Do you teach yoga online? Or maybe you’d like to? There are various great online platforms and apps where teachers can create their own channel, a place where yoga instructors can share their experience and knowledge about yoga. Therefore, there is no need for one to join a group class or expensive yoga program. You can easily start with your smartphone or tablet from anywhere and teach yoga free of charge.
Thanks to the rise in popularity of online lessons and yoga apps, anyone who wants to teach yoga can do it. Whether that’s in your home, at a fitness center as a part of a larger class, or through online classes. Yoga is growing faster than ever and there are entire communities you can join with people interested in learning new types of yoga to try. Here’s our list of the best free and paid apps out right now if you want to teach yoga at home.
Mailchimp
If you have less than 2,000 subscribers or send fewer than 12,000 emails each month, this legacy tool will be perfect your email campaign needs. Mailchimp has all the basics covered, is terrific for anyone who’s new to email marketing, and offers great design elements and support to its user base. Plus the company recently added auto responses to their free plan, which is a huge bonus.
Asana
This project management tool allows you to create content calendars, build social media schedules, assign tasks to team members, and dozens of other functions that help keep projects on track. It integrates with online calendars, including Google Calendar, but can also be a fantastic complement to a paper planner. It works equally well for teams and solopreneurs. Although Asana has a paid version, the entire Hey Marvelous team uses the free version so we think most of you will be able to do the same!
G Suite
Google’s flagship collection of cloud-based applications supports yoga teachers on everything from email to lesson plans to budgets to file storage. For access to the full functionality of G Suite, you’ll need to pony up $5 per month per team member, but it’s well worth the investment.
Hey Marvelous
Yep, we’re throwing ourselves onto this list! And with good reason: Hey Marvelous is a tool designed to help you teach, train, or coach online from anywhere to anyone. We offer an online teaching platform, an online membership platform, and a top-notch live-streaming tool. You can create courses and memberships, or build teaching, training, or coaching units designed for individuals or groups through our easy-to-use software. Hey Marvelous is a paid service, but we’re basically a one-stop shop that includes everything you need to set up your online classroom or studio.
Tummee Yoga Sequence Builder
I’ll be honest: sequence builders are not my thing. I’m a firm believer in your own mat, and your own practice, being the best place to explore postures and sequences to use in your classes. But I know not everyone feels that way, and sequence building apps can be really useful tools to inspire class ideas.
So here’s my favourite of the moment. It allows you to plan classes using a library of over 4000 postures and exercises, and includes over 500,000 (!) existing class plans to use and/or adapt. Unlike many sequencing apps, it also highlights how important it is to cue postures and transitions effectively, and includes ideas to help you build your cueing vocabulary.
MailerLite
Email marketing may not be as shiny as social media, but it’s a really valuable way for yoga teachers and studios to connect with their yogis. Your email list is made up of people who have actively expressed an interest in your classes — so they’re the first people you should turn to when you’re marketing new classes, workshops, and retreats.
There are lots of mailing list providers out there, but MailerLite is my service of choice this year. It’s quick and simple to set up, easy to customise and organise, and the customer service is great too. You can have a list of up to 1000 subscribers for free, making it perfect for independent yoga teachers and small studios that are just starting out.
Toggl
You probably know how many hours each week you spend actually teaching yoga classes. But do you know how much time you spend on the other tasks you do for your business?
Toggl is a time-tracking app that allows you to keep track of exactly how much time you spend on each task — from replying to emails to social media, planning classes, or managing bookings and payments.
Getting clear on where you use your time is a good thing to do as a business owner or self-employed professional. You’ll be able to calculate how much you really earn per hour of work, and adjust your pricing accordingly; and it’ll empower you to change your work processes so you spend less time on tasks that could be automated, or managed by another service (like Momoyoga, for example).
IYOGA PREMIUM
An incredibly detailed yoga app, showing muscle usage and multiple angles! This app from 3D4Medical for the iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) is quite amazing! Not only does it allow you to see which muscles are being used, it also has a library of poses, built-in sequences, and a sequence builder to create your own.
A cool feature of this app is the ability to see the active muscle groups for each pose. It also provides written and verbal instructions as well as a timer for your practice. Poses and other details can be shared through social media or email.
This app is part of a series using 3D visualization of the human body in action, with a focus on anatomy and muscular/skeletal engagement. iYoga is a well thought-out app, containing everything you need for yoga on the move, or to look at your practice in more detail!
- Platform: iOS (iPhone and iPad)
- Price: Comes as a premium version (£4.49) ,with add on advanced pose sets (in-app purchase £1.49)
YOGA STUDIO
This app features a clear design that is easy to navigate, with the added advantage of syncing yoga sessions to your calendar! Yoga Studio allows you to build your own yoga sequences, save them as classes, and schedule your practices using the built-in calendar. The library contains 280 poses with detailed instructions and, if you prefer, you can follow one of the 65 classes that come with the app rather than starting from scratch.
- Platform: iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPad Mini)
- Price: £2.99
YOGA.COM STUDIO
This app is simple and easy to use, and has some great features for beginners to yoga. It contains 300 poses and 45 predefined yoga sequences complete with breathing exercises and 3D muscle images, and the option to create your own sequences. What sets this app apart is the four levels of difficulty you can choose from: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Guru!
You can share your exploits with this app via social media or email and it also has its own community called Inspire that you can join.
- Platform: iOS (iPhone, iPad), Android, Amazon Kindle Fire
- Price: £2.99
Stripe
If you’re selling absolutely anything online, you’ll need a payment processor. We adore Stripe, which many Hey Marvelous teachers use as the intermediary to handle payments when students sign up for classes or purchase products. Stripe will take the money from your students’ accounts and pop it into your account. We’ve been using it for years, and literally never had problems with it. (So, SO much better than PayPal, FWIW.)
Namastream
Price: $125 per month (2 months free when paid annually).
Key Features:
- Allows you to create a basic
- Customizable homepage
- Unlimited courses and students
- “Namastream film school”
- Options for online courses
- Memberships, live classes
- Local event booking
This is for you if: You are new to teaching yoga online and want an all-in-one platform
uScreen (This is what I use)
Price: $99-$399 per month plus $0.50 per subscriber per month
- Basic plan $49/mo, Amplify plan $249/mo
- Save when paid annually
- 14-day free trial of the basic plan
Key Features:
- A video-based platform that enables HD live streaming
- Community creations (profiles, avatars, discussion, and commenting)
- Gather user feedback
- App creation
This is for you if: You have a strong online presence and audience and would like to turn your audience into paying customers
Thinkific
Price: $49-499 per month
- Basic plan $49/mo; Pro plan $99/mo; Premier plan $499/mo
- Save 20% when paid annually.
- 30-day free trial for the Pro plan.
Key Features:
- Doesn’t require a WordPress LMS plugin
- Discussion forums
- User-friendly drag and drop course builder
- Private and hidden, prerequisite, and expiring courses
- Automated student check-ins
This is for you if: You have a steady student list and want to offer classes online with an easy to use platform
Kajabi
Price: $149-399 per month
- Basic plan $149/mo; Growth plan $199/mo; Pro plan $399/mo
- No transaction fees
- Save 20% when paid annually
- Start with a 14-day free trial.
Key Features:
- Webinars and event hosting
- Ready to use templates
- The ability to create quizzes and surveys
- Chat support
- Marketing automation tools to help sell online courses and products
- 30-day money-back guarantee
This is for you if: You have a strong online presence and audience and would like to turn your audience into paying customers
LearnWorlds
Price: $29-299 per month
- Starter plan $29 /mo + $5/course; Pro plan $99/mo; Learning center plan $299/mo
- Save when paid annually
- Start with a 30-day free trial
Key Features:
- Ready-made templates
- In-platform social networking
- Various type of learning activities
- Mobile-ready designs
- 24/7 customer support
- Advanced affiliate management to help market and sell your course
This is for you if: You have a steady student list and who would like to offer classes online
iMovie
It comes preloaded on all Macs, and is both phenomenally powerful and fantastically easy to use. No matter how amazing you are on-camera, you will need to edit some of your video content before making it live, and iMovie makes that process intuitive and seamless. (Need help getting started? We’ve got a stellar iMovie course in our Soulful MBA program!) If you’re a PC person who just isn’t ready to switch, we’ve got an entire post on the best video editing tools for both platforms … but honestly, iMovie will always be our favorite.
Conclusion:
If you are one of the countless number of yoga enthusiasts out there, you know how difficult it is to get enough training with a live teacher (especially if you don’t live near a studio). Just because you are short on time and have a busy lifestyle, doesn’t mean that you should be deprived of quality yoga classes. This is why I think that yoga apps are beneficial not just to busy people seeking a workout, but also to yoga practitioners looking to improve their style.