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How to Price a Sourdough Workshop (With Real Numbers) | Episode 146

11 minutes ago
11 min read

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Last week I walked you through my whole sourdough class, start to finish. If you have not listened to that one yet, it is worth starting there, since today builds right on top of it. This week I am answering the questions I get asked most about teaching: how many people should I take, do I need help, and what should I actually charge? I am being completely open with you, real numbers, what I have charged over the years, what changed, and what it actually costs me to put one student through the class.


How many students is the right number

My very first classes were in my home, capped at three to five people, and starting that small was genuinely smart. With a group that size, everyone gets real one-on-one attention. You can reach into every bowl, stand beside every person while they pre-shape, and learn your own class fast because you can see exactly where people get stuck. If your home is anything like mine, more than five or six quickly starts to feel crowded, bowls and scales and flour everywhere with only so much counter space, so that becomes a pretty comfortable ceiling for teaching at home.


Once you have a few classes under your belt, six to eight is the next sweet spot. There is enough energy in the room that it starts to feel like a party, everyone making new friends, but it is still small enough that each person gets real attention, and you can usually still manage it solo in a slightly bigger space like a church kitchen or a small rented room.

Right now, in my bakery, I cap classes at 12, which is what my space and table count can comfortably hold. With an assistant, that runs smoothly. I have done it alone, and it is doable, but it is a stretch. Twelve feels full and lively without tipping into chaos within two and a half to three hours, and it is enough tickets to make the class genuinely worth my time. I want to be clear that I did not start at 12. I worked up to it.


Some bakers teach classes of 20, 30 or more, and if that is where you want to start, that is completely fine too. I tend to be a small-group person. I like learning everyone's name and making sure every single person gets their questions answered, and beyond about 12, I find the quieter people start leaving with questions unanswered. The biggest class I have ever taught was 15 or 16 people at a women's community space across town, with no assistant and a long drive, so I hauled every bowl, scale, bag of flour, jug of water, and pre-baked loaf myself, since there was no oven on site. By the end I was completely wiped out. A couple of students stayed to help me clean up, which I was so grateful for, and I met one of my closest friends in that very class. If I had brought help, or if it had been in my own space, that same group size would have felt a lot more manageable.


So when you are setting your own ceiling, it is not only about how many bodies fit in the room. It is also about how much you are carrying, literally and figuratively. Ask yourself where you are teaching and who is helping you, and those two questions will tell you your number.


Thinking bigger? Consider a demo-style class

If you want to reach a much larger group, say 20 or 30 people, there is a less hands-on format worth considering. I have not taught one myself, but I have heard of other bakers doing it well. Instead of everyone mixing their own dough, you demonstrate each step up front while the group watches, tastes, and asks questions. They go home with a jar of starter and a printed guide instead of a bowl of dough or a baked loaf, which means less for you to clean up and less to set up per student, so you can charge a lower ticket price and still reach far more people at once.


If you try this, I would genuinely love to hear how it goes. It could be a nice way to open the door to a lot of people at a lower price point, maybe even as a stepping stone toward a smaller, higher-touch intermediate class down the road for the students who want to go deeper.


Where to actually host it

Your kitchen does not have to look like a magazine spread. Mine certainly does not. If hosting at home does not feel right for you, there are plenty of other options. I have taught in a hostess's own home for a group of about six, though my personal preference leans against traveling to teach, since hauling every supply somewhere else adds up fast. Neighborhood community centers often have kitchens and tables in a genuinely nice-looking space. Activity centers that host regular events, ours runs monthly bingo nights, sometimes come with a big open room and a full commercial kitchen. VFW halls and churches are also worth checking, since churches in particular usually have commercial kitchens already.


Cost matters here too. The more of each ticket price you get to keep, the more a workshop is going to feel worth your time. I once taught out of a women's networking space with a fairly high rental fee, and it ate into enough of each ticket that those classes never felt as worthwhile to me. If you are completely stuck on where to host, just ask your own audience. A quick post or an Instagram poll saying you want to teach a workshop but need a space will usually turn up a few good options fast. When a hostess gathers the people and provides the space, I offer her a discount on her own ticket as a thank you.


When to bring in help

My rule of thumb is simple: once a class goes over about eight people, get an assistant. You do not technically have to, I have taught solo many times, but the class runs so much smoother with a second set of hands, your students get more attention, and you end the day a lot less exhausted.


An assistant passes things out, answers questions while you are tied up with someone else, clears finished items off the table so people have room to work, grabs whatever you inevitably forgot, washes dishes during class instead of leaving you with a mountain of them afterward, and runs checkout at the end while you answer last-minute questions. Truthfully, the biggest thing an assistant does is just become a second point of contact. In a room of 12, someone always has a question while you are across the room helping someone else, and having a second person there means nobody is left standing around unattended, even if all they can do is make that person feel seen until you get to them. One example straight from last week's episode: pulling bread out of the oven while you are walking the room through starter is a perfect assistant job.


How you pay them is flexible. I run mine hourly through payroll, including setup and cleanup time, not just the class itself, but a simple Venmo payment works just as well if you are not set up for payroll, with the understanding that they are a contract worker responsible for their own taxes once they cross the filing threshold. A flat fee for the whole class is another clean option, or you can offer a free seat in a future class to a friend or past student willing to help, which is a lovely way to do this when your budget is tight.


Whichever way you pay them, prep them properly. Give a quick rundown before class, walk them through your timeline and your space if they are not already familiar with it, and assign specific jobs ahead of time rather than leaving them to shadow you asking what they can do, since you will not have time to answer that mid-class. One job I always hand off now: have your assistant snap a few photos or videos of you actually teaching, since that is something you will otherwise forget every single time. Whatever you pay them, build that cost into your ticket price, the same way you already account for flour and bowls.


What I actually charge, and why it changed

When I first started, I charged around $100 to $110 a ticket, then raised it to $125 for a while and made it fully inclusive: a printed guide, a banneton, a lame, a glass starter jar, a dough scraper, a bowl cover, and a bowl. People loved going home with the whole kit, but I noticed that a lot of students who sign up already have some exposure to sourdough. Some have tried it before and it did not go well, and plenty already own a banneton someone gave them as a gift. I was handing people supplies they did not need and building that cost into a ticket well over $100.


I changed the model, inspired partly by Kala Hembree, a guest I had on the show years ago who is brilliant at this. My beginner class now sits at $95 and includes a stainless bowl with a shower cap so students can take their dough home, a one-quart deli container of starter marked with a rubber band at the fed line, a lame if they want one, and a printed quick-start guide. On top of that, every student gets 15% off anything on my retail shelves that day. If someone needs a banneton, they grab one. If they already have one, they keep their money. The same goes for dough scrapers, jars and lames.


I source most of those supplies through Faire, a wholesale marketplace, and buy bannetons in bulk off Amazon before marking them up slightly for the shelf. A home baker could absolutely do this too, even just a small table of supplies set up alongside your workshop tickets. For specialty classes, I have taught muffins, cookies and a croissant class, I build ingredient costs like milk, butter, eggs and sugar directly into the ticket price, since those cost more than a plain sourdough class.


Three things made the switch worth it. First, people stop paying for supplies they do not need, which feels better for everyone. Second, a ticket under $100 is simply an easier yes. Ninety-five dollars reads very differently than $125 to most people, even though the actual gap is small. Third, and this is the real driver, I usually make back that difference and more from shelf sales the same day. Someone who just spent two and a half hours learning to bake sourdough is excited and wants to do it right away, and a shelf of bannetons and dough scrapers at 15% off, priced close to what they would pay on Amazon anyway, beats waiting a day or two for shipping. That same-day convenience is what actually sells it.


Either model works. All-inclusive and lower-ticket-with-a-discount are both genuinely valid, and the right one depends on your setup and your goals, not on copying whatever I or anyone else charges. Calculate your own real costs and the value of your own time, and price from there.


What it actually costs you to put one student through class

For me, that number is roughly $10 per student. The bowl runs about $2 from a restaurant supply site, or $3 to $4 in bulk off Amazon, and it is the one thing I restock for every single class since it goes home with each student, so it is worth ordering a big batch at once to make shipping worth it. Bread and ingredients run under $2 per student, and the rest covers the starter container, shower cap, rubber band, printed guide, and a share of the snack.


Separate from that are your upfront costs: food scales, dough whisks, lames, water jars, and I always keep hand wipes and nitrile gloves on hand too. Those are one-time purchases you reuse class after class, so they cost you something the first time and then are essentially paid for.


A simple example, worked all the way through

Here is how it comes together with round numbers. Twelve students at $95 a ticket is $1,140. Supplies at roughly $10 a student come to $120. A helper working four hours, including setup and cleanup, at $20 an hour is $80. That leaves about $940 from one class before a single person buys anything off the shelf.


Now factor in your own time. Two hours of prep, two and a half hours of teaching, and an hour of cleanup is about five and a half hours total. Divide that $940 by 5.5 hours and you land at roughly $170 an hour for your own time, and that is before any shop sales at all. Your numbers will look different depending on your price, your space and your helper, and that is exactly why running your own math matters more than borrowing mine.


Pick a price and say it with confidence

Once you know your numbers, you can charge with confidence instead of guessing. Pick a clear price you feel good about and say it plainly. If you are stuck between two numbers, pick the higher one. It is a lot harder to raise a price later than it is to set it at a healthy spot from the start, and you can always run a smaller early-bird discount instead of underpricing the whole class from day one.


"What if someone says my class is too expensive?"

A few things to hold onto here. First, this comes up far less often than you fear it will. Second, take a breath, because not everyone is your target student, and that is perfectly fine. Someone who thinks $95 is too much for a sourdough class probably is not buying a banneton on the way out either, and they may simply find instruction somewhere else, which is okay.


More often than not, hesitation about price is really about not knowing what they are getting yet, not the number itself. That is your cue to describe the experience rather than rattle off a checklist of what is included. This is the chance to nourish their family, take control of the ingredients going into their food, and maybe bake and gift sourdough to people they love as the holidays approach. They score and bake their own loaf, take home dough they mixed themselves and a starter of their own, get every starter question answered, leave with a printed guide so nothing gets forgotten, and get hands-on help from someone who does this for a living. When you lay it out that way instead of rattling off a list, the price tends to make sense on its own.


It also helps to think about what it costs them not to take the class: wasted bags of flour, a starter that died more than once, months of flat loaves and discouragement pieced together from videos alone. You are saving them from all of that. When you build your marketing, list what is included, state your price once, clearly, and do not apologize for it or over-explain it. That gets easier every single time you practice it!


Final thoughts

Group size, help, and pricing all come back to the same thing: knowing your own numbers instead of borrowing someone else's. Start small if you need to, bring in help once the room gets big enough to need it, and price your ticket based on your actual costs and the value of your own time. Next week, in the final episode of this series, we are talking about selling workshops as Christmas gifts and adding more class types so your students keep coming back instead of taking one class and disappearing.


Cheering you on,

Caroline


Keep going

If this got you thinking about pricing your own workshop, these three go further.


Links to things you might like!


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