Hey there! It’s Allyson from OnlineTeacherAllyson.com where stay at home moms come to learn how to teach online so they can earn an income from home! Today we are getting into kind of an uncomfortable topic because it’s money. A lot of new online teachers want to know “How can I price my online classes?” I get what you’re thinking. You don’t want to price too high that nobody comes but you don’t want to price too low and you don’t make money and you sell yourself short. Your time is valuable and you want your online class pricing to reflect that. If you are on a platform like Outschool or if you are completely independent then you will be pricing your classes. If you choose to go the ESL platform route like VIPKid or Cambly then the platform will give you a pay per class. So for every class you’re going to earn x amount of money. There is room to increase your pay there in most instances, but it’s more set in stone. We’ll just talk about Outschool today for the ease of it – while you’re watching, or while you’re listening when I I say Outschool I want you to think Outschool or independent or any place where I set my own rate. Let’s get going!

PS – If you prefer to watch, you can find the YouTube video here!

PPS: If you prefer to listen, you can find the link to the podcast episode here, or all the way at the bottom!

2 Different Types of Online Classes

Private Classes

So the going rate for classes are different depending on the type of class. There’s two categories of online classes: you have group classes – usually small groups – and you have private classes those – are one-on-one, you and your student – and the pay is different. So if we’re talking about one-on-one classes that is considered private. You’re going to spend an hour with that student and you’re not going to make money from any other student. Those tend to run a little pricier! Your student has your full attention for the entire time and usually that’s about a dollar a minute.

Group Classes

Now, group classes are different. You price those based off of your max amount of kids you want. So if the most kids you want to teach is four, you price it based off that. If the most kids you want to teach is 10 or 12 you’re going to price it based off that. Parents are going to know, or students if you’re teaching adults, they’re going to know that your time will be divided between other students and your price will reflect that. It will be cheaper per student than private classes. For example: let’s say you fill up your class of 12 you might make more per hour than you would teaching a private. If you’re teaching a private student for an hour you’re going to make about sixty dollars. But, if you are teaching a group, let’s do a group of 10 for easy math, if you’re teaching a group of 10 priced at 10 bucks a kid for an hour – that’s really cheap – you’re going to make a hundred dollars. Do you see the difference there? So there’s some things to think about.

Your Education or Experience

Another thing you want to think about is your experience and your education level in whatever it is you’re teaching. If I’m going to teach math lessons on Outschool I’m going to think about my experience teaching. Now, I do have a college degree in education so I will think about that. But, I also want to talk about if you’re teaching something you don’t necessarily have to go to college for. Let’s say you are teaching coding and you are self-taught. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being self-taught! I think the online world is perfect to share your expertise! You’re going to think about that as well. How many hours have you spent teaching yourself? Because that’s worth the pay. You’ve spent time in it and now you are reaping the benefits. So think about that too.

Supplies

Third thing I want you to think about is supplies that are needed for the class. When you are listing a class on Outschool one of the things that you list are all of the supplies that you need. Let’s say I’m listing a cooking class. These kids only meet with me one time and then we’re done. We’re making something easy like cookies and I get a new group of kids the next time I teach this. I’m going to have to think about all of the ingredients to my cookies that I’m going to need for every single class I teach: the butter, the sugar, the flour, the eggs, everything! That’s going to cost me money. So I want to plug that into my class price as well. Do you see where we’re going here? When you’re thinking about pricing your classes I want you to think about your experience, the supplies that are needed, and how large the classes are. Those three things so far, we’re not done yet! Each of those things are going to make your class increase or decrease in price.

Supply and Demand

Number four: supply and demand. How many people are interested in this online class you are teaching? There are some really niche topics out there that I think are great. But if I am teaching woodworking with a scroll saw there is probably no demand for three and four-year-olds. So I need to think about that. I would probably teach high schoolers or adults this but I would not teach it to three and four-year-olds. How many people are out there looking for that class, number one. And number two, how many other online teachers are already out there teaching what you’re teaching? For example, morning circle groups. Do you remember those from school? We would sit down on the carpet, we would do calendar math, we’d do the weather, we’d learn something small. Circle times are really popular on Outschool. If you search those there are just tons. I looked at creating those classes because they are easy. Those kids come every morning, every Monday, every Tuesday, whatever you decide. You just talk about the calendar, you talk about the weather, you talk about letter sounds, you read a story, and you’re done! But it’s so saturated! There’s so many teachers already doing it that I decided not to even put my time into this. But if you think “I think I can rock a morning circle group. I think I can bring something to the table that none of these other teachers are bringing.” Do it!

How is the supply and demand? How can you make yourself stand out? Preschool is not my joy so I decided that was not worth it to me. But if it’s your joy, go for it! Make yourself stand out. We’ll get to that later and you will rock it. All right so let’s recap. We’re not done yet. What’s your experience or your education level in the topic you’re teaching, what supplies are needed for your class, and how often do you have to replenish those supplies, are you teaching private or group lessons, and then think about the supply and the demand for the topic you’re teaching within your age group.

Prep

The next thing is prep work. If you have any real life teacher friends that are classroom teachers you probably hear about the crazy expectations that are put on them: from time that’s required before school after school, while they’re at home lesson planning, grading, paperwork, the list goes on and on. The whole reason a lot of us choose to either leave the classroom and go online, or we’re stay-at-home moms and we want to teach online, it’s because we don’t want all that extra time taken away from us. That’s exactly why I left the classroom. I had my son and I wanted to be more present for him. So prep work is a big thing for me because I do not want to be bogged down by prep work.

One and Done Lesson Planning Prep Work

When you are initially creating a lesson for Outschool AKA whatever you’re teaching on, independent whatever, when you are initially creating a lesson you will have prep work. But if it is a lesson you’re repeating over and over and over you don’t have to recreate your lesson! You don’t have to recreate anything you’re handing out to the students, you don’t have to recreate anything that you need to display, you don’t have to recreate the wheel every single time. I taught a friendship bracelet class, I talked about this a lot, it was for three days. So I made my bracelets. I made my lesson plan – how I was going to teach it, what we were going to do, and I was done. I sold that class over and over and over and I never did any extra prep work. The only thing I did was I bought more string when I ran out. 

Grading Prep Work

Another end is the grading. I also taught a poetry class and that did require a little bit of quote-unquote grading. I didn’t give them a grade but I did read their poems and I gave them feedback when it was necessary. If we were talking about a haiku maybe I told them “Hey, this is too many syllables.” Remember haikus are five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables, three lines and they’re done. Or I might say “Hey, maybe you can add a literary device here like a simile or a metaphor.” We talked about these things in class but maybe they forgot to add it. So I didn’t do a lot of work there, and I usually did it during class time while they were writing. I kind of followed along with them. But, you think about that too. How much time is that going to take from you outside of your class time because you want a price for that too. Your time is valuable. Are you providing written feedback to the families? I did that sometimes. Parents loved it – it takes a lot of time. So think about that.

Online Class Duration

The very last thing is how long the class is going to be. I kind of alluded to this already. When you’re on Outschool, or when you’re independent, you can decide how long your classes are. For example VIPKid was 25 minutes of class time with the student and after that I was expected to write written feedback to the family: what went well, what we’re learning, what they’re working on, what they need more practice in. I had about five minutes to do that before my next class and I got really good at it! But, if you’re on Outschool it might be a little different. It’s not as formulaic. I have like this formula I just followed in my head, I memorized it. If you’re teaching a 60 minute class on Outschool, back to the point, 25 minute class for VIPKid. Outschool could be the same, a lot of them are 30 minutes, 45 minutes, to an hour. It just makes scheduling really easy on both your part and the family’s parts. 

Number of Sessions

Also think about how many sessions. With my friendship bracelet class we met three times and we were done. I usually scheduled it over a long weekend or in the summer. My poetry class: it was a week. It was five days and then we were done and we moved on. But I also had a standalone friendship bracelet class where I just taught one type of bracelet. I didn’t teach all three different types of bracelets, I just taught one and we repeated. So students could come back if they wanted, but I didn’t tend to see repeat kids because of the nature of my class. One time I did see repeat kids was when I did Number Talks with them. We practiced mental math and so they would come back every week and we would improve those skills together and practice mental math.

Pricing Online Classes

So if I am meeting three different days I want to price myself for three different days. I think I ran that at 20 or 30 bucks, I can’t even remember. Then think about the cost of living. It’s totally gone up from when I did Outschool two years ago. So I would definitely price that differently to reflect the increase in the price of living. Everything is so much more expensive it’s ridiculous. Let’s do a recap: what’s your experience, what supplies are needed? Are you teaching private or group lessons? Remember private will be about a dollar a minute, group lessons will depend on the amount of sessions, one session three sessions, five sessions, somewhere else. The supply and demand for what you’re teaching, and prep work. Is any prep work required for me? So those are six things you can think about as you’re trying to price your online class.

Find the Pricing “Formula” That Works for You!

There is nothing tried and true except what’s pretty accepted is the one minute per private class. Otherwise it’s up to you! If you want to market yourself by giving away free classes, some teachers hate it but you do you! If you want you to market yourself by running discounts.

✨A Black Friday Special Just For You!✨

I have a Black Friday discount coming soon, so stay tuned! Make sure you get on my email list – they’re going to be the first to hear and there’s only a few! You can grab your link down below. It’s also going to get you a free download as to how to teach online. I’ve got you set up, all the steps you need. The free pdf download is at OnlineTeacherAllyson.com/platform. So you’re gonna get your hands on that and then come Black Friday I will be letting you know about my promo going on! Okay back to the point, got derailed there!

Pricing Your Online Class

If you want to try to show that you are really knowledgeable – because you are (don’t lie about it) – by increasing your pricing on the top end of what everyone else is doing, do it! Try it! That’s the beauty of this! It’s kind of fiddling with things and fiddling with your pricing, fiddling with your wording, and figuring out what works best for you. I hate this part because the perfectionist in me wants to get it right the first time and be done with it. So I understand where you’re coming from, but as you continue to do this it will get easier. I promise. I keep saying that, it’s really not that hard to get started, it’s just the nerves you’re trying to overcome. So I want to keep telling you that you got this. You really truly do Mama! I hope that helped! I hope that the download is helpful. If it’s not shoot me an email because I tweak those. See what we’re doing here? I tweak those based off your feedback. Some people have emailed me and said “This is way confusing.” So I’ve done tweaks. Let me know and I’m happy to fix them! I hope you’re having the greatest week ever and we will chat soon!