Alright, I need suggestions. I live in a small town and outside of my primary job, I own my own IT business. A lot of (l)users have eagerly asking if I’ll be teaching classes to explain some of the key things a computer is capable of doing. (Most of them will be elderly.)

How much would you charge for this? I’ve got about 20 people confirmed and I was thinking about doing 20$ a head. What seems reasonable? Keep in mind, this is a smaller sized town.

I can’t edit my original post and there are a few grammatical errors and it’s driving me insane... please, just overlook those. Thanks!

@nik123 perhaps 50$ a head or so? Pricing is what always gets me, I truly don’t know how to charge but I’m definitely competitive. I’ve already closed the shop doors to the competition in town. 😬

If you get twenty people and you are going to spend two hours doing training I’d say $20 is sufficient I don’t charge $200 an hour for my time. Stuff like training works on volume and word of mouth .

For my consultancy time I charge myself out at 45£ an hour which makes it worth my while going but isn’t extortionate I must say people are pleasantly surprised by my hourly rate because I’m not being greedy. Work out what you need to live a little more comfortably and stick to it. More to life than money.

Just my two pence

@philcr thank you for that, that’s what I’ve always tried to do. I always express that I don’t have “set prices” as of yet but I’m comfortable with how much I’m making and although I want to give customers a set rate, I truly don’t know what to charge. I feel as though 20-40 a head would be more than enough.

@nik123 yeah, that’s why I want to keep it pretty low

@nik123 my training rate is less just saying different people work in different ways.

Are the classes a one time workshop or a monthly thing? What exactly will you be teaching? Will you answer questions in detail, and show people how to do things on their own laptops or just do a presentation? If you are up for it , monthly courses would be neat. Since most of the pupils are elderly they would think of it as a nice activity to pass time and meet their friends.

@jsframework9000 I’m wanting to do it like this

Host a weekly class (maybe twice a week Incase people can’t attend one or the other, depending if that picks up), perhaps every Friday or Saturday.

I’ll go over it first slowly and thoroughly as a presentation and then let them do it hands on, so they get a feel of how it’s done and memorize and process it better.

I’ll answer any and all questions thoroughly. And I’ll give out handouts going over the lesson in detail at the end so they have a constant reminder on hand.

Each weekly lesson focusing on one or two things that I always get questions about perhaps

Estimate a price according to their income. You live in a small town so you know more or less what they can afford to pay.

@jsframework9000 although it’s a smaller town, the income fluctuates. we’ve got a lot of retired wealthier elderly people and then not so. I want to give them all a chance to get in on the lessons, so I think 20-30 should suffice.

@AnonyOps I think that's a good price for what you're offering them, because in the long term it will protect them from destroying their computers and paying for tech support. Also, you will show them how to do things they may have payed people to do for them until now.

@jsframework9000 Thanks! I’m hoping to accomplish all of that, some of the calls I receive; although easy fixes are pretty annoying. I want to limit these with user education.

Since you said you wanted to do it roughly once or twice a week at that rate I'd say go for it.

If you can keep the topic contained every week, then you can also assure customers that if they come to a lesson they *will* learn something and not miss out if they can't make the next one.

Just throwing in my two cents.
When you estimate your prices it is important to think about all the time you spend preparing, making course material and overtime. This is especially important if you do it as thorough as it sounds like you're going to.
So getting 200/hr sounds like a lot, but in practice you'll probably use at least the same amount of time you planned on workong with it to make programs and course material. Plus charging money from people and keeping track of who has payed and who's going to come takes time.
Also if you do it weekly you should account for the possibility that you do not get the same attendance all the time.

If I were you I'd
1. set a price for the first week, f.ex. 20/head
2. track every minute you use that week to prepare the courses
3. check at the end of the week if you're content with how it was and the hourly income
4. adjust price if necessary, maybe add padding for low attendance
Or you could test for a month, if you can afford to be payed less/more for that long.

If you feel like you can't up the prices after having sold it once, I would advice you to inform the customers that it is a test course, and thus the prices are not set yet.

Thanks everyone for the fantastic advice, I’ll definitely apply it as I go down this unchartered path. Got a lot of kinks to work out before I go through with it, but hopefully it’ll be worth it.