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“I want to be her someday.”
This is something I was thinking about while listening to my lead trainer during my 200 hour yoga teacher training (YTT) as she explained the nuts and bolts of the yoga business and how to succeed as a full-time teacher.
I signed up for the training with 100% certainty that I wanted to teach yoga. At the time, I was in a job that left me feeling unfulfilled and like something was missing. I remember driving to work every day and wondering, is this all there is? Is this how I’m going to feel for the next 30 years? My life felt mundane and monotonous.
I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking forward to the day I could retire – I wanted to enjoy every day. Completing my 200 hour YTT was an incredibly fulfilling and transformative experience. I finally felt like I was where I was meant to be, doing what I was meant to be doing.
But I soon realized that fulfillment and satisfaction don’t necessarily translate to paying the bills.
Not much is talked about about the financial side of yoga, mainly because there seems to be an unfounded belief that charging money or asking for proper compensation for your time is “selfish” or “greedy.” Because of this, many people have unrealistic or confused expectations about the income potential they can make by teaching full time. It’s time to discuss yoga teacher income so people know what they should and shouldn’t expect.
Driven by enthusiasm for the new world around me, I quit my job soon after graduating from YTT to pursue yoga teaching full time. I don’t recommend following my lead on this one. I didn’t have a real “plan” when I quit my job, just a blind faith that it would work out. Almost a decade later, I work as a co-owner and yoga director of an online yoga teacher training platform and have a steady income as a yoga teacher. But it definitely didn’t happen overnight.
For years, I worked 60+ hours a week, balancing teaching yoga with other freelance jobs to make ends meet. I said “yes” to every teaching opportunity that came my way, even if it didn’t fit with who I wanted to be as a teacher. I worked as a receptionist for yoga studios and did marketing and social media for those studios at well below market rate, all in an effort to build a sustainable career.
Was I happy? Yes. I was excited to be working in an industry that I was passionate about. Was I tired? 1000%. I was exhausted, overworked, and ultimately burned out because the pace of work was just not sustainable in the long run.
So, while full-time work is possible, it takes a lot of time and effort to learn and figure out what works best for you. There were countless challenges along the way, and there were times when I thought about quitting teaching.
A yoga career is built with trial and error, lesson by lesson. You have to find a balance between your yoga practice and business, and each instructor’s approach will be very different from another’s. But you learn by doing. Below are some of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far.
1. Find out the average salary of a yoga instructor
Yoga teaching jobs don’t come with a salary, health insurance, or 401K. If you’re hired to teach at a yoga studio or gym, you’ll probably be paid a flat rate per hour or for the duration of the class. And that’s it. Your salary doesn’t include the time you spend preparing, commuting, promoting, additional training, or talking to students before and after class.
The reality is that if you teach 12 classes a week (a lot from an energy standpoint), you’ll make $40 per class, which comes to $480 a week, or about $25,000 a year — less than half the average American salary of $59,248, according to Forbes magazine.
2. Understand that increasing your income won’t happen overnight.
To make more than the average yoga teacher, you’ll need to do more than just group classes. You’ll need to teach private sessions, lead workshops, retreats, and yoga teacher trainings. These will be at a higher price point than studio classes, but they also require a different skill set as a teacher and entrepreneur. And the bottom line is that you’ll need teaching experience before you can offer your students the kind of instruction you want to share. And it takes time to build a clientele that wants to learn from you.
For example, Yoga Alliance’s updated standards now require 500 teaching hours to lead a yoga teacher training program, meaning you need a minimum of four years of teaching experience to fill the role. There’s a reason for this.
A yoga teacher training course will give you a lot of knowledge, but it is only by putting it into practice and working directly with students that you can truly understand that information. Over time, these insights will strengthen and refine your teaching abilities, allowing you to reach your students in a more nuanced and effective way.
This doesn’t mean that YTT graduates don’t have something important to offer. I’m a firm believer in the 10 percent rule, which means you only need to know 10 percent more than your students to be able to teach them something. But in any field, there’s a big difference between what an entry-level employee and a CEO can offer. This also applies to your ability to find a job and how much you can expect to be paid.
Just as I tell my students that understanding the poses doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time and consistent practice to provide the level of instruction I want to give my students. My recommendation is to start teaching yoga part-time while you have another source of income. After all, being under a lot of stress is not a reason to start teaching yoga.
3. Embrace the entrepreneurial spirit
In my experience, what holds many yoga teachers back is the misconception that caring about the business side of teaching yoga is “boring” or “greedy.” The hard truth that many yoga teachers don’t want to hear is that making money doesn’t depend solely on how many trainings you’ve had, how many years you’ve practiced, or how artistic or compassionate an instructor you are.
Understanding and becoming familiar with how to efficiently spend your time on the business aspects of yoga, like social media and email marketing, can help you sustain a full-time teaching career, whether you teach in-person, offer online trainings, or own a studio.
You may not have come into this field with a burning passion to be an entrepreneur, and when you’re just starting out, you’ll have a lot of questions. Do I need a website? Should I open my own studio? Should I set up a limited liability company? What about workshops? How often should I post on Instagram? Should I create a YouTube channel? The questions are endless. There are answers, but finding them takes time and, ideally, a knowledgeable mentor.
There are plenty of free podcasts and resources available to get you started, and then when you’re ready to learn more about a particular topic and have the money to invest in your business, find business training or a coach to help you.
4. Keep it simple
Until you’re business savvy, my advice is to not worry about “looking” like you have a business, but to focus on actually building your business. Connect directly with your students, share your teachings, and make sure you have a way for them to pay for what you offer. Don’t waste money you don’t have yet on photo shoots and websites that look fancy but don’t really provide value to your students.
Keep it simple at first: Invite students to participate and have a way for them to pay. This means posting regularly on your social media accounts, using those accounts to ask students to join your email list, and engaging with them by sending them a weekly email. Then send emails when you offer classes, workshops, or retreats.
The key is to cut through the noise and find an approach to business that is ethical and feels like you.
5. Stay a student
When you begin the process of becoming a full-time teacher, your personal practice often gets pushed aside between focusing on teaching opportunities and learning about the business.
But to maintain your creativity, enthusiasm, and knowledge, you need to remain a student of yoga. The moment you lose curiosity, your teaching becomes stale. And no matter how much business you put into getting students to class, it’s your ability to be a great teacher that keeps them coming back.
Pick at least one or two classes that you will definitely take every week. Put it on your calendar and make it a non-negotiable. Show up, practice, and learn. It will help you de-stress and inspire you at the same time. This commitment will help you maintain a long-term relationship with yoga, and isn’t that the whole point?
About the contributor
Kate Lombard is an international yoga teacher trainer and wellness business strategist. She has taught and led in-person training programs for many years, then branched out virtually as the Director of YogaRenew, leading online yoga teacher trainings. She’s also a Vinyasa yoga sequencing nerd and can talk for hours about meditation, positive psychology, business strategy and money mindsets. Kate believes happiness lies in the space between the pursuit of success and service.
