Paying teachers is arithmetic nobody enjoys doing twice. Set each teacher’s rate once and the Payroll report does the counting from the lessons that were actually taught.
This is a job for a studio that employs people. Teaching on your own? You don’t have a People group yet and there’s nobody to pay — it appears when you add or invite your first colleague, and this page is worth coming back to then.
Set a teacher’s default rate
Open People → Teachers, open a teacher, and set their Pay basis:
- Per lesson — a flat amount for each lesson taught
- Hourly — paid by time, so a 30 and a 60 differ automatically
- Percentage — a share of what the lesson earns
- Not set — leave it until you know
Then fill in the Rate (or Percentage, if that’s the basis you chose). There’s also Employment — Employee or Self-employed / contractor — which records how you engage them, and a Default lesson length.
Add exceptions
Most studios have one rate — until they don’t. The Location & duration rates section handles the rest: These override the default rate above for lessons they match. Most specific wins.
Each row can be pinned to:
- a location (or Any location)
- a duration in minutes (leave it blank for any)
- a rate type — Lesson for a teacher’s own lessons, or Cover for lessons where they cover someone else
- a group size — from how many students, so shared lessons can pay differently
Fill the row in and choose Add rate. So “£17.50 for 20 minutes at Bell Farm, £24.50 for 30 minutes anywhere, £20 when covering” is three rows, and LessonLoop picks the most specific match for each lesson. Until you add any, the section says so plainly: No specific rates yet — the default rate above applies to everything.
Removing a row is safe and explained at the point of asking: lessons it matched fall back to the next matching rate, or to the default above.
See what you owe
Open Billing & Finance → Reports and choose the Payroll report. It works from delivered lessons and each teacher’s rate, with the usual period selector — week, month, term or a custom range — and a CSV export for your bookkeeper.
Mark the register first Payroll counts lessons that have been completed and marked. If the figures look light, look for unmarked past lessons — catch them up from the Calendar's attendance backlog and the numbers fill in. See catch up on unmarked lessons.
Teachers see their own side of this: their pay and mileage sit under a slimmed My pay & mileage group, and they never see the studio’s wider finances.
Was this out of date or unclear? Tell us — we keep these guides matched to the live app.