Offer Private Yoga Lessons
Do you enjoy working 1×1? Private yoga lessons are a great way to increase your income while helping your students change their life. Privates require a bigger time investment than group classes. Keep pricing structure simple and dont undercharge! Privates typically range from $60 to $200/hour we never recommend less than $80/hour. Some even offer private yoga via Skype!
How Many Hours Do Yoga Instructors Work
If youre a yogi student or teacher, chances are, you follow many yogis on Instagram. If you do, the chances are higher that you sometimes catch yourself asking these questions inside your head:
How many hours do yoga instructors work?
Do they even work? They look like theyre always on vacation!
How much do they earn?
How can they afford that pair of Lululemon yoga pants?
Teaching yoga is an industry that is rapidly growing. There are 250,000 to 650,000 yoga teachers registered with Yoga Alliance in the United States alone. These numbers dont yet include yoga teachers who didnt register with Yoga Alliance.
Its not surprising, though, because more people are now interested in yoga. There are 36 million yogis in the US, and 34% plan to sign up for a yoga class this year. With all this demand, we still find ourselves asking if yoga teachers are working. The truth is, they are.
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Can You Earn A Living As A Yoga Teacher
While you’ll be able to make a living teaching yoga after a while, it might be surprising how little you can earn in the beginning. Just because you might earn a little less doesn’t mean you can’t teach professionally – you just need to be a little creative! Here are 10 ways to make money as a yoga teacher. 1.
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How Much Do Yoga Teachers Make
To answer it bluntly: poverty level.
In the United States, where the free market rules and there are virtually no employee protections, the average base yoga instructor salary is $31 per hour.*
Los Angeles has the highest yoga teacher salary, where the average salary is $43 per hour, and Orlando, Florida has the lowest average salary at $26 per hour. The best states to teach yoga in are New York, California, and Washington, where they earn 26%, 22%, and 15% higher than the national average, respectively. The worst states to teach yoga in are Kansas, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Michigan, and Alabama, where they earn between 25 and 30% lower than the national average.
Average pay per state, compared to national average
Only 45% of yoga instructors feel that they earn enough to cover the cost of living, though this doesnt indicate exactly how much they are working and for how many clients.
A yoga teaching job treats you more like an independent contractor than an employee and if you are earning $30 per yoga class, then youd have to work a lot of yoga instructor jobs just to make ends meet.
To make it simple, here is a pay scale chart that shows how much yoga teachers make per year teaching group classes.
Considering that 67% of yoga instructors work fewer than 10 hours per week teaching yoga classes, its easy to say that yoga teachers are poor
if they rely on the current yoga industry to earn an income.
Do Yoga Instructors Make Good Money
For yoga teachers, the incomes range tremendously from first-place to fourth-place. The average teacher earns less than $30k USD per year, but there are some teachers who earn more than $300,000 per year. In the studios, there are many good teachers earning the most but they earn most of their income outside of the studios.
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Corporate Group Yoga Classes
Its becoming quite common for companies to offer yoga as a perk to their employees. Ask your local network to find out which companies would be interested. Most successful teachers in this space charge a flat $X/class . Anne does this in Minneapolis.
Related: How to Find a Job Teaching Corporate Yoga
Time Managementearn +6705% More
The jobs requiring this skill have decrease by 5.80% since 2018. Yoga Instructors with this skill earn +67.05% more than the average base salary, which is $35.59 per hour.
| Number of job openings on Indeed requiring this skill | Change from previous year |
|---|
More critical skills and qualifications that pay well
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Yoga Teacher Training Certificate Of Achievement
This yoga instructor certification program prepares students to meet the requirements to become a 200-hour registered yoga teacher with Yoga Alliance. Yoga Alliance sets forth widely recognized standards for yoga teachers and teacher-training programs, including the minimum number of hours of training in each of five areas: teaching methodology, techniques of teaching, anatomy and physiology, philosophy and lifestyle and teaching practicum. This comprehensive and wisdom-based program provides students with a broad background and practical experience to enhance their teaching skills and to build confidence in meeting the diverse needs of future students and populations. After students earn their status as registered yoga teachers they can apply for positions at yoga studios, health and fitness centers, country clubs, recreation districts, hospitals and health and wellness centers.
Youre Not Just A Teacher Be An Entrepreneur
My misconception: I thought I had to be physically present and teaching yoga in order to earn money as a yoga teacher.
When I burned out and needed to take a month off of teaching, I got super creative with how to make money. There are more ways to earn cash teaching yoga than simply adding classes.
Some tidbits that I do between classes include:
- Pulling together all the yoga newsletters and email blasts at my studio. I put effort into learning how to use email marketing programs by taking tutorials.
- Online yoga classes. I did this for a while and earned a pretty penny.
- I do social media and very basic work-from-home admin work for studios too.
- I link my workshops to well-known or local yoga brands and create affiliations that help me market my events without me being present. These events are my biggest paying items all year. These same brands will sometimes supply clickable buttons to put on your website so you get royalties from purchases made through that button. You can do pop up trunk sales via this too. If you eventually become a brand ambassador, you often get the same benefit with Instagram discount codes too.
- You could write for your favorite online yoga publication
- Mentoring. If you are an experienced teacher, use your experience in the field to mentor someone that is struggling. That is part of teaching yoga!
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My Fears About A Yoga Instructor Salary
I was so freaked out about being poor as a yoga teacher that I couldnt get unstuck about pursuing my dream to teach yoga. I finally resorted to hiring a life coach and he asked me a totally life-changing question:
Brett, WHO are you looking at as examples of the kind of yoga teachers you want to emulate?
I recited to him ALL my yoga teacher friends who werent making a lot of money teaching studio yoga classes. And even though they were all super nice yogis, they didnt seem to really have their financial life together.
Well, he said, what about
- Deepak Chopra,
Brett, these people make tons of money as yoga teachers!
He was right. These people are multimillionaires!
He challenged me to see that there are plenty of yoga teachers out there who make LOTS of money. He told me to use those experienced teachers as examples.
GAME-CHANGER: What we focus on dictates our reality.
I changed the teachers I wanted to emulate to those who were making great money. I surrounded myself with incredible coaches, mentors and yoga teachers who had an abundance mindset around earning a living as a teacher and healer. It helped me overcome my fear. It changed everything for me.
Now, I earn 15 times my corporate salary teaching yoga and am a millionaire yoga teacher myself!
Im still in disbelief about this. But thats the power of intention, action, support and follow-through.
And thats how the yoga industry single-handedly undermines the true value that yoga teachers bring to our world.
What Do You Do To Create Income
Its easy to say, Follow your passion and forget the money. Unfortunately, we have to be realistic. You dont want to cut off your primary source of income, dive head first into the unknown and wind up in a difficult financial spot. And if money becomes too heavy a burden, youll end up hating teaching.
We wrote this article to help you decide whether teaching yoga could be an enjoyable, sustainable career for you.
First, lets take a look at how the yoga industry itself is doing.
According to recent studies by Yoga Journal and Yoga Alliance, yoga practitioners spend $16 billion a year on yoga classes, clothing, equipment, and accessories. This is a significant increase from $10 billion over the last four years.
Source:
Meanwhile, CNN ranks being a yoga instructor tenth in the Top 10 Careers. Given that the yoga industry is booming and being a yoga instructor is one of the best jobs around, it sounds tempting to drop everything and start teaching full-time.
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What Does A Yoga Teacher Do
A yoga teacher is someone who teaches public or private yoga classes. Yoga is a spiritual and physical practice that involves special breathing and stretching techniques designed to stimulate and strengthen the body and mind. Therefore, a yoga teacher should be well prepared and know the proper techniques for this practice.
What Is Yoga Organizations
6 non-profit yoga organizations that support your Purple Dot community yoga project. Located in downtown St. Hands to Heart, this non-profit organization was founded by yoga teacher Keith Berlin. Due to the lack of yoga studios in the colored areas, the Hands to Heart Center offers free community-level yoga and mindfulness classes. Yoga bridge. Remove the base of the yoga. Yoga gangsters.
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What Is The Salary Of A Yoga Teacher In India
In India, the average salary for a yoga teacher is between 10,000 and 25,000 per month. In this field, they can get a good salary abroad. As a serious instructor in the field, with a master’s or diploma, you can earn up to 1 lakh per month. Income also varies by location, industry, company, education, etc.
Create Your Own Certification Program
Do you have your own unique style of yoga? Or maybe your own creative/artistic style? Consider creating a certification program and teaching others your style! Certifications can range from a full on program down to a laser focused weekend intensive. Many programs count towards the Yoga Alliance continuing education credits.
Our dear friend Sofiah Thom is offering a Temple Body Arts certification program coming up in June of 2018 in Costa Rica. The program is a tantric path to reclaiming your feminine power.
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Ways Yoga Teachers Can Earn More Money
We broke these income opportunities into three categories to help you focus on what makes the most sense for your unique situation.
- Beginner friendly income opportunities
- Intermediate income opportunities
- Advanced income opportunities
Yoga teachers who build robust businesses almost always have multiple streams of income. Keep that in mind as youre considering your next move. Always seek to diversify your yoga teacher income.
As always, take what works and leave the rest.
The Creative Artist Model
In How to Become a Yoga Teacher, I describe how yoga teachers are in the creative arts like chefs, writers, or musicians. This is true in matters of pay and possibility too.
In the creative arts, you have a lot of people making a little bit of money and a few people making a significant amount of money.
Take writers. In 2017, the Median Pay for Full Time Writers was $20,300
If you include Part-Time Writers, the amount goes down to $6080.
Why the vast disparity in income for writers and other creatives? This will be addressed in an upcoming article about making a sustainable living.
As a yoga teacher, you are in business for yourself, an entrepreneur, and its helpful to think like one.
People who succeed tend to have more of an entrepreneurial spirit, said Michael Levine, a hairstylist, and chief executive officer of the Vancouver-based Michael Levine Salon Group
Taylor Swift clearly gets that she is an entrepreneur. Arguably one of the most influential creative artists of the last decade, Taylor has become successful because of her hard worka key theme for creatives who thrive.
But before that fire catches, you need an income, which is where the realization from Rachel Whitener, private chef, comes in. She started out initially as a pastry chef.
Work on your craft
Grow the demand for what you do
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Digital Marketing / It For Yoga Studios
The perfect job for the tech savvy entrepreneurs among us. Most yoga studios are understaffed and need help with their marketing. Consider offering your skills as a part-time expert. You could make a great living REMOTELY by freelancing with 3-5 yoga studios. As you provide a larger impact, you can increase your prices. Useful skills include: Website development/design, email marketing, social media marketing, etc.
Whats In A Yoga Instructor Salary
There seems to be more than a little bit of confusion surrounding the average salary of a certified yoga instructor.
In the United States, yoga instructors make an average of $24.96 per hour, making anywhere from 31K-100K, with the national average clocking in at wait for it $60K.
Real US dollars, not Monopoly money.
Now, depending on where you live in the United States, the notion of a $60K annual salary might sound pretty sweet.or wholly underwhelming.
To reach that figure, you would basically have to teach 26 yoga classes per week for a whole year, at the rate of $50 per class. This hourly rate is shall we say, not extremely commonplace.
Which is why when someone asks so, whats an average salary of a yoga teacher? you cant just throw out five-figure salary figures and shout NEXT QUESTION!
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Know Your Worth And Negotiate Your Pay Rate
Common Misconception: Yoga teachers dont negotiate their wage or get raises, they only make money per mat as they grow their class sizes.
Reality: Yoga teaching is like any other job or business, your earning potential is based on your ability to know your worth and negotiate. Begin by figuring out the starting pay scale in your area. Most of the yoga community is very friendly and you can easily explain to fellow instructors that you are trying to start out your teaching journey and would love to know what sort of pay range you can expect in the area.
At a gym or small studio, that rate may start out at just $30-$35 per class for a brand new yoga teacher. Perhaps $45 to $50 for a more established studio. Specialized and experienced teachers with more training are more likely to charge $50 to $75 per class. You will always sound more professional and confident in negotiations if you know your base rate and can confidently discuss finances.
Dont forget to leverage your assets. If you have a following , use those numbers on your resume and charge accordingly. If you excel at marketing, consider doing the e-mail or social media for your studio. As you grow your classes, you can negotiate a higher per mat rate or raise your private class rate as your services become more in demand.
How Much Do Yoga Instructors Earn
The pay for yoga instructors depends on the hours and location they are teaching. According to Glassdoor, the average yearly base pay in the United States for yoga teachers is $50,738 or $29.80 per hour. Yoga instructors who teach in big cities earn more than those in small cities and towns.
According to the stats on Indeed, yoga instructors in San Francisco, California, get paid the highest rate per hour. Below are the top eight highest-paying cities for yoga instructors in the US.
San Francisco, California: $51.21 per hour
Orlando, Florida: $48.99 per hour
New York, New York: $41.05 per hour
Boston, Massachusetts: $40.61 per hour
Los Angeles, California: $38.75 per hour
Chicago, Illinois: $36.99 per hour
Baltimore, Maryland: $36.25 per hour
San Antonio, Texas: $32.24 per hour
If you want to earn more as a yoga teacher, its easy to say, teach in these cities. Or, avoid teaching in Kansas or Alabama as they pay yoga teachers 25-33% less than the national average. But the competition in these cities for a yoga teaching position is tight.
In San Francisco, California, there are 1,721 yoga instructors registered with Yoga Alliance alone, while there are only 471 in Orlando, Florida. These numbers affect the take-home money of yoga teachers since many of them receive a flat fee per class, plus commission per student.
Whether you are an employee or a contractor, use your negotiation skills to receive a higher salary.
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When Was Yoga Alliance Created
The Yoga Alliance, the national education and advocacy organization in the United States, was formed in 1999 through the merger of Unity in Yoga and the Ad Hoc Yoga Alliance. The Yoga Alliance has quickly established a national register of yoga teachers that recognizes different styles of yoga and has developed a range of educational standards and continuing education programs.
