Can you make a decent living as a yoga instructor?

[Unclebuck3]

Obviously not expecting to be wealthy but is it possible to live comfortably as a yoga instructor? I plan to teach separate classes for adults and children, possibly two classes per day in church halls/dance studios or other rented space. Long term goal is to set up a studio and offer classes as well as teacher trainings. I live in the south west and there is currently not much in the way of competition for adult yoga classes and absolutely nothing for children.

My friend does as a Pilates teacher - a combination of group classes and private sessions.

Yoga classes - that would be tough.

You would have to hold so many classes that you'd be tired / jaded (and you might find it difficult to recruit to all the classes)

You need other things to add to your portfolio - selling products (yoga mats, blocks, yoga clothing etc). Developing videos so class members can follow you at home. Running private sessions.

Remember room hire and insurance. My friend runs a Pilates studio but it's taken her 7 years to build up her business.

My yoga teacher has a variety of jobs, alongside the yoga. From what I can see, the issue is building up a regular client base. And even regular clients drop away (without a word, which is their right of course, it's just a bit odd when someone attends for a year then disappears!).

She runs half-day and full-day workshops which seem well attended.

For her normal classes I know she needs six attendees regularly to make the venue hire and her time worthwhile. She's had to drop one evening class as attendance was regularly down to three.

Oooh it'd be tough and will take a while to establish yourself. I think offering specific group classes is wise. Pregnancy yoga is quite big where I am. I also know someone who goes to schools to do yoga and mindfulness with children. She also works for the local authority within leisure centres. Good luck.

I think it would be difficult to do it full time, but combined with other things, it might be possible.

Wow, loads of things to think about! Some great ideas, thank you 😊 I am a newly qualified massage therapist so would like to run baby massage and yoga classes. I would like to focus primarily on children’s yoga, so would offer my services to schools, local authorities etc. I have been reading lots about how yoga, massage and mindfulness can be especially beneficial to children with additional needs so would love to specialise in that. Yoga is my passion and I really would love to do it as a career. But, I’m 35, have two kids under 5 and no qualifications or experience in anything. It’s time to get my arse in gear and start building a future for them and don’t really have years to waste on a failed enterprise

Have you researched venue costs, advertising costs, insurance costs, etc?

Surely if you’ve sat down with a pen, paper and calculator and worked out how much you would need to charge per person, per class, and how many people you’d need in each class to even cover your costs - plus all of the above, you would know whether it’s remotely feasible to make a living doing this?

You could also teach in gyms but as freelance not staff. A friend does this, teaches 16 classes a week but does spin and pump classes as well. Gets paid £20 a class. He's skint but he survives.

You'll need a dbs plus school budget cuts mean there's little scope for paying yoga teachers. You'd probably have to offer it privately outside school time.

The yoga teacher of one of the classes I attend started off doing it part time, evening and Saturday classes. When she had built up enough interest she reduced her hours from her full time office day job to do more yoga classes, then eventually jacked the office job in altogether and just does yoga now. She does a mixture of weekly regular classes, private sessions and some special 'one off' longer sessions.

Eeeee tough one!
As someone who teaches 12 fitness classes a week self employed, I still have a almost full time job.

I’d steer clear from gyms if you are self employed, they pay awful! Rent local churches. Take insurance and music licensing into account.

My yoga teacher does. She teaches pregnancy yoga, which leads into birth preparation workshops, then postnatal yoga (bring baby), women’s yoga, chair yoga for the elderly, early morning yoga. She does kids yoga including regular sessions in all the local nurseries and primary schools.

How will your children fit with the work? For kids the groups will need to be after school/Saturdays & adults will want 7pm/8pm as well as some during the day.
Check out the cost of insurance & room/hall hire.
I work for a tennis club, we provide lessons for over 500 people a week & my boss is still far from rich (obviously he has staff costs too)

Morning classes aimed at preschoolers can be run while my two are at nursery/preschool. Evening classes I will need to arrange childcare. Dd is begging to come along to classes with me as my assistant, not sure how long that will last though! Thank you for all the input, I’m pretty confident it will bring in at least a supplementary income, whether or not we could live on it full time remains to be seen. I’m planning to combine classes, selling merchandise, teacher training courses (I paid £500 for children’s yoga instructor 3 day course, adults yoga instructor courses registered with yoga alliance cost around £4000 ) and an IG page. There are many other areas to branch into such as yoga retreats, corporate retreats, private lessons etc.

Venue hire is between 12p/h and 40p/h round here depending on whether it’s a dusty church hall or studio space. I haven’t looked into insurance yet. I won’t be needing a music license thankfully as I heard they can difficult to get.

A quick Google says that insurance would be around 50 per month, although mine would probably be higher for babies and young children.

Go to Balens for your insurance. Much less than £50 a month.

A friend of mine makes a reasonable income but she teaches loads of classes, does weekend and week retreats, workshops, private lessons, kids and teens, merchandise etc

It’s a lot of work and she’s looking to do something else now she’s mid forties as it’s heavy wear and tear on the body.

If you are looking at £40 for space hire you need to think about how you will arrange bookings, if it’s pay as you go you could end up with lessons that don’t cover costs, especially when you first start up. You also need to have a good think about how to advertise, social media is good but probably not enough in its own. I don’t know anything about yoga pricing but if you do a private lesson in a hall that costs you £40 an hour you’re going to need to charge a lot for that lesson - in my experience people are not willing to pay that much an hour for a leisure activity.

Something to really keep in mind is that most classes (other than for very small children) will be in non family friendly hours, if you need to get childcare it’s much harder to find for evenings & weekends

My nephew has just moved the focus of his business from yoga to massage. Much more
lucrative and reliable and he's just started doing it for several reasonably high profile sports teams, which is an area he's really keen on exploiting as he uses their facilities etc and travels with them.

My word £50 a month is way overboard, I agree, look up Balens!!

My yoga teacher does

She has:

8 classes @£120
Plus 10 clients at £50

So that's £1450 a week. London obvs