The Rate & Pricing Worksheet

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A structure for setting prices you can live on — built on your real costs, your time, and your worth.

This worksheet turns the money chapter into a tool. It won’t hand you numbers — prices depend entirely on your market, your costs, your experience, and your goals, and no book can set them for you. What it does is walk you through the questions that lead to prices you can actually sustain: what your work costs you, what your time is worth, and when it’s time to raise your rates. Fill it in honestly, revisit it yearly, and price from reality rather than guesswork or fear.

A NOTE BEFORE YOU START

This is a general planning tool, not financial, tax, or legal advice, and it deliberately contains no specific dollar figures. Your actual pricing, taxes, and business structure should be worked out with a qualified CPA or tax professional and, where relevant, an attorney. See Appendix K for the series disclaimers.

Step One: Know Your Costs

You cannot price well until you know what your work actually costs you. Total your real, recurring costs — the money and the time — so you never price below what it takes to keep going.

Venue costs (rent, split, or fees), per month:Music / band costs, per month:Equipment, supplies, and upkeep:Promotion and marketing:Insurance, licenses, and professional fees:Your hours — prep, teaching, travel, and admin — per week:Total monthly cost to run the thing at all:

Step Two: Value Your Time

Every hour you teach also cost you hours you don’t bill — planning, travel, promotion, recovery. Price the whole job, not just the visible hour, or you’ll quietly work for far less than you think.

For every hour I teach, the hidden hours around it total roughly:What one genuine hour of my professional time is worth to me:The income I need this work to produce to be sustainable (see Chapter Seventeen on pricing and Chapter Twenty-Six on wellbeing):

Step Three: Set Your Offerings

Price each offering against your costs and the value it delivers, not against your fear of charging. Record your rates and revisit them.

Offering	My Rate	What Justifies It
Group class / lesson
Private lesson
Workshop / intensive
Event / special
Free intro lesson (acquisition)	Free	Top-of-funnel: what does it earn me downstream?

Step Four: The Free-Lesson Math

The free intro lesson is marketing, not charity — but only if it converts. Track whether it actually pays off downstream, so “free” stays a strategy and doesn’t become a leak.

Roughly how many free-lesson attendees become paying regulars:What a converted regular is worth to me over time:Is the free lesson earning its keep? What I’ll change if not:

Step Five: Raise-Rate Triggers

Rates should rise as your value does. Decide your triggers in advance so you actually raise them instead of undercharging for years out of discomfort.

My classes are consistently full or waitlistedMy skill, reputation, or experience has clearly grownMy costs have risen and my prices haven’t kept upI’m turning away work or booked far in advanceIt’s been over a year since my last increaseI’m resentful about what I earn — a sign I’m underpricingMy next planned rate review date:

Step Six: Diversify

A resilient teaching income rarely rests on one stream. Note the mix you have and the mix you want, so a single slow night never sinks you.

My current income streams:Streams I could add (privates, workshops, events, online, etc.):

THE RULE THAT OUTRANKS THE MATH

Price so you can last — but never let the hustle cost you the hospitality. The money exists to keep the floor alive and you sustainable, not the other way around. Charge fairly, charge enough, and then give your dancers your whole warm heart, because that warmth is the thing they’re really paying for and the thing no worksheet can price.

FINAL REMINDER

This worksheet is a general planning aid, not financial, tax, or legal advice, and includes no specific figures by design. Consult a qualified CPA or tax professional about pricing, self-employment taxes, and your business structure. See Appendix K for the series disclaimers.

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