What should you really charge ? The fair-price method

Let us be honest : you set your current prices by looking at the club down the road, eight years ago. Since then hay has gone up, wages have gone up, insurance has gone up. Your prices have not.

Step 1: know your cost price (it is simpler than it sounds)

A fair price is not copied from the neighbour : it is worked out from YOUR costs. Take an hour of teaching : the instructor's share, the wear on the school horses, a share of the fixed costs. That is the floor. Below it, you are working at a loss without knowing it.

Step 2: announce the rise without losing families

The fear of losing riders by raising prices is almost always overblown : your families see the price of the weekly shop, they understand the real world. What they do not forgive is an unexplained rise announced two weeks before the start of term. The recipe is always the same : announce it early (two to three months ahead, ideally at the June renewals), explain it simply (« the welfare of the horses and the quality of teaching cost more than they did »), and show the value : online booking, progress tracking, this year's new features. A rise seen as an investment goes through ; a rise seen as a penalty does not.

And above all : one clear rise is better than three anxious micro-rises. 5 to 8 % explained calmly goes down better than 2 % apologised for three times.

Step 3: never do that sum by hand again

Cost price is not an exercise to redo every year on the corner of a table : when your supplier invoices, your payments and your activities live in the same software, the margin of each activity can be read continuously. And before touching your prices at all, read why cutting your prices will not fill your lessons.