A teaching calendar is lumpy: some months hold five lessons, December holds two. Billing per lesson makes cash flow lurch and makes December feel like a bargain. Level billing spreads the year's lessons across twelve equal payments — and the arithmetic is a single division.
40 lessons a year at $38 each is $1,520 — $126.67 every month, regardless of what the calendar looks like.
The example
Three studio policies, each with its own annual lesson commitment and per-lesson rate.
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plan | Lessons/year | Rate each | Monthly |
| 2 | Standard 40-week | 40 | 38 | 126.67 |
| 3 | School year 36 | 36 | 45 | 135.00 |
| 4 | Year-round 44 | 44 | 32 | 117.33 |
The formula
Annual value first, then twelve equal slices:
How it works
Three deliberate choices:
B2is the annual lesson count you actually commit to teach — the studio calendar minus your closure weeks, written into the enrolment agreement.C2is the per-lesson rate. Level billing does not change what a lesson is worth; it changes when it is paid for./12spreads it. Use 12 even for a nine-month school-year plan if families pay year-round, or use 9 if they do not — but say which in the agreement.ROUND(...,2)to cents. The twelve payments may total a cent or two off the annual figure; put the difference in the final month if you want them to reconcile exactly.
Publish the annual number next to the monthly one. Families are far more comfortable with level billing once they can see the year it came from.
Try it: interactive demo
Enter the lessons you commit to teach per year and your per-lesson rate.
Variations
Reconcile the rounding in month twelve
Charge the exact remainder in the final month so the year totals to the penny.
Sibling discount on the level rate
Apply the discount to the annual figure before levelling, not after.
Pitfalls & errors
Level billing is a promise about lessons delivered over the year. If you cancel weeks without making them up, the effective rate silently rises and the agreement no longer matches what families are paying for.
State the annual lesson count in the enrolment agreement, not the monthly price. When a family asks why they paid in December, the answer is the count they signed.
Do not divide the monthly lesson count by 12. The numerator has to be the whole year's lessons; mixing periods is how studios end up charging a twelfth of a month.
Practice workbook
Frequently asked questions
What happens when a student enrols mid-year?
Do I have to bill twelve months?
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