I'm Neylan, the CEO of Duet, and I am so grateful that you've chosen to use Duet to manage your music studio. We are a small but dedicated team of music teachers and music lovers who are committed to continually improving our service to you.
One of the things we hear over and over again is how cost conscious teachers are. We get it! You are working hard to juggle so many demands, and we want to make sure organizing your studio is easy AND cost effective. You deserve every penny you earn.
So we are implementing a change in our pricing structure. Our monthly subscription change will be lowered to $9.
Your studio families benefit when you make it easy for them to pay you and reschedule their lessons. As a mom of three musicians who has been in about a dozen exceptionally well-run music studios over the years, I know how crucial it is to have an easy way to pay my teacher and manage our schedule. That's a tremendous value to me as the parent. So here's the second part of the change: We are also implementing a 1% transaction fee on digital payments from Studio Families that will come to Duet. So for example, if you charge a Studio Family $60 for a lesson, the Studio Family will pay $60.60. $60 will come to you and $0.60 will come to Duet. This will be made very clear on invoices and receipts, and the distribution will happen automatically. To be clear, this does take anything out of your payment and requires no work on your part.
We understand there will be many questions about this new structure. To answer some of those questions, please read through the FAQs offered below. If you still have questions about how this affects your music teaching studio, please email support@duetpartner.com.
In partnership,
Neylan
How has Duet’s payment model worked until this point?
Up until this point, Duet has charged the music teacher a $20 per month recurring flat rate to have a Duet account. All features have been included with this subscription; all studio sizes have been charged the same amount. There have been no other charges associated with Duet: no add ons for additional features and no charges to the parents who benefit from the system.
If a teacher collects payment via credit card, then there is a 2.9% standard credit card processing fee applied to the transaction. This means that if a parent pays $100, $2.90 of that goes to the credit card processing company (in Duet’s case, that is Stripe) and $97.10 goes directly into the teacher’s bank account. This is not a Duet fee and this is not changing.
What is changing?
Going forward, a subscription to Duet will cost an independent music teacher $9 per month. This will follow a 30 day free trial. When the free trial ends, the teacher will subscribe the same way they currently do - by adding a credit card under Subscription in their account - but the card will only be charged $9 every month instead of $20. There are still no additional fees or different prices for different sized studios.
In addition to the monthly subscription charge, a 1% charge will be added to the amount that the Studio Family pays via all digital methods. This means that when a teacher sends a statement to a Studio Family, a 1% transaction fee will be automatically added to the amount that the teacher is charging. The teacher doesn’t need to do anything differently to make this happen, and the 1% transaction fee will be transparent on the statement.
For example, if a teacher charges $100 monthly subscription to their studio, and sends a statement to the Studio Family once a month, that Studio Family’s statement will show $100 from the teacher and a $1 charge for the transaction fee. The Studio Family will pay $101. Of that amount, $1 will go to Duet. Of the remaining $100, the credit card processing fee will still be deducted, and the net will still be sent directly to the teacher’s linked bank account.
To be clear, the transaction fee does not take anything out of the teacher’s payment and requires no work on the teacher’s part.
How will the Studio Family see the transaction fee?
The 1% transaction fee will be automatically included on the Studio Family’s statement. It will appear as a single line item on the statement, so it is fully transparent to the family. The 1% will apply to an aggregated amount, not individual line items. So if a teacher is charging for three lessons at $60 each, and charging a total of $180, the transaction fee will appear as a $1.80 charge, not three separate $0.60 charges.
Is the transaction fee only for credit card payments?
The 1% transaction fee will be applied any time a Studio Family pays you digitally. This includes credit card payments, but it also includes ApplePay, GooglePay, and ACH bank transfers. Note that only credit card, GooglePay and ApplePay payments require the additional 2.9% processing fees; ACH bank transfers do not. But the transaction fee is applied any time a Studio Family pays you through their Duet-generated statement.
Is the transaction fee applied to all charges for all types of students?
The transaction fee is applied every time a Studio Family pays a statement. For example, if a Studio Family owes $300, they will be charged $303 with the transaction fee. But if they only pay part of that amount - like $101 - they will still owe $202 in the future. If additional charges are added, (for example, if another $100 fee is added to the $202 they still owe,) the transaction fee will again be calculated on the aggregated amount. ($100+ $1 transaction fee, plus the $202 previously owed.)
All students except Former - including Active, Prospective and Waitlist - students have the transaction fee added to their statements.
What if my Studio Families won’t pay the fee?
The 1% transaction fee is built into the automated billing system that collects your payment. Studio Families automatically pay the transaction fee each time they pay you via a Duet-generated statement, so they cannot pay your charge without paying the transaction fee.
If your Studio Families have questions about why this transaction fee is necessary, or why you are using Duet to manage your studio, we encourage you to share the benefits of Duet, not just with you as the teacher but also for the parent.
Duet benefits for the parent include:
- A range of easy ways to pay for music lessons directly from their phones
- Clear statements that detail exactly what they owe for which lessons or subscriptions
- Automated delivery of lesson notes via email
- Easy self-scheduling tools delivered via text link
- Easy ways to keep track of what and when the family paid
Parents directly benefit from a well-run and technically efficient studio. You are giving your Studio Families that gift when you use Duet. For the parent of a music student, that is absolutely worth paying a very small amount for.
