How much do dance studio owners make? This is a common question among those who are interested in opening a dance studio (read here the full guide about how to do it). Actually it’s also a common question between studio owners wondering if they’re doing good with their activity. Let’s now give it a complete and detailed answer!
Salary overview
Even if you can read everywhere that “according to Indeed, the average salary of a dance studio owner is $67,000“, we can all agree that this sounds like a dream rather than reality. This is because these results often calculate the average wage without considering how many people get actually that salary.
In fact, the average salary of a dance studio owner according to multiple data sources (including ZipRecruiter, Indeed and Simply Hired) is more between $33k and $43k. The highest salary is around $126K while the lowest is around $16k. The average monthly pay is slightly less than $4000 (which is equal to $1000 per week). Your hourly wage should be around $23 per hour or more in order to reach that monthly salary.
How can dance studio owners make more money?
Let’s break it down. As a dance studio owner there are tons of ways you can use to increase your revenues. Let’s list the main ones (and the less common ones too), with an indication of the average revenues you can get from each of them.
Attention! Some elements have an EMR (estimated monthly revenues) and others have an EYR (estimated yearly revenues), which are calculated on an average basis. The “top scorers” can obviously earn way more than that. For the EYR (such as costumes, which usually don’t get sold every month), you can split the amount easily by dividing it for the number of months of work.
Classes
1. Teaching and tuitions: especially when you start, you may want to be both a teacher and a dance studio owner. This will help you spend less money for paying other teachers while you can’t afford it yet. Keep in mind though, that bringing new teachers to your studio could also help you increase your revenues and your students. Also you will have more time for managing the studio from the “backend”.
EMR: $2500-4000
Selling
2. Costumes: when you’re providing costumes to your students, you are spending time and resources. It’s totally fair to add a small fee on the price of each costume (95% of the studios worldwide does it). Time spent can’t be refunded, resources can’t be returned, but it’s fair to have a small return in terms of money.
EYR: $700
3. Shop: many studios are hosting dance shops inside their own spaces. Companies such as Weissmans and many others, offer the possibility of receiving a volume discount or becoming a trusted retail store / reseller / pop-up store.
EMR: $1000
4. Merchandise: sell your own merchandise at your studio. T-shirts, bags and other dance tools with your dance studio logo can be sold at the frontdesk. Some studios also accept donations and resell the items received as low as 1$.
EMR: $200
Funding
5. Donations: consider the idea of putting a “Donate” button somewhere on your website. Many websites offer the possibility of integrating a donation button easily with a couple lines of code. Paypal was probably the first launching the idea, but now you can find way more. Donorbox and GoFundMe are the most famous.
EYR: N/A
Services
6. Dance Studio Rentals: renting your spaces when you’re not using them is a great way to earn passive incomes. While there are many ways to manage a dance studio rental (most of them are still the same introduced back in 2010), you can rent your space efficiently, effortlessly and for free on Dancerents (you’re on it right now 🙂 ). Take a look at our features and become a Host for free!
EMR: $1200-4800
7. Partnerships: call a photographer or a PT to provide an extra service to your students and, just like the point 3, add a small fee on the final price.
EMR: $150
8. Dance Recital Tickets: using a dance recital ticketing platform can help you automatize the seat booking process. Some platforms such as Dance Recital Ticketing or Tututix will just help you to manage your bookings, while others such as Dancefolio will ALSO help you to find a sponsor and earn extra revenues from sales (since we’re talking about making EXTRA money, we will recommend Dancefolio in this case).
EYR: $2000-5000
9. Collaborations: create a network of people working in your field who can help you to get more dance opportunities (shows, fairs, social events). Send emails and spread the word!
EYR: N/A
10. Start a Company: this is strictly connected to the point 9, but starting a Dance Company is another great way to promote your studio activities and earn extra revenues from touring your shows here and there.
EYR: $5000-10,000
Conclusions
Please keep in mind that there are a lot of factors that can change the results you can get (including marketing and promotion, staff salary, maintenance and costs, taxes, materials, furniture, apps and website hosting and more).
After this post we hope you can be more positive about your future as a SO and that the question “how much do dance studio owners make?” was answered 🙂