It is entirely up to you whether you charge any tuition or materials fee. In our experience, a free program has less value in people’s minds. People are more likely to commit their time on an ongoing basis if they are financially invested, even nominally. For these reasons we recommend that you charge a tuition and/or materials fee.
Most non-school extracurricular activities for kids cost $10-$15 per hour. Depending on your location, clientele, and expenses, it is not unreasonable to charge between $5 and $25 per meeting per student. A modest tuition set-up might be $25 as a one-time-registration fee and $10 to $20 per month for two meetings per month. A more assertive tuition example would be $50 for registration and $25 – $50 per month.
There are several ways to institute the tuition/fee.
- Registration Fee and Automated Monthly Tuition Collection – This provides an ongoing source of income, and there is no need to track anniversary dates. Spreading out smaller monthly payments can be easier on cash-strapped parents than annual tuitions or fees.(We recommend that you use a system such as PayPal’s Recurring Payments and Subscription Billing service.)
- Pro-rated fee for a certain number of meetings remaining in the school year.
- Fee Each Time the Member Starts a New Level – This method is easy to track but can cause income to be sporadic if members take a long time to complete a Level.
- Annual Dues – This is a straightforward, easy-to-understand method, but it can be challenging to track each person’s anniversary or calculate pro-rated terms.
- One-Time Fee – This is the simplest method, but you will be receiving limited income in the face of ongoing expenses.