How to make a living as a yoga teacher - Challenging your money mindset
Written By lauren Munday
Talking about money can inspire discomfort and anxiety in many of us but for anyone running their own business (like yoga teachers), it’s essential we keep a close eye on our earnings so we can ensure our business is sustainable.
I’m sure you didn’t become a yoga teacher because you wanted to be rich.
However, we all need a level of income that allows us to pay for basic necessities, support our loved ones, and ideally have something left over to spend on non-essential items. We also need to take time off every now and then, and more importantly, save for the future.
After all, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to teach the same amount of classes in our 60s and 70s as we did in our 20’s, 30’s or 40’s.
As a yoga teacher, you’ve invested time and money in perfecting your craft. You’ve dedicated a bit part of your life to the study of yoga to be able to share the tradition with others, therefore…YOU DESERVE TO GET PAID!
Sadly, the truth is, with a few exceptions, most yoga teachers don’t earn much. The average pay for a yoga teacher in the UK is £29,000 (Source: PayScale), and even that seems like a generous estimate.
When I first started teaching yoga ten years ago the average pay was around £30 per hour in gyms and perhaps a little more in studios. That hasn’t changed much, and since the pandemic many studios have cut teacher pay.
If we consider the cost of living increase over this period, earnings for yoga teachers have actually gone down.
Going back to our average teacher salary (£29,000) for this to be achievable on a class rate of £30 per hour you’d need to teach 18 one hour classes a week. Factor in additional time for travel; class planning and admin and that’s a full-on schedule. One that will very likely leave you exhausted, and if you live somewhere with high rent like London, you’ll still be struggling financially.
Not earning enough money can harm our mental health and being anxious about money means we can’t show up for our students in the best way.
As someone who’s struggled with income-related anxiety, I understand this first hand. Worrying if you’ll make enough money each month is not a nice feeling, and I know from experience it can affect your self-esteem.
I do believe it’s is possible to make a living as a yoga teacher but to do so you have to:
A) change your mindset around money
B) have a sustainable plan that allows you to generate income outside of the studio/gym model
If you’re reading this and thinking you’ll never make a living as a yoga teacher, don’t worry we’ve got you.
Our blog this week is all about challenging your money mindset.
For ideas about how you can generate income outside of teaching in yoga studios check out our blog on how to avoid yoga teacher burnout
Change your mind-set
Our mindset and approach to making money is the first thing we need to work on if we’re going to be able to meet our financial needs and live comfortably.
For many years I would tell myself things like “it’s impossible to make money as a yoga teacher” or “ I’ll always be broke”. I’d go to meals out with friends and end up feeling uncomfortable (and hungry) because all I could afford was a starter, then I’d be really hard on myself because I felt like a failure.
It took me a long time to realise this attitude was not serving me. I was positioning myself as a victim and my negative self-talk was setting me off in a downward spiral.
Once I came to this realisation I set about changing my mindset.
I realised it was up to me to create the life I wanted. To be able to do this I had to stop the negative self-talk and more importantly believe in myself.
Wherever you are on this path, I can’t stress enough the importance of believing in yourself and feeling deserving of what you want to achieve. So ditch the negative voice in your head and start telling yourself it is possible!
Think about how much you want to earn
Many of us shy away from setting financial goals because we feel like that makes us materialistic and “all about the money”. This is not the case at all. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting financial security.
Over the years I was so focused on returning to Mysore to study and teaching a Mysore program and showing up for students I never once stopped to consider how much money I actually wanted to earn. I’d set myself intentions based on the things I wanted to do and more times than not I’d achieve them, but I’d still be struggling financially.
One day it hit me. I’d never set any clear intentions about how much I wanted to earn.
As soon as I started doing this things began to turn around....
What’s your number?
Spend time thinking about how much you’d like to earn. Look at your outgoings and how much you’d need to feel comfortable (or rich if that’s your thing).
Write this number down along with your other intentions. Then start thinking about what you need to do to you reach that number.
Once you have a number in mind you’ll have more of an idea of how much and what type of work you need to achieve this number. If this means teaching private/corporate classes or running your own group classes you’ll be able to create a plan to make this happen.
Part of doing that means spending some time figuring out how much you’re going to charge
Set your prices
Do your research. Check out the websites of teachers in your area and find out how much they’re charging. Talk to other teachers and find out the going rate for privates. Does this vary based on their experience? Where should you position yourself?
If you’re new to teaching you might set your prices a little lower while you build experience but there’s no point massively undercutting everyone just to get clients. You’ll end up exhausted, resentful and you still won’t be able to pay your bills.
Plus if you do this it will be too steep a jump to increase your prices once you've gained more experience.
Your price needs to be reflective of the market rate and your skills and experience. I know this can be difficult to come to terms with because we want yoga to be accessible but offering free classes to everyone and anyone isn’t necessarily the way to go about this.
If you’re running group classes you can offer a concessionary price or a sliding scale pricing system. Another option could be to offer your services to an organisation that works with people on lower incomes or vulnerable groups. One of the benefits of having a positive money mindset and a plan to generate income means that rather than being exhausted from running around and stressed about paying your bills, you’ll have free time and energy to do this.
Once you set your prices for corporate or private classes decide if you want to include these on your website (we really hope you have one). Personally, I include my pricing because it fosters transparency and means everyone who contacts me is aware of the cost of private yoga classes before they make an enquiry. This saves me time answering emails.
What are your terms and conditions?
Once you’ve figured how much you’d like to charge for your offerings you need to prepare some terms and conditions
Can you answer these questions?
What’s your cancellation policy? Do you offer a discount for block bookings?
Do you have a maximum amount of time in which clients need to use block bookings? Do clients have to provide their own yoga mats?
These are all questions you need to answer before you start running your own classes.
When I first started teaching private classes I didn’t have a clue about any of this. I didn’t have the confidence to set out my terms clearly and thought the idea of doing so was too formal. Sadly I learnt the hard way.
If there’s ambiguity over your terms and conditions you’ll be constantly unsure if you should charge people for missed classes, you won’t know have clarity over your bookings and for certain you will have to engage in some difficult conversations.
If your terms and conditions are set out clearly you and your clients will know where you stand. You can always choose to make allowances outside of the defined terms but this will be at your discretion.
A good terms and conditions document needs to be reviewed regularly and should include prices, payment information and your cancellation policy.
You can then send it to potential clients when they make an enquiry about booking classes so there is clarity from the beginning of your relationship.
Come together in solidarity
All yoga teachers deserve to be paid and to earn a living wage.
Working for free in a business environment (excluding charitable/community volunteering roles) or for poor wages undervalues the benefits of yoga and your experience. Plus it means overtime teaching will become unsustainable for all except those who have another source of income or independent wealth.
To bring yoga to new practitioners, yoga teachers need to be able to relate to their students. This requires teachers from all walks of life and socio-economic backgrounds. For this to happen teachers need to be able to earn a decent amount so they can afford to teach.
One of the biggest factors in identifying wage-related discrimination across both gender and ethnicity comes when people discuss their earnings.
Coming together in solidarity to discuss what we’re being paid and saying no to poor pay and conditions, even if we are making enough, is one way we can support each other and create space in the community for new teachers.
If this resonates with you and is something you feel passionate about why not join the Yoga teachers Union. One of their objectives is to improve pay and conditions for yoga teachers.
A quick summary
It IS totally possible to make a living as a yoga teacher.
To do this we need a positive money mindset, transparent pricing, clear terms and conditions and most importantly we need to come together as a collective to ensure FAIR PAY for all yoga teachers.
For more info on how you can make money outside of the yoga studio model check out 10 tips to avoid yoga teacher burnout.
