Menu
Teaching & fitness / Question & answer

Language school: Why is salary divided by paid hours too low?

Convert staff cost into a delivery-hour cost for pricing.

Cobalt ribbon, chrome ring and orange sphere in architectural light
Language school / lesson economics
Answer

Productive hours exclude leave, training and non-delivery time. Enter employer charges from your own payroll records.

Try this with your own numbers

Formula and worked example

Loaded cost = (pay + employer costs + allocated overhead) / productive hours

Example figures
InputExample
Annual gross pay45,000
Employer benefits and payroll costs10,000
Allocated annual staff overhead5,000
Productive annual hours1,500
Calculated result40 per productive hour

Choose reliable inputs

Connect teaching time, preparation, attendance and room capacity to each lesson or class. For this language school calculation, use attendance records, teaching schedules and room costs and a consistent definition of one lesson.

  • Instruction: include the portion belonging to this lesson or reporting period, and record where the value came from.
  • Materials: include the portion belonging to this lesson or reporting period, and record where the value came from.
  • Student administration: include the portion belonging to this lesson or reporting period, and record where the value came from.

Use the same currency for every money input. Do not mix weekly costs with monthly revenue, or count the same expense in both an itemised cost and allocated overhead.

Why is salary divided by paid hours too low?

Productive hours exclude leave, training and non-delivery time. Enter employer charges from your own payroll records.

Compare a different assumption

What if this input changes?

If annual gross pay rises by 10%, this example changes by 3 per productive hour. This shows the effect of one change; it does not predict what will happen.

Open the calculator, save your baseline, then change the input supported by the least reliable estimate in your records. Compare both scenarios before committing to a price or capacity promise.

More tools and guidance

Find the next calculation
you need.

Browse calculatorsFind your industry
Cobalt ribbon, chrome ring and orange sphere in architectural light

Search AskToBot

Start typing to find a calculator or conversion.