What should a lesson cost?
Most rate advice starts from what others charge. This starts from what you need to earn — and prices in the three things rate sheets forget: unpaid prep, weeks off, and the lessons that cancel.
Before taxes — what you invoice, not what lands after your local tax.
Realistic teaching slots, not the theoretical maximum.
Unpaid time attached to every lesson. It belongs in the price.
Holidays, illness, exam-season lulls. Nobody teaches 52 weeks.
Late cancels and no-shows you end up not charging for.
Taxes, platform commissions and payment fees vary too much by country to guess at — subtract yours from the target before you start, or add them on top of the rate.
How the arithmetic works
Your yearly target is the monthly figure times twelve. Your supply of paid lessons is what you can teach per week, times the weeks you actually teach, minus the share lost to cancellations. Divide the first by the second and you have the rate that genuinely produces your target — usually noticeably higher than the naive target-divided-by-lessons number, which is the point.
The second line converts that into what an hour of your working time earns once prep is attached. If it looks low, the honest fixes are fewer prep minutes per lesson or a higher rate — automating the prep is exactly why Halgo exists.
Charging right is half the job
Halgo handles the other half — schedule, packages, payments and homework from your own textbooks. Invite-only while in beta.
Ask for an invite