge based on what you need to survive.

You’ll also need to pay tax and insurance as a music teacher. We actually have a handy guide on how to claim expenses and reduce your tax as a music teacher, and whether or not you need insurance as a music teacher – worth reading as you’ll need to factor that into your prices.

Calculate your overall living expenses, then calculate how many hours you can teach. Divide that amount of hours into the cost of your living expenses and work backwards from there.

You also need to factor in expenses such as sheet music where applicable, or any other breakables should your students need them.

One thing to consider when pricing music lessons is your qualifications. If you are a qualified music teacher, you can command a higher price, just like any profession. The fact you have a music degree or teaching qualification could mean you only teach higher education or advanced students, which will inevitably drive the price up.

The more experienced you are and the higher qualified you are, the more you can charge for music lessons.

If you are teaching a specific Instrument that is particularly niche or hard to come by, then you can potentially charge more. We’re not at all suggesting you rip people off, but if your instrument is particularly niche, chances are you paid a lot more to learn your instrument than most. This could be a factor in choosing what to charge for your music lessons.

Do you play the harp, oboe or tuba? Chances are you can charge a little more as they are rare instruments and will require the services of a highly skilled teacher.

It’s good to know what other music teachers are charging for music lessons if you want to stay competitive and avoid overcharging or pricing yourself out of the market. So this blog on how much music teachers should charge for music lessons should help!

Be aware of how much you can charge based on what other teachers in your area are charging. This will give you a good idea of what a reasonable price for music lessons could be and will help you assess whether you should charge more or less than that tutor based on the considerations we’ve outlined here.

Take into account their experience and credentials and compare them with yours t come up with a base price.

When you’re coming up with how much to charge for music lessons, you need to take into account your location.

Are you teaching at your own home, or are you travelling to a student’s house? Are you hiring a venue to teach? Are you offering online guitar lessons? These are all aspects you need to take into account.

Petrol and mileage costs, whether you need music teacher insurance venue hire and even microphones and cameras to teach music online will all be costs you need to factor in.

When thinking about what age you might want to specialise in, you need to think about how long your lessons might be. Small children will usually only need 20-30 minute lessons, whereas adults and more experienced or dedicated students might need an hour. SO factor timing into your price for music lessons.

You might want to consider what you should charge for 1-2-1 lessons and group music lessons as there will be a price difference.

If you’re providing group lessons, you’ll charge less than a private lesson. The general rule here is to charge around 50% of a private lesson.

For example, if you charge £30 per lesson, you should charge £15, but if you’re teaching 10 pupils an hour, you’re still making a good profit.

Now that we’ve covered what to consider. Let’s look at the average costs of music lessons.

To find out how much music teachers should charge for music lessons, we compiled information from the Musicians Union and research undertaken by the Incorporated Society of Musicians. Here’s what we found.

According to the Musicians Union:

According to the ISM:

We researched 18 teachers within the MusicTeacher.com database to see what a loose average was. Like we previously mentioned, the prices would fluctuate depending on instrument, experience and location.

Here’s what we found:

We researched what 20 teachers were charging in countries within Europe. This included Italy, Copenhagen, Germany, Netherlands and France. Of course, this may be slightly skewed due to different costs of living but will give you an idea of what music teachers can charge in Europe.

We predominantly found hourly rates so we’ll stick with that for now.

We hope this blog helps you figure out how much you should charge for music lessons in your area!

By using MusicTeacher.com to market yourself as a music teacher you are joining a respected community of music tutors across the globe. This is an easy to navigate database that students can use to find a music tutor by their location, almost anywhere in the world!

Students simply search by location and instrument and they are presented with an array of different music tutors close to their location. This could be you!

MusicTeacher.com has generated over 54,000 student inquiries for music teachers since 2012.

This is one of the easiest ways to get more private music students online and in person.

So sign up today and start reaching more music students!

About the author

Lee Glynn (linkedin.com/in/leerglynn/) is a digital content strategist, blog writer and has been playing the guitar for 3 decades. Along with creating content strategies for a wide range of industries, and writing for well-respected music blogs and retailers for nearly 20 years, he helps websites grow their traffic with his company Quarry Lake Content (quarrylakecontent.com), specialising in blog and content writing, YouTube SEO and Copywriting.He was also in the UK-based band Sound Of Guns and has played Glastonbury, Reading & Leeds and just about every stage and festival in the UK multiple times.