Starting out at a low rate has its benefits, as it helps you build your student base at the crucial initial phases. Of course, you might be infinitely grateful to your first students who got you to where you are today (that is, higher in the rankings and able to retain more students). However, as we all know, popularity comes at a cost, and you’ll eventually have to raise your prices if you want to stay competitive.

One major issue tutors have to face once they’ve reached a certain level is charging old students new prices. While that is the natural and correct thing to do (you need to charge your worth), some understandably feel uncomfortable raising lesson prices for their most loyal students.

It’s not uncommon to feel some degree of guilt for raising the rates for your regulars. After all, they were the ones who helped you get to where you are now. You may be tempted to keep your prices the same just for the sake of maintaining the tutor-student relationships. Yet, for both your personal success and work satisfaction, raising prices is an inevitable step. Luckily, there are a couple things you can do to smoothen the process.

1. Start by talking to your current students, and notify them of your intention to raise lesson prices. Ask if they’d be comfortable with paying a couple of dollars more for your lessons. Make sure you do this well in advance of raising prices, leaving sufficient time for students who are not prepared to pay the higher fee to find themselves another tutor. While this may feel awkward, students will appreciate your forwardness.
2. When you first start out, you can make sure that your students are aware that tutoring prices are flexible and proportional to demand. This can make raising prices in future easier.
3. As a last resort, if you have a student that you’ve developed a solid relationship with, you may consider taking their lessons off your tutoring platform so that you can charge them separately, at your agreed rate. Be careful with this — many platforms do not approve of tutors holding lessons outside the tutoring platform and may even prohibit it. Furthermore, you wouldn’t want to do this too often at the risk of becoming demotivated, so only consider this option if you’re truly a big fan of your student!
   

Raising prices should be a natural and guilt-free process. You’ve put in the hard work and are being rewarded with an opportunity to earn more profit. Own it, you deserve it! While some students may be unhappy with the price raises, they’ll be able to find tutors who are willing to teach at lower rates. And if you still feel queasy about raising prices, return to this post and re-read the three points mentioned above. Good luck!