How much money per class can you make?

To really figure out how much you are making, you need to figure
it out by the week and then divide by how many hours a week you’re
putting into teaching the online class.

You also have to figure in the hours you spend the week before the
class opens getting everything ready and the hours you spend after
the course closes finalizing and turning in grades.

I’ve been paid anywhere from 100 a week to as much as 400 a week.
All schools pay a set amount per course and they pay once, at the
end of the course when all your grades are turned in. Some schools
will pay by the month now and more are getting that way.

So how much? You’ll see everything from 1500 per semester (16 weeks) to 3000 for 8 weeks and, of course, everything in between. But a lot goes into figuring out how much you’re actually making.

Let’s look at a couple of examples. You’re teaching an 8 week course for 1500 and a semester course (16 weeks) for 2000. For the 8 week course, you have to write the syllabus, all lessons, assignments, and set up everything in your course and in your gradebook. You are expected to log in to your course 7 days a week, 5 to participate actively with students and 2 to answer questions only.

In the 16 week course, everything is pre-written and set up for you. All you do is show up on the first day and participate actively 4 out of 7 days each week. You can take off two days every week but it’s requested that you not take off both weekend days every week.

Figure it out. For the 8 wk class, you’ll spend an average of 10 hours a week (counting set up week before class opens, and daily attendance, plus grading). If you’re a newbie, it’ll take far more time and if you’re very experienced, a bit less time. But let’s use ten hours a week for the average. And that will be really 10 weeks because you have to set up everything before the class starts and grade exams after the class is over and finalize grades to turn in before you’ll get paid.

So 10 weeks at 10 hours a week average for 1500. Hmmmm that works out to 15 an hour. Not really all that good. The more you can streamline your work (get it done faster but still just as efficiently and effectively), the better the hourly rate you’ll earn.

Now for the 16 week class for 2000. There is no set up because the course is pre-written. And the pace is much slower for a 16 week class than for an 8 week class. You can probably teach a 16 week class in an average of 5 hours a week (on average — some weeks will be more but some will be less). Hmmm let’s see — that would be 25 an hour.

There are many variables that go into figuring out hourly pay when you’re teaching online. I’ve mentioned a few as examples. But you really need to take your experience into account as well as lot of other factors and then figure out how much you’re making by the hour. Total salary and length of time the class runs really doesn’t mean all that much.

What counts is how much work you do, how effeciently you can do it, and whether you have to add a week to the front or back end of the course session for required instructor responsiblities.

So how much do YOU make per hour?