Industry Guides
Booking software for music teachers in Australia: terms, the weekly slot and exam deadlines
How Australian music teachers and schools should run bookings: protecting the fixed weekly slot, selling the term up front, setting a make-up policy that survives, and catching AMEB exam entries before the closing date.
Music teaching is the most fixed slot business we come across. A student takes 4pm Tuesday and keeps it for two years. There is no browsing of availability, no picking a time that suits this week, and very little of what a booking page normally does.
Which means the commercial risk is not an empty diary. It is a student quietly stopping, and 4pm Tuesday sitting empty for a term because you did not know it was going before it went.
We make BookAndGo. Most of this is just how private teaching works.
1. Sell the term, and the slot is protected
A term sold up front does three things at once. It funds your term, it makes a student's intention to continue explicit rather than assumed, and it tells you in week one which slots are actually committed.
Paid weekly, a student who is drifting simply stops booking and you find out in week five. Paid as a term, they either re-enrol or they do not, and either way you know at the point you can still fill the slot.
Price the term against buying weekly and show the difference. Ten half hour lessons at $42 is $420; a term at $380 saves $40. That is a real reason to commit, and commitment is the thing you are actually selling.
2. Have a make-up policy, and publish it before you need it
Music teaching has the hardest version of this problem in any class business, because your lesson is a reserved slot with a person's time attached. A cancelled 4pm Tuesday cannot be resold at 4pm Tuesday.
Most experienced teachers land somewhere around: notice given by a set time means the lesson can be made up when a slot allows; less notice than that and the lesson is used. What matters is far less which rule you pick than that it is visible at enrolment rather than produced during a difficult conversation.
3. Two questions at enrolment that change how you teach
Ask everything else if you like, but these two do work.
IS THERE AN INSTRUMENT AT HOME? It predicts progress better than talent, age or enthusiasm. And it is not a yes or no question: 'we have a keyboard rather than a piano' and 'there is a piano but it needs tuning' are both extremely common and both change your first term. A teacher who knows the answer plans differently. A teacher who finds out in week six has lost six weeks.
ARE THEY INTERESTED IN SITTING AN EXAM THIS YEAR? AMEB and equivalent entries close months ahead of the exam. Enrolment is the only moment at which asking is not already too late, and a student who says yes in February is a different teaching plan from one who mentions it in August.
4. Put a buffer between lessons
Back to back half hour lessons with no gap sound efficient and are not. One student has to pack up, a parent wants thirty seconds about practice at home, and the next student needs to get the instrument out.
Five minutes between lessons costs you one lesson slot across an afternoon and stops you running progressively later from 4pm onwards. Most teachers who do not set one end up taking it anyway, just unevenly and at their own expense.
5. Charge for a trial lesson
This is the one place music teaching differs from most trades we see. A free trial lesson attracts people who are curious; a reduced price trial attracts people who intend to continue.
Given a trial consumes a real slot you cannot resell, and given the whole business runs on long term retention rather than volume, filtering for intent at the front is worth more than the extra enquiries.
6. What to use
- Purpose built music school platforms handle repertoire, practice logs and progression in depth, and are worth it if you run a school with many teachers and formal reporting.
- General booking tools handle a one to one lesson fine, but usually cannot sell a term as a prepaid block, which is the mechanic that matters most here.
- A diary and bank transfers works, and is what most single teachers do, right up until chasing term fees becomes the worst part of the job.
- BookAndGo: fixed weekly slots, terms sold as prepaid blocks, group musicianship classes with capacity, custom intake, automatic reminders, Australian data hosting and GST invoicing, flat AU$59 per month excluding GST with no per student fee.
Frequently asked
How should music teachers handle cancelled lessons?
Pick a notice threshold and publish it at enrolment rather than explaining it during a difficult conversation. Most teachers allow a make-up when reasonable notice is given and count the lesson as used below that, because a reserved weekly slot cannot be resold at short notice. A prepaid term block makes either rule easy to run, since a made-up lesson is simply one still on the balance.
Should I charge for a trial music lesson?
Usually yes, at a reduced rate rather than free. A trial consumes a real slot you cannot resell, and music teaching runs on multi-year retention rather than volume, so filtering for students who intend to continue is worth more than the extra enquiries a free trial brings.
What should a music lesson enrolment form ask?
Two questions do most of the work: whether there is an instrument at home to practise on, and whether the student wants to sit an exam this year. The first predicts progress better than anything else and needs more than a yes or no, since a keyboard rather than a piano and an instrument needing tuning are both common. The second matters because AMEB entries close months before the exam.
How much should I charge for music lessons in Australia?
Metro private rates commonly sit around $40 to $45 for half an hour, $58 to $65 for 45 minutes and $75 to $85 for an hour, varying widely by city, instrument and experience. Selling a ten week term at roughly a ten percent discount to the weekly rate is a common structure and materially improves retention.
Do music teachers need to charge GST?
Only if registered, which is compulsory once turnover reaches $75,000 in a twelve month period and optional below it. Many private teachers sit under that threshold and correctly do not charge GST. If you are not registered, do not mention GST on invoices at all.