Martial Arts School Tuition & Student Lifetime Value Calculator
Enter six numbers and this calculator shows what your martial arts school earns today, what each student is worth over their whole stay, how much you can afford to spend to enroll one, and where you’ll be in 12 months if new students join at a higher tuition. It works the same for karate and taekwondo schools, BJJ academies and MMA gyms.
Your school today
In 12 months, with new students at your new tuition
Estimates only. The projection assumes your dropout rate and monthly enrollments stay constant, existing students keep their current tuition, and new students pay the new rate. Want a real diagnosis of your numbers? Book The Most Valuable Hour.
How the calculator works
- Average student stay = 1 ÷ monthly dropout rate. At 4% a month, the average student stays 25 months; at 2%, 50 months.
- Student lifetime value = enrollment fee + (average monthly tuition × average stay). It leaves out upgrades, testing fees and pro shop sales, so the real figure is usually higher.
- Maximum cost per enrollment is 5 to 10 percent of lifetime value: a practical ceiling for what marketing can spend to win one student.
- The 12-month projection shrinks your current students by the dropout rate each month and adds your new enrollments at the new tuition.
- A $1 million year is about $83,333 a month. Divide by your average tuition to see the active student count you need.
What the numbers usually show
Most owners who run this for the first time find the same two things. Their dropout rate matters more than they thought, because halving it doubles every student’s lifetime value. And raising tuition for new students only, without touching existing agreements, moves the average far faster than they expected. Our benchmark for a healthy school is 300 active students at an average of $300 to $400 a month, with dropout under 2 percent.
Go deeper with how much a martial arts school should charge, how to reduce student dropout, and the business plan template with a break-even worksheet.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate the lifetime value of a martial arts student?
Add the enrollment fee to the average monthly tuition multiplied by the average number of months a student stays. The average stay is 1 divided by your monthly dropout rate, so a 2% dropout rate means about 50 months.
What is a good monthly dropout rate for a martial arts school?
Under 2% a month is an A-grade school. Around 3 to 4% is average, and anything much higher means the school is spending most of its marketing replacing lost students.
How much should a martial arts school spend to get a new student?
A practical ceiling is 5 to 10 percent of the student’s lifetime value. Many well-run schools also aim to collect enough on enrollment day to cover the cost of acquiring that student.
How many students does a martial arts school need to make $1 million a year?
About $83,333 a month in revenue. At an average of $300 a month, that’s roughly 278 active students; at $400, about 209.
The Most Valuable Hour You Will Spend This Year
Find out exactly why your school stopped growing. Book a free one-hour diagnosis on Zoom with our coaching team. We’ll look at your numbers, your marketing and your enrollment process, and show you what to fix first.
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