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Written by: Carolyn Young
Carolyn Young is a business writer who focuses on entrepreneurial concepts and the business formation. She has over 25 years of experience in business roles, and has authored several entrepreneurship textbooks.
Edited by: David Lepeska
David has been writing and learning about business, finance and globalization for a quarter-century, starting with a small New York consulting firm in the 1990s.
Published on February 15, 2022
Investment range
$2,150 - $10,400
Revenue potential
$62,000 - $210,000 p.a.
Time to build
0 – 3 months
Profit potential
$50,000 - $100,000 p.a.
Industry trend
Growing
Commitment
Flexible
Here are the most essential factors to consider when starting a cooking class business:
You May Also Wonder:
Can a cooking class business from home be profitable?
Yes, it can be profitable since your costs will be limited to ingredients. For one class of 6 people, you could make $300 or more per lesson.
How do you organize a cooking class?
You should have stations set up for your students with all the necessary equipment and ingredients readily available. You’ll also need to give detailed instructions during the class.
How do online cooking classes work?
You can create videos that allow students to self-study. Alternatively, you can have live classes where you demonstrate on a platform like Zoom.
How can I promote my cooking class?
Promote your cooking class by leveraging social media, creating a website with class schedules and testimonials, utilizing email marketing, and offering promotional discounts or referral incentives.
What are the best cooking classes online?
There are too many online cooking classes to count. You just have to search for the classes that teach the styles that you want. It’s best to look for a culinary school that offers online classes.
Starting a cooking class business has pros and cons to consider before deciding if it’s right for you.
The need for chefs and food service workers is boosting the demand for cooking classes in the US.
Trends in cooking classes:
Challenges in the cooking class industry include:
Startup costs for a cooking class business range from $2,000 to $10,000. The low end is for a business you run from home, with either in-person or online classes, or both. Costs include a website, marketing, and ingredients for your first class. The high-end includes renting a space with a full kitchen.
You can also become a Certified Culinary Instructor if you have a Bachelor’s Degree in any subject through the American Culinary Federation (ACF). It requires 120 course hours and is $450 for non-members.
You’ll need a handful of items to successfully launch your cooking class business, including:
| Start-up Costs | Ballpark Range | Average |
|---|---|---|
| Setting up a business name and corporation | $150 - $200 | $175 |
| Business licenses and permits | $100 - $300 | $200 |
| Insurance | $100-$300 | $200 |
| Business cards and brochures | $200 - $300 | $250 |
| Website setup | $1,000 - $3,000 | $2,000 |
| Location rental with kitchen equipment | $0 - $5,000 | $2,500 |
| Ingredients for first classes | $100 - $300 | $200 |
| Initial marketing budget | $500 - $1,000 | $750 |
| Total | $2,150 - $10,400 | $6,275 |
Cooking classes generally cost $50 to $100 per person for each one-hour lesson. The high end is generally for private lessons, so these calculations will assume a price of $50 per lesson. Your profit margin after food costs should be about 80%.
In your first year or two, you could teach classes from home and have four classes of six people per week, bringing in over $62,000 in annual revenue. This would mean a nice profit of nearly $50,000, assuming that 80% margin. As you gain traction, sales could climb to 10 classes of 8 people per week. At this stage, you would rent a commercial space, reducing your margin to around 50%. With annual revenue of nearly $210,000, you’d make an impressive $100,000.
There are a few barriers to entry for a cooking class business. Your biggest challenges will be:
Now that you know what’s involved in starting a cooking class business, it’s a good idea to hone your concept in preparation to enter a competitive market.
Market research will give you the upper hand, even if you’re already positive that you have a perfect product or service. Conducting market research is important, because it can help you understand your customers better, who your competitors are, and your business landscape.
Research cooking class businesses in your area to examine their services, price points, and customer reviews. You’re looking for a market gap to fill. For instance, maybe the local market is missing a German heritage cooking class business.
You might consider targeting a niche market by specializing in a certain aspect of your industry, such as baking or Vietnamese food, or if you’re a pastry chef you could specialize in pastries.
This could jumpstart your word-of-mouth marketing and attract clients right away.
Your classes will be based on your cooking skills, but you should also look for certain types of recipes that are trending. For example, butternut squash as an ingredient was trending for a while. If you decide to do food specific to a certain ethnicity, choose a series of recipes within that category that you can teach.
Cooking classes generally run $50-$100 per person for each one-hour lesson. Private lessons are at the high end of that range. You might want to offer a package deal or online subscription, like five lessons for $200. Working from home, your ongoing expenses will be only ingredients, so you should aim for a profit margin of about 80%.
Once you know your costs, you can use this Step By Step profit margin calculator to determine your mark-up and final price point. Remember, the prices you use at launch should be subject to change if warranted by the market.
Your target market will be broad, but it may tend to be younger people, in the 25-to-40 range. You can find them on sites like Instagram or Facebook.
In the early stages, you may want to run your business from home to keep costs low. But as your business grows, you may need to rent out a commercial kitchen space. Find commercial space to rent in your area on sites such as Craigslist, Crexi, and Instant Offices.
When choosing a commercial space, you may want to follow these rules of thumb:
Here are some ideas for brainstorming your business name:
Discover over 270 unique cooking class name ideas here. If you want your business name to include specific keywords, you can also use our cooking class business name generator. Just type in a few keywords and hit “generate” and you’ll have dozens of suggestions at your fingertips.
Once you’ve got a list of potential names, visit the website of the US Patent and Trademark Office to make sure they are available for registration and check the availability of related domain names using our Domain Name Search tool. Using “.com” or “.org” sharply increases credibility, so it’s best to focus on these.
Finally, make your choice among the names that pass this screening and go ahead with domain registration and social media account creation. Your business name is one of the key differentiators that set your business apart. Once you pick your company name, and start with the branding, it is hard to change the business name. Therefore, it’s important to carefully consider your choice before you start a business entity.
Here are the key components of a business plan:
If you’ve never created a business plan, it can be an intimidating task. You might consider hiring a business plan specialist to create a top-notch business plan for you.
Registering your business is an absolutely crucial step — it’s the prerequisite to paying taxes, raising capital, opening a bank account, and other guideposts on the road to getting a business up and running.
Plus, registration is exciting because it makes the entire process official. Once it’s complete, you’ll have your own business!
Your business location is important because it can affect taxes, legal requirements, and revenue. Most people will register their business in the state where they live, but if you are planning to expand, you might consider looking elsewhere, as some states could offer real advantages when it comes to cooking class businesses.
If you’re willing to move, you could really maximize your business! Keep in mind, it’s relatively easy to transfer your business to another state.
Business entities come in several varieties, each with its pros and cons. The legal structure you choose for your cooking class business will shape your taxes, personal liability, and business registration requirements, so choose wisely.
Here are the main options:
We recommend that new business owners choose LLC as it offers liability protection and pass-through taxation while being simpler to form than a corporation. You can form an LLC in as little as five minutes using an online LLC formation service. They will check that your business name is available before filing, submit your articles of organization, and answer any questions you might have.
Choose Your State
The final step before you’re able to pay taxes is getting an Employer Identification Number, or EIN. You can file for your EIN online or by mail or fax: visit the IRS website to learn more. Keep in mind, if you’ve chosen to be a sole proprietorship you can simply use your social security number as your EIN.
Once you have your EIN, you’ll need to choose your tax year. Financially speaking, your business will operate in a calendar year (January–December) or a fiscal year, a 12-month period that can start in any month. This will determine your tax cycle, while your business structure will determine which taxes you’ll pay.
The IRS website also offers a tax-payers checklist, and taxes can be filed online.
It is important to consult an accountant or other professional to help you with your taxes to ensure you are completing them correctly.
Securing financing is your next step and there are plenty of ways to raise capital:
Bank and SBA loans are probably the best options, other than friends and family, for funding a cooking class business. You might also try crowdfunding if you have an innovative concept.
Starting a cooking class business requires obtaining a number of licenses and permits from local, state, and federal governments.
Depending on your location, you may need a food handler’s permit. Check with your local governments for requirements.
Federal regulations, licenses, and permits associated with starting your business include doing business as (DBA), health licenses and permits from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), trademarks, copyrights, patents, and other intellectual properties, as well as industry-specific licenses and permits.
You may also need state-level and local county or city-based licenses and permits. The license requirements and how to obtain them vary, so check the websites of your state, city, and county governments or contact the appropriate person to learn more.
You could also check this SBA guide for your state’s requirements, but we recommend using MyCorporation’s Business License Compliance Package. They will research the exact forms you need for your business and state and provide them to ensure you’re fully compliant.
This is not a step to be taken lightly, as failing to comply with legal requirements can result in hefty penalties.
If you feel overwhelmed by this step or don’t know how to begin, it might be a good idea to hire a professional to help you check all the legal boxes.
Before you start making money, you’ll need a place to keep it, and that requires opening a bank account.
Keeping your business finances separate from your personal account makes it easy to file taxes and track your company’s income, so it’s worth doing even if you’re running your cooking class business as a sole proprietorship. Opening a business bank account is quite simple, and similar to opening a personal one. Most major banks offer accounts tailored for businesses — just inquire at your preferred bank to learn about their rates and features.
Banks vary in terms of offerings, so it’s a good idea to examine your options and select the best plan for you. Once you choose your bank, bring in your EIN (or Social Security Number if you decide on a sole proprietorship), articles of incorporation, and other legal documents and open your new account.
Business insurance is an area that often gets overlooked yet it can be vital to your success as an entrepreneur. Insurance protects you from unexpected events that can have a devastating impact on your business.
Here are some types of insurance to consider:
As opening day nears, prepare for launch by reviewing and improving some key elements of your business.
Being an entrepreneur often means wearing many hats, from marketing to sales to accounting, which can be overwhelming. Fortunately, many websites and digital tools are available to help simplify many business tasks.
You may want to use industry-specific software, such as MainStreet, Jamix, or Occasion, to manage your class bookings, recipes, ingredient inventory, purchasing, and billing.
Website development is crucial because your site is your online presence and needs to convince prospective clients of your expertise and professionalism.
You can create your own website using website builders. This route is very affordable, but figuring out how to build a website can be time-consuming. If you lack tech-savvy, you can hire a web designer or developer to create a custom website for your business.
They are unlikely to find your website, however, unless you follow Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices. These are steps that help pages rank higher in the results of top search engines like Google.
Here are some powerful marketing strategies for your future business:
Unique selling propositions, or USPs, are the characteristics of a product or service that sets it apart from the competition. Customers today are inundated with buying options, so you’ll have a real advantage if they are able to quickly grasp how your cooking class business meets their needs or wishes. It’s wise to do all you can to ensure your USPs stand out on your website and in your marketing and promotional materials, stimulating buyer desire.
Global pizza chain Domino’s is renowned for its USP: “Hot pizza in 30 minutes or less, guaranteed.” Signature USPs for your cooking class business could be:
You may not like to network or use personal connections for business gain. But your personal and professional networks likely offer considerable untapped business potential. Maybe that Facebook friend you met in college is now running a cooking class business, or a LinkedIn contact of yours is connected to dozens of potential clients. Maybe your cousin or neighbor has been working in food for years and can offer invaluable insight and industry connections.
The possibilities are endless, so it’s a good idea to review your personal and professional networks and reach out to those with possible links to or interest in cooking classes. You’ll probably generate new customers or find companies with which you could establish a partnership. Online businesses might also consider affiliate marketing as a way to build relationships with potential partners and boost business.
If you’re starting out small from a home kitchen, you may not need any employees. But as your business grows and you get a commercial kitchen, you will likely need workers to fill various roles. Potential positions for a cooking class business include:
At some point, you may need to hire all of these positions or simply a few, depending on the size and needs of your business. You might also hire multiple workers for a single role or a single worker for multiple roles, again depending on need.
Free-of-charge methods to recruit employees include posting ads on popular platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or Jobs.com. You might also consider a premium recruitment option, such as advertising on Indeed, Glassdoor, or ZipRecruiter. Further, if you have the resources, you could consider hiring a recruitment agency to help you find talent.
Few industries in the world are growing as fast as the cooking classes industry. If you can whip up a great meal, you can start a business in your own kitchen. You’ll be helping people learn to cook delicious dishes while making great money. Eventually, you could rent a commercial kitchen and open a culinary school. You can also start a cafe to complement your school and start building your culinary empire.
Now that you know the ins and outs of the business, hurry into the kitchen, and launch your new cooking class business!
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