How many hours does managing your classes by hand cost you?
Answering WhatsApps, re-filling places, chasing payments: every task takes minutes, and the minutes each week turn into whole working days each month. Put in your numbers and look at the sum.
- No sign-up and no email address needed.
- We don't store anything, because the sum is done in your browser.
- The formula is in plain sight, below.
With the sample data: 5.7 hours a week on admin, 25 hours a month, 614 euros a month. If software took over 70 per cent of it, you would win back 17 hours and 430 euros a month. With 173 bookings a month you would pay the same as with fifty: from 29 euros a month. The plans have no cap on bookings; they differ in which modules they include.
With 40 new bookings a week, that comes to about 173 a month, and you would pay the same as with fifty: from €29/month. The plans have no cap on bookings; they differ in which modules they include.
With 0% commission per booking and no minimum term. Compare it with the 17 hours and the €430 above: you've just done the sum yourself. What each plan includes.
Write to us and we'll reply within one working day. Please note that Aforo works in Spanish: the dashboard, your booking page and the emails your students receive.
How it calculates
weekly hours = (bookings × minutes per booking + changes × minutes per change + chased payments × minutes per payment) ÷ 60
Monthly hours are weekly hours × 52 ÷ 12, and the cost is hours × what your hour is worth.
The default values (5 minutes per booking, 8 per change, 10 per chased payment) are conservative starting points for admin done by WhatsApp and a notebook; adjust them to your case.
We don't set the percentage that software would take over: you decide it with the control, because it depends on how much of your admin can be automated.
In short
What it calculates, with which minutes, and where the six-hour figure comes from.
The calculator estimates the weekly hours that go on handling bookings by hand and multiplies them by your hourly rate. The formula is written below the result.
Weekly hours are bookings times their minutes, plus changes times theirs, plus chased payments times theirs, all divided by 60.
The starting values are 5 minutes per new booking, 8 per change or cancellation and 10 per chased payment, and you can adjust them.
With forty bookings, ten changes and six chased payments a week, the sum comes to 340 minutes, or 5 hours and 40 minutes.
That is where the figure of about six hours a week that Aforo gives elsewhere on this website comes from. Monthly hours are weekly hours times 52 divided by 12.
How much of that work a program would save is up to you, with a control.
It is calculated in your browser, without asking for your email and without storing anything.
Frequently asked questions
The natural next step is to read what a booking system for classes should have and the comparison of the 11 programs on the market.
How many hours a week go on running a studio by hand?
It depends on three numbers that almost nobody has ever counted. The first is new bookings.
Each message exchange to sign someone up takes between three and eight minutes, counting replying, checking the notebook, writing it down and confirming.
The second is changes and cancellations, which cost more than they seem because you have to fill the place again and let whoever was waiting know: between five and fifteen minutes each.
And the third is the payments you have to chase, between five and twenty minutes for each person you have to remind that they owe something.
A studio with forty bookings, ten changes and six chased payments a week comes to around six hours a week of admin alone, almost a full working day.
The calculator does the sum with your numbers, not these, and also tells you what that time is worth at your hourly rate.
How do I work out what an hour of my work is worth?
There are two ways and you should look at both, because they give very different figures.
The simple one is to divide what you want to invoice each month by the hours you can really work.
If you want €3,000 and you work 160 hours, your hour is worth about €19.
The studio way looks at capacity instead of salary: a two-hour class with eight places at €35 brings in €280, which is €140 per hour of class.
That second number is the one that hurts, because every hour you spend answering messages is an hour you can't spend teaching.
Either works for the calculator: what matters is that you put the number in yourself and know which of the two sums you're doing.
If you're not sure, start with the simple one and raise it later: you'll see how the result changes.
Does this calculator store my data?
No, and there's no small print behind that. Everything is calculated inside your own browser: it doesn't ask for your email, it doesn't send your figures to any server and nothing you type is recorded anywhere.
You can use it as many times as you like, close it and come back, without leaving a trace and without anyone writing to you afterwards because you used it.
If you want to talk, you'll have to take the step yourself from the contact page.
It's a free tool from Aforo, the booking and management software for pottery, painting and craft studios, and it's here because the sum it does is useful even if you never sign up for anything.
The formula is in plain sight, below the result, so you can redo it on paper if you prefer or argue with it if it doesn't add up for you. Nothing has to be taken on faith.
Is the result a savings promise from Aforo?
No, and it's built on purpose not to look like one. The calculator tells you what manual admin costs you today, in hours and in euros, with your own numbers and not ours.
The second part is yours to decide by moving a control: what share of that work a program that books, takes payments and sends reminders on its own would take over.
It depends on how you work, and we won't make up a figure that then doesn't come true.
That's why the results panel starts out labelled as an example until you touch something.
Our part is something else: publishing the prices, €29, €49 or €69 a month excluding VAT and with no commission per booking.
That way you make the comparison yourself with both figures in front of you: what it costs you today in hours and what it would cost to stop doing it.
If the sums don't work out, we'd rather you saw it here.