Current coaching fees - market prices?

College Majors Musical Theater Major
1

Hi all,

My D (is going to get a BMus in vocal performance but also applied to a few acting programs) worked with a local coach on monologues - selecting, acting, and recording (in her own self-tape home studio) this fall. The coach is a working actor with a connection to our public high school. She also worked with some MT students - I think mainly on monologues but perhaps also dance or voice recording, I’m not positive (hard to connect with other parents this year!). The MT students may have used other “national brand” coaches as well and they started out super talented but I’ll note that at least two got into their dream BFAs (I don’t want to name because this is college confidential and I don’t want to identify someone else’s kid but let’s just say they would show up on any “top 5 list”). This coach is quite knowledgeable about college programs and did give some advice about building a list, and she is also superb at mentoring, boosting up, etc.

This was her first year coaching for college applications and she charged $100 per monologue for unlimited time until the student was satisfied with the tape (actually tapes - she did the editing, added different slates, re-recorded different timed cuts, etc. and provided finished products). It strikes me that this is seriously undercharging and I would love to know what you all paid for this type of coaching so that I can help her set fair rates going forward. We live in a big expensive city if that is relevant :). Feel free to PM me if you are more comfortable with that - I’ll be happy to compile info and report back.

I searched this forum and see some previous discussions about this - but several years ago, and I suspect the market has changed, along with everything else in the world. I also decided to post on this board instead of the acting board because it seems that most of the kids at our high school who are interested in pursuing performing arts want to go into MT.

BTW, I’m not trying to debate the value or fairness of coaching - just want to help a young woman get paid what she is worth. There was a point where I was willing to pay $1 million for someone to hand my kid a pile of 10-15 age- and type-appropriate modern and classical and not-overdone monologues, which this lovely woman did (basically for free), and I know you all understand that there were real tears of relief and gratitude. I just want to pay that forward.

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You can peruse the websites of most of the coaching services mentioned here to get a feel for rates. I found that most are in the $100-$150/hour range for one on one coaching.

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Thank you very much! Yes, she’s aware of the bigger names and has looked at their public information - I’m primarily interested in what people are paying more individual/under the radar/less experienced coaches. Is it different than what the “brand names” charge?

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Yikes! That is really low! We used someone to help my S find and prepare monologues for summer programs. We actually ended up using two people. They both charged about $50 for a 1 hour session. One charged an extra $100 to find monologues. The other did not. Between the two of them (we found a lady we my S connected with more after we started with the first guy) I think my S did 5 sessions. So figure $350 just for help with the monologue without any assistance with taping and editing. We live in a big city with an active theater scene. $50 per hour is pretty standard fee for decent vocal lessons here also. Between these two monologue coaches, I suspect one would be considered under the radar (and a better fit for my son) and the other technically top notch. In short, for a newbie/under the radar person, $50/hr would be perfectly acceptable and they really should charge for all their time including time spent looking for pieces and “finaling” films that is time not spent with the student.

1 Like
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Exactly the kind of info I am looking for, thank you! Charging hourly (for ALL the hours) makes sense to me. We pay $65/hour for voice but $50/hour feels about right to me for this. My kid’s academic college advisor charged a fixed fee that covered a couple years of support and my guess is that it works out closer to $100/hour but who knows (and the college advising market where I live is out of control)!

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Ahh, gotcha! We did voice lessons locally but did not know of anyone in our market that could help with choosing and preparing for monologues. It’s hard to find people who have experience knowing what colleges are looking for. It sounds like you got very lucky!