How To Start An Online Yoga Business

With the increasing popularity of virtual classes, many are now wondering how to start an online yoga business. 

Our ultimate guide will break down how to do this in 7 steps:

• Step 1 - Decide On The Type Of Yoga You Want To Specialise In
• Step 2 - Secure The Right Qualifications For Your Online Yoga Business
• Step 3 - Gain Experience For Your Online Yoga Business
• Step 4 - Find The Right Space For Your Online Yoga Business
• Step 5 - Choose How You'll Broadcast Your Online Yoga Class
• Step 6 - Organise The Right Legal Coverage For Your Online Yoga Business
• Step 7 - Conduct Market Research To Discover Your Competitors
• Step 8 - Decide On The Pricing Structure For Your Online Yoga Business
• Step 9 - Start Marketing Your Online Yoga Business

But before we begin, it’s important you complete the right yoga teacher training courses to give your students the best possible experience. With a Level 3 Diploma in Teaching Yoga, you’ll have the skills and knowledge to successfully plan and deliver online yoga classes.

Find out more by downloading our course prospectus today!

How To Start An Online Yoga Business: The Complete Guide

When looking at how to start an online yoga business, there’s much more to it than simply opening your laptop and performing some yoga poses. 

Below, we’ll explore 9 crucial steps to ensure you cover everything when developing your online yoga business.

Step 1 - Decide On The Type Of Yoga You Want To Specialise In

The first thing you need to do when looking to start an online yoga business is decide on the kind of classes you want to run. 

You should focus on the areas of yoga you’re already familiar with and what you know you enjoy doing. This makes it easier for you to form the basis of your own business, rather than juggling both a brand new venture and yoga specialty.

Knowing what type of yoga you want to specialise in will help feed into many of the decisions you make about your business, such as:

• The yoga teaching training courses you’ll need
• How much space you’ll require
• Any necessary equipment (like a yoga block or ball)

Let’s look at a great example from Karlene from Aerial Yoga Girl, who’s had to both ensure she has ample space and the right equipment to start her online aerial yoga business.

Ensuring you have enough space to hold your online classes and be seen clearly on screen is crucial, which brings us onto our next point.

Step 2 - Secure The Right Qualifications For Your Online Yoga Business

In this section, we’ll discuss the necessary qualifications for running an online yoga business. If you’re already a qualified yoga teacher, you can safely move onto the next step.

For those who aren’t qualified, we’ll break down the required qualifications needed to run a successful online yoga business.

Secure A Level 3 Diploma in Teaching Yoga To Start Your Online Yoga Business

This is the baseline qualification you’ll need to teach yoga anywhere, both online and offline. Having this qualification provides superb foundations, teaching you how to plan and deliver effective classes for your students.

Completing a qualification allows you to understand the fundamentals of the practice and the effects of yoga on the body. It also helps students learn how to care for a range of special populations, such as:

• Pregnant women
• Children
• Those with disabilities

This qualification also means you'll be able to get the right insurance, as well as start applying for jobs in the indsutry. We'll explore this in more detail later in this article.

Hone In On A Specialism With A Level 4 Diploma in Teaching Yoga

This is an advanced yoga qualification, building upon the skills and knowledge you’ll have acquired through the entry-level Level 3 Yoga Diploma. 

The Level 4 Diploma allows instructors to specialise in a specific area of yoga and develop their own niche. The various types of yoga you can specialise in include:

• Hot
• Hatha
• Ashtanga
• Iyengar

Once again, you’ll learn about planning and delivering these advanced sessions. This will involve how to effectively instruct classes to make them all-inclusive for those who need extra care.

You’ll also learn more about yoga as a business, such as how to effectively manage finances, and the legalities of teaching yoga. This will also include topics regarding the process of risk assessments and the implications of duty of care.

The Level 4 Diploma in Teaching Yoga is important for those looking to teach more advanced disciplines, especially if you’re wanting to start your own business. With more complex poses in specialties such as Ashtanga, this means an increased risk of injury.

This is why you need to understand the legalities of teaching yoga at a deeper level, such as:

• The implications and your duty of care
• Understanding the process of risk assessment 
• Relevant health and safety legislation

An advanced qualification also assures students you’re more than experienced to have them attempt difficult poses under your instruction.

Aside from being able to carve out your own niche, this qualification is ideal for gaining industry experience as the more qualified you are, the more attractive employers will find you.

As you’re looking to start an online yoga business, it’s important to find a specialty that lends itself better to online practice. Areas such as Iyengar and Hatha yoga can be easily done virtually, as opposed to more unique practice like aerial and hot yoga.

These areas don’t require advanced equipment yet still allow teachers to show students their skills when performing difficult poses, making the Level 4 Yoga Diploma a great option.

Step 3 - Gain Experience For Your Online Yoga Business

Alongside this baseline qualification, you should also seek out experience in a studio or gym environment. With a Level 3 qualification, you’re qualified to work in most studios and gyms, like this ad from Virgin Active:

Gaining this experience is crucial when running a successful online yoga business. Although you’ll be working in a different environment, you still need to understand how to effectively lead students, run classes, and deliver your teachings.

While ambition is great in the yoga industry, it’s best to spend time working as a yoga instructor to develop your skills and find your teaching style. This will make you more successful in the long run when setting up your own business.

The reason for this is because you could have a great online yoga business plan, but if your teaching isn’t of a high quality, you’re unlikely to keep students coming back to use your service.

Spending time developing your craft and perfecting your methods is necessary for long-term success before you commit to any business venture.

However, you can't gain this experience without the Level 3 Diploma in Teaching Yoga as highlighted by the job ad above. The best thing to do is apply for jobs as a yoga instructor to gain this industry experience, and gain a better understanding of the different aspects of running a business. 

Step 4 - Find The Right Space For Your Online Yoga Business

Regardless of your preferred style of yoga, you’ll need enough space to successfully perform poses as well as ensure you can be seen on the screen. We’ll touch more on getting your tech set up later in this article.

This is especially true with more elaborate poses which come with more advanced styles like Ashtanga yoga, which is a key specialism on the Level 4 Diploma in Yoga Teacher Training.

If you're limited on space at home, you can hire studio space. Websites such as Gumtree advertise spaces you can rent, such as this studio in Lincoln:

For as little as £20, you can use a simple room like this to stream your online classes on a couple times a week. The room doesn't even need to be a yoga studio, just a space large enough for you to successfully perform poses.

Something to also keep in mind is when holding online yoga classes, students will be using their own equipment meaning you only need to focus on purchasing items for yourself. 

This is great if you’re on a limited budget when your online yoga business is just starting out, plus it allows you to focus on delivering your class as effectively as possible.

Step 5 - Choose How You'll Broadcast Your Online Yoga Class

When it comes to starting an online yoga business, one of the most important things to consider is how you plan on running these classes.

There's two primary ways for broadcasting your classes: 

• Zoom & Live Streamed Classes
• Downloadable Videos

We’ll explore both of these options below!

Live Streaming Yoga Classes Through Zoom

For hosting and live streaming successful online classes, it’s likely Zoom was one of the first options you thought of. Its popularity has soared over the last couple of years, and it’s often considered the easiest way to hold virtual classes.

Zoom has a limit of 100 participants for free meetings, giving users the option of holding large classes instead of having to compromise by substantially reducing numbers. It’s also easy to allow people to join a meeting. 

To set one up, you sign into your Zoom web portal and click schedule a meeting. Simply pick the date and time for your class and click Save. This will provide you with a link you can send to students who can then be given access to your class:

As Zoom users require a link to be allowed into the classes, this makes it easier for you to manage who can attend, and ensures only those who have paid for the class will be allowed entry.

However, while Zoom is a great go-to option, there are some things you need to consider outside of your regular equipment.

The most important thing for running Zoom sessions is ensuring you have a laptop that can operate smoothly during classes. 

Technical requirements for running Zoom on different systems include:

• Windows 7 or higher (Windows 10 recommended)
• MacOS 10.9 or higher
• iOS 8.0 or higher
• Android 5.0 or higher

Having bad WiFi or a system that can’t run the programme successfully will result in constant lagging or a failure to connect.

If live streaming classes, you’ll also need to ensure your laptop microphone works efficiently so students can hear you when demonstrating poses. It’s likely you’ll require a headset too so you can project your voice when working further away from the laptop.

While this may seem expensive when you’re just starting out, in the long-run it will pay off as you’ll continually lose customers if your equipment isn’t up to standard.

Downloadable Videos

If you’d prefer not to have classes livestreamed due to family commitments or a busy schedule, downloadable videos may be a more suitable option.

This means you can record videos as if they’re live classes and provide them for students who can then practice in their own time.

While this option is easier for those wanting to teach in their own time, you’ll need extra equipment to film these videos.

This will include a high-quality camera and an adjustable tripod to ensure you’re in frame when performing elaborate poses. 

An example of what this should look like comes from Glo, which provides users with online yoga classes:

Making your yoga classes available as on-demand video is a fantastic idea, although having a dedicated server to host these videos, such as the one Glo has, just isn't feasible when you're first starting out.

To make it easier in the early stages of your business, you could use a service such as Wix Video. As we’ll discuss later in the article, you should have a website for your online yoga business. 

By using a website builder such as Wix, you can upload or stream videos from different platforms such as Youtube. 

To control who watches your videos, you could make them private on YouTube and transfer them to your Wix video website.

Similar to our earlier point, you also need to make sure the quality of your audio is clear. For this, you can either wear a headset or an attachable microphone.

Step 6 - Organise The Right Legal Coverage For Your Online Yoga Business

When setting up your online yoga business, there are certain things you need to consider to ensure you’re protected in certain situations, and that your students feel comfortable.

Ensure You Have The Right Insurance When Starting An Online Yoga Business

Depending on the way you choose to deliver or distribute your online yoga classes, you’ll need to find the right insurance policy to cover what you’re doing.

Although you may think yoga teacher insurance isn’t necessary for an online yoga business, it’s certainly something you need to consider! By leading lessons online and sharing advice, you can still benefit from public liability insurance.

While a student may not be in an actual classroom with you, if they injure themselves after performing a pose you instructed them to do, they could claim compensation. By having insurance in place, you cover yourself against this.

Most insurance providers have updated their policies in the last few years to include online classes. For example, Insure4Sport provides yoga insurance cover for online classes of up to 30 participants:

However, if you plan on performing more specialised online yoga classes such as aerial yoga, you must ensure you have a policy to cover this as this yoga insurance doesn’t extend to this:

As you’ll be using your laptop and microphone to run your online yoga business, equipment cover is also important. 

Yoga insurance from Insure4Sport also has equipment cover that protects against the cost of equipment damage.

This even includes electrical faults or if you damage the equipment yourself by dropping it. As your work will be done entirely online, it’s crucial you put something in place to ensure you can protect yourself if an unfortunate situation arises.

Registering Your Online Yoga Business

You must always register a business, even one that’s entirely online, as this gives you more credibility. Customers can be assured they’re paying for a quality service and can trust you’re a reputable business.

When starting an online yoga business, you’ll also need to register with the HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) for tax purposes. However, you only need to tell HMRC and file a tax return if you earn more than £1000 in a year.

When starting an online yoga business, you can register through GOV.UK as a:

• Sole Trader
• Limited Company
• Partnership

In this situation, registering as a sole trader is your best option. This is for those who run their business as an individual and are self-employed.

Being a sole trader means you keep all your business profits after you’ve paid tax on them. You’re also personally responsible for any losses your business makes.

However, even if you’re strong with finances, it’s likely you’ll benefit from hiring an accountant.

Having an accountant file your taxes means they’ll be looking at the more intricate details of the finances, leaving you to focus on the bigger picture of your business.

It also ensures you avoid any late payment fines! Accountants can also provide you with value-added services to help you stay on top of current tax requirements and compliance, saving you a lot of time and stress that could be spent on improving your service.

By having an accountant for your online yoga business, this means you’ll need to assist in the process by keeping receipts and a record of business expenses.

Additional Legalities For Starting An Online Yoga Business

Depending on the kind of online yoga business you’re starting, if you’re working with children or vulnerable adults, it’s likely you’ll need a DBS check. 

These are typically obtained by employers to inform recruitment decisions, so it can be slightly harder for self-employed people to get them. 

Self-employed people are usually only eligible for a Basic DBS Check through services like MyCheck.

However, if you require a Standard or Enhanced DBS check, you may be able to get one through your local governing body or authority, depending on the sector you work in.

- - - - 

To help you answer some questions about how to start an online yoga business, check out these articles for more guidance:

• Opening A Yoga Studio In Your Home: OriGym Guide
• Finding A Yoga Teaching Job: The Ultimate Guide
• How To Run A Successful Yoga Studio

Step 7 - Conduct Market Research To Discover Your Competitors

Once you have all the legal coverage in place, you should conduct market research to understand what your competitors are doing successfully and how you can adjust your own business to stand out from the crowd.

Having an online yoga business means location isn't an issue so you don't need to identify competitors in your area. Instead, you should see what other online yoga businesses you share a specialty with are doing successfully.

Using the earlier example of aerial yoga, you can check out online yoga businesses such as NDIYO below and see how they are effectively running their business:

You can use their business model to influence your own, as well as determine your prices and offer similar things they do. 

Social media is also a great tool to use when conducting market research. By using hashtags such as ‘#onlineyogaclasses’, you can see what the top posts are for these searches such as the posts below:

You can then find the accounts of those who run online yoga classes, such as the page of @apyogaindia from the top posts. As your yoga business will be online, it’s important to have a social media presence potential students can check out alongside your website. 

By looking at accounts like the one above, you can see the kind of content they post and do similar things:

As you can see, @apyogaindia posts video reels performing yoga poses, as well as tips on form and why students should be performing movements in a certain way. You can make your account more interactive to stand out from other similar businesses.

By checking out your competition, you can see what others could improve and implement this in your own online yoga business model. This could be offering a certain specialty such as Yoga Nidra or providing a cheaper rate.

Step 8 - Decide On The Pricing Structure For Your Online Yoga Business

After conducting market research, this is the ideal time to decide on a pricing structure, as you’ll now be more familiar with what your competitors are charging.

Aside from deciding on prices to match your competitors, there are some questions you should ask yourself, such as:

• Do I have a lot of outgoing payments and bills?
• Am I paying for professional software and hardware to operate my business?
• Have I hired an accountant?

Outgoing payments can include the space you rent to hold your classes in, even with them being online. If you use software for your online yoga business such as WellnessLiving or Glofox, you need to factor in these payments too.

If the above questions apply to you, your pricing needs to reflect those in your area while also factoring in these costs. The last thing you want is to be making a loss, especially in the early stages of your online yoga business.

One of the best ways to make your business more appealing compared to similar ones, is to either offer classes for slightly less than your competitors or ensure you are providers customers with more than they are. 

Similar to personal training packages, yoga packages are also a great way to ensure you have students returning for a period of time. If people pay for a package of 10 classes, you already know there will be people using your service, rather than relying on a class by class basis.

If we take a look at the online yoga packages offered by Yoga Quarter, this should influence your own pricing structure:

Yoga Quarter has a limited number of options which is a good idea as not to overwhelm potential students with a list of different classes. When there are too many options, people are more likely to talk themselves out of buying something if they’re unsure what to choose.

Having 5 and 10 class passes is a good amount as not to have students feel they’re making too much of a commitment while still assuring you there will be returning students.

To set your own prices for packages, you can use other businesses like Yoga Quarter to determine them. However, this is where you should alter your pricing slightly to make your online classes seem more appealing than theirs.

For example, they charge £6 for a single online class. This is a good one-off price as it’s cheap, which is what people expect from virtual classes.

However, while they charge £40 for 5 classes, this is where you can alter your packages to provide customers with a slightly cheaper option.

You can still charge £6 a class for 5, making your package £30. With your 10 class package, you can then charge £40 while still matching the prices of Yoga Quarter.

This makes it cheaper for students in the long run to commit to 10 class packages rather than paying for 10 single classes. The aim of packages is to make them more value for money in the long term.

By having it work out cheaper for students to commit to a chunk of classes rather than continually paying for single ones creates more stability. It also benefits both parties as you receive returning customers while they save money.

Step 9 - Start Marketing Your Online Yoga Business

Once you’ve figured out the structure and pricing of your online yoga business, it’s time to start marketing it to the public! Similar to personal trainer marketing strategies, there are many ways you can attract loyal customers to use your service.

#1 - Incentivise Current Members Of Any Yoga Classes You Run

As mentioned earlier, it’s important to gain experience as a yoga instructor before starting an online yoga business. One of the reasons is that not only will it make you a better teacher, but you can also develop your own loyal following.

If students already enjoy your sessions, they’re more likely to use your service. It also makes it easier for you to gain at least a couple of students instead of completely starting from scratch.

You could incentivise current students by offering a free trial for online class to see if they would be happy continuing with you. Streaming platforms such as Glo offer a 7 day free trial for students to test out their videos before committing:

Even if some current students prefer in-person yoga classes, you still have people with a similar mindset available to recommend your classes to people they know.

However, Glo's approach won't work for everyone, especially if you're just starting out. Another great example of free or discounted classes comes from Yoga Soul in Manchester:

This studio has an intro offer for 21 days of yoga for £30, allowing new customers to receive a chunk of classes at a discounted price. When this ends, they can then decide whether they wish to return for future sessions. 

#2 - Use Family & Friend Referrals For Your Online Yoga Business

Utilising family and friend referrals is a great way to help your online yoga business grow and develop a loyal customer base.

The reason these kinds of referrals are better is because people are more likely to use a service when it’s recommended by someone they trust rather than taking the chance on a stranger.

A couple of popular incentives you can offer friends and family include:

• Free sessions
• Discounted classes
• Gift cards
• Cash incentives

This can be a great way to get loyal students to use your online yoga business. By advertising offers such as ‘Bring A Friend’, friends or family can suggest your services to people they know who have similar goals.

Incentives like these means everyone gets something of value out of it. The current and new students both receive a free session while you get a new lead.

This could be as simple as this one by Holistic Living Project:

Providing a free online class for a new student is a great way to let potential students try out your class without committing to anything. However, this means you have to make their taster session good enough for them to return as a paying student.

#3 - Create A Website Or Landing Page For Your Online Yoga Business

When starting an online yoga business, it’s important to have a website or landing page focused on getting visitors to perform a targeted action. 

As most people seek out a business online before trying it, it’s important you have a professional page to attract potential students. A landing page gives you the opportunity to capture information in exchange for something valuable.

This is different to a website as it is a standalone web page customers land on when they click through an email or ad. Rather than being designed for exploration, landing pages guide users to complete a specific action, turning visitors into sales or leads.

As you can see, they can provide their contact information here, meaning you’re more likely to make a sale if they register their interest.

Aside from a landing page, you need to ensure you have a professional website. A website essentially works as an online store front, meaning you need it to be high-quality and simple to use.

Website builders such as Wix and SquareSpace are great tools for building websites, providing users with professional templates to suit the particular style and needs of your business.

As mentioned earlier, Wix Video also allows you to upload or import videos from external channels such as YouTube and Facebook:

As mentioned above, you need to ensure your website is easy to navigate as people are more likely to be turned away from it if they have to perform extensive searches just to find more information about your service.

#4 - Use Social Media To Run Yoga Challenges & Competitions

When looking to become a successful yoga teacher, you can create engaging social media content to make your business feel more like a community and have users interact.

Running competitions allows for content to become shareable, making your presence reach further and is a way to appeal to potential students.

For example, TagTeam Fitness ran a simple competition for those who registered throughout May to enjoy classes and win a yoga box:

This is a simple way to gain new students as you both benefit from the competition. Yoga teachers gain recurring customers while new students have the chance to win equipment they can use in future classes.

An example of a great online yoga challenge comes from this one by Practice With Clara below:

This is a good example of a challenge done well as not only does it allow the teacher to have students returning for 30 days, she also provides an option for those who aren’t already a member to join the class for free.

Having this as an option means she will receive both members and non-members to engage in her practice for a period of time. Those joining the session for free can return as a paying member in future after testing out these classes.

#5 - Take Advantage Of Paid Ads To Kickstart Your Online Yoga Business

For competitions and offers, a great way to ensure your business is seen by as many people as possible is through fitness Facebook ads. 

These are great for businesses who are just starting out as it requires next to no investment. You only have to pay if someone actually clicks on your ad.

Plus, with Meta’s innovative advertising system, you’ll be able to market your services across both Instagram and Facebook simultaneously.

Now, as you’re running an online yoga business, you have a wider pool of potential customers to target, as you’re not bound by a specific location.

Ads are popular on Instagram and Facebook, and are specifically targeted to those who have shown interest in the kind of service you’re offering. 

By having a targeted ad on Facebook, such as the one below by YogaBody, it’s more likely people will click on the ad:

If somebody has been searching for online yoga classes, they will be more likely to have ads such as the one above appear on their social media pages. This is because of a social media algorithm that chooses ads it thinks users will be most interested in seeing.

Aside from challenges, you can also advertise discounts to your service like Indaba Yoga have done below:

Having ordinary ads is a great way to generate interest as people are less likely to feel pressured to register their interest as they would with a challenge.

Before You Go!

Now we’ve provided plenty of answers on how to start an online yoga business, it’s time to put your new knowledge into action and get started!

The ideal place to begin is by completing yoga teacher training courses. By using the Level 3 Diploma in Teaching Yoga as a starting point, you can use this as a foundation to continue expanding your knowledge to improve your online yoga business.

Download our complete course prospectus to find out more.