How much do guitar lessons cost at Guitar Center? Because this information wasn’t readily available on the internet, it took me some time to discover the solution to this puzzle. On the other hand, the Guitar Center’s lessons homepage now makes it a great deal simpler to access pricing information.
After looking at the price tag, it appears that the lessons at Guitar Center cost around the same amount as what you would normally pay for a guitar instructor who comes to your home. They do, however, require that you pay for four courses at a time in advance, and this payment must be made at the beginning of each month.
In this article, I will discuss the cost of lessons at Guitar Center, as well as more details, several alternatives that I would recommend, and instructions on how to look up the cost of lessons at Guitar Center locations near you.
Guitar Center Lessons Cost
At Guitar Center, you can take one of two different kinds of classes, both of which are relatively pricey: private lessons or group lessons.
Express Lessons: Four x 30-minute sessions for $109 Standard Lessons: Four x 60-minute sessions for $219. The one-time registration price has increased to $30 (it was previously $20).
This indicates that the cost of taking four lessons of thirty minutes each at Guitar Center will be approximately $139. Considering that these are numbers that I obtained from the Richmond store, I phoned a second location to determine whether or not there was any variation due to a difference in a geographic location:
Store in Richmond: $109–219 for a package of four lessons
Durham, North Carolina Store: $119–238 for a package of four classes
These expenses are paid in advance through a series of monthly installments.
From what I can tell, it seems as though the stores get their price from a centralized site and that it only minimally fluctuates based on the location of the store. This is based on what I have observed. Considering the cost involved and the fact that I have no prior experience attending classes at Guitar Center, I probably wouldn’t advise you to take this path if given a choice.
It is almost identical to going to Best Buy and having their “Geek Squad” work on your computer.
There are better alternatives available.
Again, this is not a reflection on the quality of the actual instruction that is being provided. Due to the fact that each Guitar Center has its own unique instructors and even what they refer to as a “lessons manager” who is in charge of the seminars and lessons offered at each location, it is hard to verify the level of quality offered. My guess is that the standard of education would range quite a bit from one classroom to the next.
Suggestions for Some Much More Cost-Effective Alternatives Here
Lessons on the guitar can be had for significantly less than $109 per month if you shop about. In its place, I would suggest doing some research into alternative online guitar instruction options. In the first place, I would suggest the following three:
Guitar Tricks
JamPlay\sTrueFire
Although I am a partner with these three programs and am somewhat sponsored by their links (they do not charge you any additional fees but help keep this site going), I have used all three of them, and I sincerely believe that they are the greatest guitar instruction programs that are currently available.
They all offer complete courses in the form of streaming video. They provide guitar instruction in a format similar to that of Netflix. My go-to recommendation, especially for those just starting out, is Guitar Tricks; in fact, they offer a free trial of their software for the first two weeks.
Purchasing a subscription will only set you back $19 per month, which is a significant discount compared to the price of classes at Guitar Center. The annual membership fee at Guitar Tricks is $179, which is still less expensive than purchasing four hours of instruction at the Guitar Center.
Even if you decide not to follow any of my suggestions, you should still make an effort to locate a local instructor who is not connected in any way with Guitar Center. Here is the approach that I went through to get pricing information for guitar lessons at Guitar Center; you may use it on your own if you wish to research how much guitar lessons cost there.
How to Determine the Cost of Lessons at Guitar Center
The Guitar Center lessons and seminars page should be your first stop after entering the website. They have modified the page so that they will ask you to fill out some information about the instrument you wish to study, what timetable works best for you, and where you are situated in the world.
When you reach the locator page, all you have to do is key in your zip code (it does not appear that you are able to type in the name of a city or state).
The next page will bring up the Guitar Center store(s) closest to your area, which could be one of several stores, depending on where you reside. I had to use a Richmond zip code in the store locator in order to receive any results. This is because Richmond is the “city” that is geographically closest to where I live.
Now, rather than providing a list of stores and times, they provide instructors with their rates listed along with the ability to hire them.
From that page, you can click on the instructor whose services you would want to book, and the associated costs will be shown to you immediately. For what it’s worth, I noticed that all of the instructors had the same price list posted:
(4) 30 minute sessions: $109
(4) 60 minute sessions $218
Again, there appears to be some variation depending on where you are located, but this pricing model is consistent with what we have seen in the past and is significantly more transparent than it used to be when you had to email or call to get any pricing information. Again, this seems to be the case.
The way that it used to operate
In previous decades, the only way to obtain information regarding prices was to actively seek out a staff member of the specific retail establishment that was geographically closest to you.
The procedure is as follows, which I outlined in further detail in earlier versions of this article:
You have the option of either clicking the “Email Us” link, which will launch a new email promptly, or right-clicking on the email address, which will allow you to copy and paste it into a new message. This is how I got in touch with a few different stores to get their prices confirmed. You might simply just give us a call, though I found that sending an email worked better for me. As I indicated before, it seems as though the cost is between $100 and $120 for four 30-minute courses; however, you will need to locate a local store in order to obtain precise price information.
You no longer have to go around for pricing information, which makes the procedure much simpler. However, the pricing structure has not been altered in any way, and it continues to be prohibitively expensive when measured against both market norms and available alternatives.
How would you describe your experience?
Have you taken classes at Guitar Center? In terms of the quality, how would you rate them? What did they charge you for their services?
If you are comfortable sharing that information, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me about it in the comments area. This is especially true given that it appears as though their pricing model is partly affected by the location of the customer. Given that they have such a diverse pool of instructors from shop to store, I’d also be curious to get a sense of the overall quality of the lessons, whether they were good or awful.