Most teachers start by charging per lesson, because it is the obvious thing to do and it feels fairest. A few years in, most of the ones with full books have moved to termly, and they will tell you it was the single change that made the business feel stable. This is about why, what it is worth in pounds, and what it costs you in goodwill to switch.
The short answer
Charge termly if you teach children on a school timetable and your diary is close to full. It protects your income, it cuts your invoicing by a factor of ten, and it ends the weekly negotiation about who owes what.
Charge per lesson if you teach adults, if your schedule is genuinely irregular, or if you are still building up and need to say yes to anyone who asks. Asking a stranger for a term up front is a real barrier when they are not yet sure they want to learn.
Monthly sits between the two: the predictability of a standing amount without the size of a termly bill. It is the right answer more often than people expect, and it is what most teachers should try first if termly feels like too big a leap.
What each one actually pays you
The difference is not the headline rate, which is usually identical. It is what happens to the lessons that do not take place. Take a teacher with twenty weekly students at £20 for half an hour, over a twelve-week term:
- The term, if nothing goes wrong: 20 students × 12 lessons × £20 = £4,800. That number is the same under either system.
- Per lesson, if each student misses one lesson in the term: twenty lessons never happen and are never charged. That is £400 a term, £1,200 a year on three terms — and one missed lesson per student per term is a modest assumption, not a pessimistic one.
- Termly: the £4,800 is invoiced before the term starts. A missed lesson becomes a make-up within the term rather than a refund, so the figure holds.
Then there is the admin. Per lesson, that term is 240 invoices to raise, send and reconcile. Termly, it is 20. If an invoice takes you three minutes end to end, that is twelve hours a term against one.
And there is the cash. Termly money arrives before you teach the lessons, which is what lets you pay for a summer with no teaching in it. Per-lesson money arrives in arrears, in small amounts, from people who each have their own idea of when to pay.
What happens when a lesson is missed
This is where the two systems really part company, and it is worth being honest that termly is better for you and per lesson is better for the parent.
Under per lesson, a cancelled lesson is simply not charged, so every cancellation is a small pay cut for you and costs the family nothing. That is exactly why late cancellations are so common: there is no reason not to. You can bolt a notice period onto per-lesson billing, but you are then chasing someone for a lesson that did not happen, which is the most awkward invoice there is.
Under termly, the term is bought as a block and the slot is held for that student whether they come or not. A cancellation inside the notice period costs them the lesson; illness is excused and earns a make-up. Nobody is chasing anybody, because the money is already in. If you want wording for this, the Music lesson cancellation policy template (UK) is written to sit on a term invoice.
What parents will accept
The objection you are braced for is the size of the bill. In practice the objection you actually get is about surprise: a parent who expected £20 a week and receives a bill for £240 will push back even though the total is identical. Say the termly figure out loud before it appears, and most of it goes away.
Three things make termly land well:
- Send it before the term, not during it. A bill that arrives in week three reads as a demand. One that arrives two weeks before the term starts reads as a booking.
- Show the arithmetic. "12 lessons × £20 = £240" is disarming in a way that "£240" is not.
- Allow part payments. Some families genuinely cannot do it in one go, and letting them pay in two or three instalments before the first lesson costs you nothing while keeping the commitment intact.
What you should not do is offer per-lesson billing to anyone who asks, because within a term you will be running two systems, and the people who asked are the people who cancel most.
Moving a studio from per lesson to termly
Do it at a term boundary, never mid-term, and do it to everybody at once. A studio running both systems is a studio where you cannot remember who owes what.
Announce it about a month before the new term, in one short message that gives the reason and the number. Something like: "From January I'm moving to termly fees so that lesson slots are held for the whole term and I'm not sending invoices every week. Your term is 12 lessons at £20, so £240, due before the first lesson on the 8th. You can pay it in instalments if that is easier, and the cancellation policy is attached."
Expect to lose one or two of the least committed students, and expect that to be a net gain: the slot goes to someone on your waiting list, and the people who leave were the ones cancelling. If you have nobody on a waiting list, hold off on switching until you do — that is the real precondition, not the wording.
For the full letter, including what to say about holidays and siblings, use the Term fees letter and term invoice template for music teachers.
Doing it without the spreadsheet
The reason teachers stay on per lesson long after it stops paying them is that termly is harder to keep track of by hand: you have to know how many lessons are in the term, which ones have happened, who cancelled with enough notice, and who is owed a make-up. That is a spreadsheet nobody enjoys.
My Studio Tracker does that part. Set a student to termly, start a term, and one invoice goes out for the whole block with your cancellation policy printed on it and a card link for paying. Every lesson is tracked against that term, cancellations are judged against your own notice period as you record them, make-ups you owe are listed until they are booked, and the balance left on the term is on the student's page. When the term runs out, it tells you which students need the next one.
Per lesson and monthly work the same way, per student, so you can run a mixed studio during a changeover term without keeping a note of it yourself.