How to raise your prices?

If you want to raise your rates probably the best way to handle it is to raise it immediatly for the new students (no problem there) and for your existing students, let them know you are raising your rate but they get to keep their rate for the next 3 months (or maybe some other time frame). I think this would allow you to raise your prices for everyone without losing many of your current students.

Thanks, that sounds like a good plan. I'm still just getting started so I'm going to give it two or three months and gauge the response I'm getting and how many students I can hustle up.

Jeff

I've just gotten started teaching guitar lessons, and I initially advertised my rates at $20/hour.

I've been talking with some other teachers (who have more experience but without quite as much musical knowledge as I have) who recommended the rates of $40/hour.

I'm not sure what's a reasonable rate, honestly. Is $20/hr too low?

If so, in the future how would I go about changing my rate without my students feeling ripped off? Would I keep the old rate for the ones who started with it? Or change it for everyone?

Thanks,
Jeff

I am in a similar situation to you. I recently moved to Australia, from the UK, where i had been teaching guitar full time for some 8 years. I am trying to set myself up here in Oz, and it has been hard going, but i have got around 20 students, and and adult Education class in the local community centre. Now i set my price at $25au, and have advertised as such, but soon after i started teaching i found that most teachers charged $40au. I have however decided to carry on for the first year at the price i have set, and in the new year up my prices. I will however continue to charge $25au to all existing students, and when new students start, they will start at the new price. I hope to start working in a few schools in the new year, so i will also set a new rate for them as well.