How much do yoga instructors make? If you are asking this because you are thinking of going into teaching yoga and you want to know if you can afford to cover all your expenses than you might want to pause. Really going into yoga teaching should start with a desire to help me and to learn more about yoga and yourself, and not for the purpose of making money.
Historically some of the great yoga teachers did not make ANY MONEY AT ALL. If you never made any money would you still go into teaching yoga? If the answer is yes, than you are good, to proceed and become a yoga teacher. As I will explain shortly, yes, you can make some money, but a good starting point is to say i want to be a yoga teacher even if i never make any money. Some yoga teachers historically lived in caves, and zero possessions. So having an income was not top of their mind, since the cave living had no costs, and they would eat minimal food from donations.
Lets go to the opposite end of the spectrum. If you become a famous yoga influencer, with a website, an online school, a youtube channel and travel to provide onsite workshops around the world, you can definitely make millions of dollars a year. And if you invest it wisely you can become a hundred millionaire as a yoga celebrity. However there are probably a handful of people in this category globally. The website with products and advertising can make 1 to 10 million dollars per year. The YouTube Channel can make a million dollars a year. Workshops can make $20,000 per workshop for 5 to 7 days courses.
Now lets go to the mass market of yoga teachers, living in the USA or a western country. Typical yoga teachers are working on 1099 and not a salary. They DO NOT get benefits from their employment and need to find their own benefits. Studios often pay per student that attend their class with some minimum amount per class. So for example $40 base fee and then $5 per student after the first 10 students. So if you had 12 students you might make $50 per class for 1 hour or 90 minutes. If you had 30 students, you might make as much as $200 per class. So in summary you are looking at $50 to $200 per class. If you teach 5 classes per week you might make $500 a week or $25,000 per year. Now remember, you are NOT paid for vacation time. You are not paid if you are sick and skip your classs. So its ROUGH, and really you should not be relying or depending on money from being a yoga teacher for survival as you might development anxiety and bitterness which defeats the purpose of the yoga journey. Ideally you take up this profession in retirement, or if you have a partner or parents that can fund your normal living expenses.
One bonus idea is teaching workshops. Whereas a typical class you might make $50 to $200, offering a workshop you might charge $50 a student and share the profits 50/50 with the studio. So you can easily take home $300 to $600 per 2 to 3 hours workshop.
