HOW WE TRACK
PRICES.

What this dataset is

The DanceHow Price Index is a structured record of publicly-listed dance class prices, collected from studio websites across the UK, US and Canada. Each row represents a single recurring class offered at a specific studio, with its drop-in price, currency, and — where available — day, time, style, and level.

How we collect data

For each studio we track, we fetch the studio's homepage plus up to three additional pages likely to contain class data — typically pages named timetable, schedule, classes, or pricing. We pass the text of those pages to a language model with a strict extraction schema asking for class-level fields only, and explicitly instructing it to skip social nights, one-off workshops, parties, and trademarked branded programmes (Zumba, Pure Barre, etc.). Every extracted row is stored with its confidence score and a link back to the source URL for audit.

What we include

The price shown is the median drop-in price for a single class session. We exclude:

• Term packages and multi-week courses — vary wildly and aren't comparable without normalisation.
• Class packs and memberships — harder to normalise into a per-class figure.
• Private lessons — a different product entirely.
• Entries under £2 / $2 — almost always extraction errors.

Update cadence

Studios are re-scraped on a rolling monthly schedule. Each row carries a last seen timestamp, so stale prices can be identified. If a studio's website goes down or changes layout, its row becomes stale rather than being silently replaced with guesswork.

Known limitations

• JavaScript-rendered sites are invisible to us. Modern SPA frameworks produce empty extractions. A headless-browser step is planned.
• Coverage is incomplete. We cover ~15–20 studios per city. Smaller or newer studios are missing until added.
• Prices change. A median computed today is a snapshot. The "last updated" date is shown next to every figure.
• Studios, not cities, drive the average. If two tracked studios are high-end, the median skews. Sample size (n = X studios) is shown prominently.
• Language-model extractions are imperfect. We filter by confidence and review outliers, but errors exist.

Citing this dataset

If you're writing about dance class pricing, link back to the city page you're quoting. Suggested citation:

DanceHow Dance Class Price Index, 2026. Retrieved 19 July 2026. [URL of specific city page]

For raw dataset access or methodology questions: data@dancehow.com.

Changes to this methodology

If we change how the index is computed, the change is noted here and the "Last reviewed" date is updated. Historical snapshots are retained.