What to Charge for Pro/Am or Student/Teacher

[caw]

I am an amateur who teaches, and one of my students today told me she was interested in competing student/teacher at USA Dance competitions with me. I have never done this before, but I guess the first thing I'll need to determine is what to charge.

What things should I charge for? I assume I should charge per dance, and also for travel and board, but should I also charge a flat fee per day for having to be away from home? Should I charge that fee only on competition days, or do travel days count? If I travel cross country or within state, should I charge more, not including travel fees? Should I charge for food while there?

Next, how much should I charge for these things? I know it depends on the person, so should it be a reflection of my hourly rate? What is a standard range?

Please help me

 

[MaggieMoves]

Eek. There's a lot here, and I have a lot of experience being on the student end and I will TRY to not give you the short end of the stick. I competed for a short while with an amateur teacher... he might have been my favorite teacher too!

Anyways, here goes:

Q: I assume I should charge per dance, and also for travel and board, but should I also charge a flat fee per day for having to be away from home?
A: Most of my teachers I went to competitions with, I paid for their entire travel and meals. Often I would just get a package for the 2 of us so I didn't have to worry. Also, my teachers in the past offered both a flat fee and a per heat rate. Some teachers even did a combination of the two, ensuring they had a minimum.

Q: Should I charge that fee only on competition days, or do travel days count?
A: Fees were generally only incurred for dancing on days that you danced. However, if you have a longer trip, room & board are often covered by the student if say they were dancing on day 1 and then day 3. Day 2 would just be covered under room & board.

Q: If I travel cross country or within state, should I charge more, not including travel fees?
A: All traveling fees were covered by the student, regardless of distance. Only in extremely local competitions I never bothered with this.

Q: Next, how much should I charge for these things? I know it depends on the person, so should it be a reflection of my hourly rate? What is a standard range?
A: This is a wide range... I'm used to NYC & Los Angeles fees too with generally high level pros or amateurs. The best way to go about this is to generally look at what say a franchise is charging per heat in your local area. Say it's $75. An independent competition in your area charges $35 per heat. Your price per heat would be the $75-$35 = $40 per heat. This might be a real rough starting point, and it all depends on your accolades and performance in the amateur circuit of course. Students do talk to one another too... so it's probably best to ask a local amateur teacher in your area for their rates.

My current pro & I agreed on a flat rate which works out to be in that neighborhood of price.

What you can also do is to take a rough estimate of "lessons lost" during the amount you'd be away for and charge a daily rate based on those lessons lost. This can be tough though on days you aren't dancing to sell this to your students.

 

[caw]

The best way to go about this is to generally look at what say a franchise is charging per heat in your local area.

That's a great idea! I will definitely do that.

Q: Should I charge that fee only on competition days, or do travel days count?
A: Fees were generally only incurred for dancing on days that you danced. However, if you have a longer trip, room & board are often covered by the student if say they were dancing on day 1 and then day 3. Day 2 would just be covered under room & board.

What range of flat fee would sound right to you? $100? $1,000? $1,000,000?

Q: If I travel cross country or within state, should I charge more, not including travel fees?
A: All traveling fees were covered by the student, regardless of distance. Only in extremely local competitions I never bothered with this.

I don't expect this will be an issue, but I'm just curious to know. What I'm asking is if I have to travel 2 hours to a competition, they will pay travel fees, but let's say we travel from NYC to LA and the travel time takes a full day. I have essentially lost a day from my life, even if they pay for the plane ticket, so do I charge extra for that day?

 

[MaggieMoves]

That's a great idea! I will definitely do that.



What range of flat fee would sound right to you? $100? $1,000? $1,000,000?

$2000 is the "magic number" that many high level amateurs in the NYC area like to charge for any competition. Whether it be the OSB or a single day event. Keep in mind if you charge a flat fee you're probably going to be dancing more heats than those that charge per heat.

If you're going to charge a flat fee as well, keep in mind that you should consider what you're including in this as well. My agreed upon rate might be higher than some because it includes a lot of extras that make it extremely worth it for me, but may not make sense to someone else. Per heat is probably easier.

I don't expect this will be an issue, but I'm just curious to know. What I'm asking is if I have to travel 2 hours to a competition, they will pay travel fees, but let's say we travel from NYC to LA and the travel time takes a full day. I have essentially lost a day from my life, even if they pay for the plane ticket, so do I charge extra for that day?

You don't charge for gap days if you're charging just based on dancing. You're technically only charging just for the dancing, and your room & board is getting paid for by the student. That's really it.

Most pros don't even do the "per day" model. It's just too impractical. I can only think of one person who does it, and he has "celebrity" status.

 

[MaggieMoves]

I should add that I rarely did single day events/showcases with my pro. Typically I did those with an amateur partner, and he had an entirely different pricing model to accommodate that. Large events in NYC (Empire & Manhattan Dancesport), he typically was so booked because all of his students participated it because he lowered his billing.

The above I stated is typically only for travel.

If it were me charging a student, I would probably go the route of per heat for a local competition. Travel comps I'd probably have use of a minimum/flat fee just to make sure I wouldn't lose any money.

 

[MaggieMoves]

What I would do, for example:

Local comp (less than 30 miles travel):
1. # of heats * price per heat
2. food (3 meals/day)

Travel comp:
1. travel costs
2. hotel room
3. meals (3/day)
4. Probably would charge a flat fee of $2000 for X number of heats/warmup/extra lesson
5. Additional heats go back to the price per heat above.

I mean there are a number of ways you can toy with this to make sure you don't lose money or hurt yourself. Just charging a flat fee for a student that wants to dance 200 heats may/will burn you out in the long run. You also don't want to make it too complicated as to scare people away.

In the off days for multi-day competitions, you could also push for a lesson or two.

 

[caw]

Thanks a lot Maggie. I appreciate your input. I hope to hear from others, either confirming what you say or sharing other experiences so I can get a full picture!

Edit: About the $2000/day figure - how many events would a student typically dance for that? I am guessing at a USAD competition one student will dance 16 dances (four dances per style, two styles, two levels). Is that worth $2000? It seems disproportional to the amount of money I would make at a local comp.

 

[caw]

That's a great way to think about it. Thank you, Larinda.

In your estimation, what range of flat fee would seem reasonable for dancing, let's say 16 dances? I see that USAD comps in teacher student offer four dances per style, two styles, and I assume two consecutive levels are allowed, if this is my only student who wanted to do this competition?

 

[MaggieMoves]

Thanks a lot Maggie. I appreciate your input. I hope to hear from others, either confirming what you say or sharing other experiences so I can get a full picture!

Edit: About the $2000/day figure - how many events would a student typically dance for that? I am guessing at a USAD competition one student will dance 16 dances (four dances per style, two styles, two levels). Is that worth $2000? It seems disproportional to the amount of money I would make at a local comp.

It honestly depends, and it was a hypothetical figure I threw out there. The teacher that I know that did that generally charged around 50 dollars per heat. That was typically 40 dances. With that though he would include warm-ups, plus he knew how to style hair and his partner did makeup making it enormously worth it. Most of his students did between 30 and 50 dances.

In short, you need to figure out your "per heat price" to figure out really what flat rate you might want to charge. To give incentives for students to take the flat rate, you need to provide extras for them to make it worth it.

Again, I'm not even sure where you're based out of, so $40/heat might even be low.

 

[caw]

I didn't ever do flat fees. So I can only suggest that if you are doing 16 dances then you will bring home $640 after the comp is said and done. The student will pay your 640 plus the hard and medium costs.

Thanks. I'll take that into consideration

 

[caw]

It honestly depends, and it was a hypothetical figure I threw out there. The teacher that I know that did that generally charged around 50 dollars per heat. That was typically 40 dances. With that though he would include warm-ups, plus he knew how to style hair and his partner did makeup making it enormously worth it. Most of his students did between 30 and 50 dances.

In short, you need to figure out your "per heat price" to figure out really what flat rate you might want to charge. To give incentives for students to take the flat rate, you need to provide extras for them to make it worth it.

Again, I'm not even sure where you're based out of, so $40/heat might even be low.

All of that makes sence. Thanks

 

[caw]

No matter where... 40 is rather generous for an amateur with no resume and no experience.... someone coming on to DF to ask how to get the job done. No offense to caw... but if they can figure out how to do it and get their students to win consistently against some top ranked pro-am pros then they can talk about charging professional prices. Until then.... 40 is generous.

Seeing as I know nothing about pricing, I can't comment on the exact number being high or low, but I totally agree that with no experience and amateur status I understand I will collect less. No offense taken.

 

[s2k]

God, I do not miss pro-am....

My independent studio tacked on a $100 fee for every day I had my instructor out of the studio (with the exception of travel days) much like Larinda suggested. However, the "double dipping" did happen in my case - he also wanted a $100 as his daily fee to recoup his losses for the lessons he wasn't teaching. Plus room/hotel/his package/meals. I was in a medium-sized city and my pro had more than a decade of experience as an instructor of successful competitive students and was a retired pro competitor himself - in addition to his $100 per day, he charged me $30 per heat. Again, based on his resume, fees I felt were fair.

So, be cautious when pricing yourself in this brave new world of teacher-student dancing - you could build your own brand and make yourself known in this new format, and possibly get yourself more competitive amateurs, and therefore make a nice profit, but it will really depend on what your students are willing/able to pay. Entry fees for a USA Dance comp have cost me anywhere from $75 to $150. So if you price yourself using a pro-am model, your student is liable to turn around and say, "Forget it, for these fees I may as well dance pro-am" OR "I can't afford pro-am, and these fees are too close to the reason I'm not dancing pro-am." This is still going to be a far most cost-effective model for your student in the long run - pro-am package fees are usually what killed me, financially! If you can access O2CM and look up teacher-student partnerships, why not contact a few of those teachers, introduce yourself, and ask them for advice: how are they charging their amateurs?

Good luck - this is exactly the kind of partnership USA Dance is encouraging, so I hope it works out and you and your student can make this happen!

 

[Loki]

I understand that T/S is a whole new world for USAD, but considering that it costs under $200 for an AM-AM to dance a dozen+ heats, IMO $40 per heat is a bit high if you're not a pro.

I saw AMs I've danced against dancing as teachers at Chicago; never thought to ask what they were charging. Not my biz, but now I'm curious.

 

[JudeMorrigan]

There are pros who charge both a per dance fee and a per day fee. As a student, I'm fine with that with the caveat that I would expect there to be a relationship there - the higher the per day fee, the less I would expect the pro to charge per dance. Notionally, that would seem to leave room for a pro to tailor their fee structure for their student base. That is, I would think there are two factors at play - the more a pro dances, the more they're working. But it's also true that I would expect there to be some sort of a minimum number that a pro would need to hit for a competition to be worth their time at all. So I would expect a pro with a large stable of students who do lots of dancing to lean heavier on the per dance fees. Whereas it would totally make sense for me for a pro with fewer students who aren't necessarily interested in doing a lot of dances to lean heavier on per day fees. As long as the pro is honest and upfront about their fee schedule, I think the lack of a single industry standard has its virtues.