Renting Space vs Opening Your Own Studio for Private Clients

You've built a following. Clients ask for you by name, and some of them would follow you anywhere. Now the question is where "anywhere" should be: a room you rent by the hour, a contractor spot in someone else's studio, or a lease with your name on it.

There isn't a right answer. There are a few common setups, each with its own math, its own paperwork and its own answer to the question teachers often skip: whose clients are these?

The three models

1. Renting space by the hour

You pay for the time you use. Studios with spare capacity advertise this openly. A January 2026 listing on the Merrithew job board, for example, offered an eight-reformer studio in Bloomfield, New Jersey at "$145/hour (peak) or $135/hour (off-peak)", with equipment and props included. It required an active reformer certification, current CPR/AED and active professional liability insurance. A full room like that is priced for small groups. For privates, many teachers look for a single-apparatus room or a smaller studio with off-peak gaps.

Tends to suit: teachers with a steady but not full private schedule, or those testing whether they want a space of their own.

Trade-offs: low commitment, but you work around the host's busy hours, and the best slots may not be available.

2. Teaching as a contractor in someone else's studio

The studio sets your rate or takes a share, provides the space and often brings you clients. Pay models vary. Writing in The Business of Pilates in August 2026, Courtney Clapper notes that revenue-share arrangements are common with independent contractors and hybrid studios, with instructors typically receiving 40 to 70% of what a session brings in. When you rent space or teach from home instead, you keep the whole fee and carry the costs yourself.

Tends to suit: newer teachers building a client base, or anyone who would rather not handle marketing and admin.

Trade-offs: less income per session and less control over policies, but very little financial risk.

3. Your own lease

You sign for a space, buy or move equipment, and set every policy yourself.

Tends to suit: teachers with a full private book, savings to cover a slow start, and an interest in running a business as well as teaching.

Trade-offs: the highest income per session once it's full, and the most fixed cost when it isn't.

Many teachers move through these in order. Some stay happily in one for their whole career.

Break-even math you can run yourself

The useful comparison is what you keep per week, not the session price. Here is a worksheet with illustrative numbers. Swap in your own.

In this example, renting by the hour beats the contractor model at any volume, and the lease only pulls ahead once the schedule is quite full. Your numbers will differ. The pattern to look for is where the lines cross: the number of privates a week at which the fixed cost of a lease starts to pay for itself.

Three things that often get left out of this math:

• Gaps between clients. With hourly rental you may pay for an hour you only half use. With a lease, empty hours cost you rent either way.
• The slow months. A lease costs the same in August as in January.
• Equipment. Buying a reformer, chair and tower is a large one-time cost. Some teachers spread it out with financing or buy used.

Contractor or employee: it depends on how the work is set up

If you teach in someone else's studio, or later bring on a teacher yourself, classification matters. It affects taxes, insurance, and who pays for what.

The IRS says "the keys are to look at the entire relationship and consider the extent of the right to direct and control the worker," and it groups the evidence into behavioral control, financial control and the type of relationship. If a status is unclear, either side can file Form SS-8 to ask the IRS for a determination. The IRS notes that can take six months or more.

State rules can be stricter. California uses the ABC test, under which a worker counts as an employee unless the hiring business shows all three conditions, including that the worker "performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business." A Pilates teacher teaching Pilates in a Pilates studio can find that condition hard to meet.

Federal rules are also moving. The Department of Labor proposed a new independent contractor rule on February 26, 2026, with comments closing April 28, 2026. As of October 2026 the page lists it as a proposal.

Back in 2018, Pilates Anytime's tips for new studio owners already flagged this: "Employees or independent contractors? Get very clear on the distinction and the law on these options." It's still good advice to get help with.

Signs that are often discussed when people weigh contractor status:

• Who sets the session price and the cancellation policy?
• Who decides your schedule?
• Do you bring your own clients, or does the studio assign them?
• Do you teach elsewhere, market yourself, and carry your own insurance?
• Is there a written agreement, and what does it say?

Who owns the client relationship

This question can cause real hurt feelings when a teacher leaves a studio, so it helps to settle it early.

When you teach as a contractor, the studio may see the clients as its own. It booked them, it holds their payment details, and its software holds their phone numbers. Some agreements include non-solicitation or non-compete clauses. Whether those are enforceable depends heavily on the state, which is one more reason to have someone review the agreement.

When you rent by the hour, clients usually book with you directly. The host provides the room and nothing else. That's usually clear, but it's worth writing down.

With your own lease, the clients are yours, along with all the admin that comes with them.

A few ways teachers make this explicit:

• A short written agreement covering who may contact which clients and what happens if either side ends the arrangement.
• Separate booking and payment. If clients book and pay through your own system, it's clear whose relationship it is.
• A conversation before you start, not after you've decided to leave.

Moving clients when you move

When you do change spaces, the move is mostly communication. Here's sample wording for a text to current clients:

Hi Maria, some news: starting March 3 I'll be teaching from a new space at 410 Oak Street, about ten minutes from where we are now. Same equipment, same Tuesday 9am slot if you want to keep it. Parking is easy, right out front. Want me to hold Tuesdays for you?

A few details tend to make the move easier:

• Telling clients early, two to four weeks ahead if the arrangement allows.
• Keeping the same days and times where possible, since the routine is often what clients are attached to.
• Respecting whatever the agreement with the old studio says about contacting clients.
• Giving clear directions, parking notes and a door code before the first session.

Questions to help you decide

• How many privates a week do you teach now, and how many could you count on in a slow month?
• At what number of privates does a lease beat hourly rental in your own worksheet?
• How much of your income could you lose for six months without it hurting?
• If you teach in someone else's studio, what does your agreement say about classification and about clients?
• Do you want to run a business, or mainly teach? Both answers are fine.

Where software fits

Whichever model you choose, it helps when your bookings and client conversations live in your own account rather than the host studio's system, so they come with you if you move. Wundaful was built inside a working classical studio in Santa Barbara for exactly that kind of private-first practice: clients book and reschedule by texting the studio's Wundaful number, and the relationship stays yours. A personal booking page or even a well-kept spreadsheet can do the same basic job. What matters is that the client list belongs to you.

Sources

1. Independent Pilates instructors: studio space now available in Bloomfield, NJ: Merrithew job board, January 13, 2026.
2. Your Instructor Pay Structure Is Capping Your Margin at 6%: Courtney Clapper, The Business of Pilates, August 6, 2026.
3. Independent contractor (self-employed) or employee?: IRS, updated May 19, 2026.
4. Independent contractor rulemaking: US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, accessed October 2026.
5. ABC test: California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, accessed October 2026.
6. 19 expert tips for growing your Pilates business: Pilates Anytime, December 13, 2018.