Adding a Second Location or Teacher Without Losing the Personal Touch

You're turning people away. Your waitlist has a waitlist. Clients ask whether there's anyone else they could see, or whether you'd ever open closer to where they live. And you're tired in a way that more hours won't fix.

That's usually when owners start thinking about a second teacher, a second room or a second studio. Each one can work. Each one also changes your job, often in ways nobody warns you about.

In October 2026, The Pilates Business Podcast put it this way: "growth doesn't eliminate problems—it changes them." The same episode looks at "why hiring instructors doesn't automatically give you all your time back."

This piece walks through the decision in parts: whether you're ready, how a first teacher might be engaged and paid, how to keep the experience feeling like yours, and how to watch the money once there's more than one of you.

Readiness signals

There's no single test, but owners who grow comfortably often see several of these first:

• Demand you can't meet, for months, not just in January.
• Clients willing to see someone else. Some private clients will only ever work with you. Some owners ask a few regulars whether they'd try another teacher they trained.
• Repeatable systems. Your policies, pricing and booking process are written down, not just in your head.
• Financial room. The SBA's guidance on expanding starts there: "take a close look at your balance sheet to make sure you can cover the costs of expanding."
• Time to manage. A new teacher needs training, check-ins and someone to call when the spring breaks.

And some signals that suggest waiting, or growing in a smaller step:

• Your current space has empty hours you haven't filled.
• Your rates haven't been reviewed in a long time. A rate change may ease demand and raise income without any new costs.
• You want to grow mainly to escape admin. A new teacher usually adds admin before removing any.

Three ways to grow, from smallest to largest

Many owners take these in order, and some find the first step is enough.

Your first teacher: contractor or employee

The way you engage a teacher affects taxes, insurance, paperwork and how much say you have over how they teach.

The IRS looks at "the entire relationship" and how much right the business has "to direct and control the worker," grouping the evidence into behavioral control, financial control and the type of relationship. Some states set a higher bar. California's ABC test treats a worker as an employee unless the business shows all three conditions, including that the work is "outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business." At the federal level, the Department of Labor proposed a new independent contractor rule in February 2026, so the federal standard may change.

There's a real tension here for classical studios in particular. If you want a teacher to teach your way, on your schedule, with your policies, that level of control tends to point toward employment.

If you hire an employee

The SBA's hiring checklist includes getting an EIN, checking for state tax IDs, collecting a W-4, setting pay periods, choosing how to run payroll, and keeping the right records. Its worked example also covers Form I-9 and reporting new hires to the state directory, and it lists workers' compensation among required benefits. Many small owners use a payroll service for this.

If you engage a contractor

Contractors usually set their own methods and often teach elsewhere too. On paperwork, the IRS reporting threshold for Form 1099-NEC is $2,000 for payments made after December 31, 2025. Many owners collect a W-9 before the first payment and ask for proof of the teacher's own insurance.

How to pay a teacher

Pay structure shapes both your margin and the teacher's motivation. Writing in The Business of Pilates in August 2026, Courtney Clapper describes four common models:

• Flat per class or session. Simple and predictable. For group classes, she notes it "doesn't care if the class is full."
• Revenue share, with instructors typically receiving 40 to 70% of what the session brings in. It scales with demand, which she notes can get costly when classes are always full.
• Salary or W-2 base pay, which supports stability and retention but is "a fixed cost that doesn't care what season you're in."
• Tiered by tenure or certification, where pay rises with experience. "Success and cost climb together," she writes.

For a private-heavy studio, the math is simpler than for group classes because every session has one client. A worksheet like this can help you compare:

The numbers are illustrative. What matters is seeing who absorbs a quiet week, and whether what the studio keeps actually covers rent, equipment, insurance and your time managing.

Keeping the voice consistent

The personal touch is often why clients chose you. A second teacher, or a second location, can dilute it without anyone meaning to. Ways owners keep the experience consistent:

• A written welcome. What a first session includes, what clients can expect, and how you talk about the method.
• Shared policies. The same cancellation, late and payment rules no matter who teaches. If teachers set their own, clients notice.
• Shared message templates. Reminders, reschedule replies and welcome texts that sound like the studio.
• Observation and feedback. Watching a session now and then, and being watched yourself.
• One place for client notes, so a client who switches teachers doesn't have to explain their shoulder all over again.

A sample text introducing a new teacher to an existing client:

Hi Ellen, I'd love you to meet Marcus, who's joining the studio on Thursdays. He trained classically like I did, and I've briefed him on your hip. If Thursdays at 4 would suit you better than waiting for one of my Tuesday spots, he has room. No pressure either way.

Money per location

Once there's more than one room or one teacher, a single profit number hides a lot. Some owners track, at least monthly:

• Revenue and costs for each location separately
• Sessions taught and revenue earned per teacher
• Rent per teaching hour actually used
• Teacher pay as a share of revenue
• Your own time spent managing, not just teaching

For a new location, the SBA suggests a forecast of "estimated costs and revenue for the new location," and it notes that licensing and zoning "rules vary across states and localities," so a new neighborhood can mean new permits. Many owners also plan for a stretch of months before a new studio covers its own costs, and decide in advance how long they're willing to support it.

Questions to help you decide

• Is the bottleneck you, your space, your equipment, or your rates?
• Which of your regulars would see another teacher, and what would they need to hear?
• How much control do you want over how a new teacher teaches, and what does that suggest about employment status?
• Which pay model leaves enough to cover overhead and your management time?
• If a second location lost money for its first year, could the first one carry it?
• What would you want a client to feel walking into either room, and how will you protect that?

A note on tools

Wundaful today is built for private-first studios with one owner at the center, inside a working classical studio in Santa Barbara. If you're weighing a second teacher or studio, the questions above will shape the decision far more than any software.

Sources

1. More Clients, More Problems? What Really Happens When Your Pilates Studio Grows: The Pilates Business Podcast, episode 290, October 5, 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. ABC test: California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, accessed October 2026.
5. Independent contractor rulemaking: US Department of Labor, accessed October 2026.
6. Hire and manage employees: US Small Business Administration, accessed October 2026.
7. Expand to new locations: US Small Business Administration, accessed October 2026.
8. Form 1099-NEC and independent contractors: IRS, updated October 16, 2026.