I Can Read! - Compare Prices

Compare Prices!

I Can Read! is the Chicago metro area's most effective and cost-effective summer and after-school reading program for elementary and middle school students. To prove it, here are the results of our most recent price survey, conducted in August, 2001:

	*I Can Read!*	Company W	Company H	Company S
registration fee	$0	$50	$0	$75
testing fee	$0	$135	$145	$125
material fee	$0	$10/month	$45	$0
hours/week	3	1.5	2	3
cost per hour	$17.82	$33.33	$40	$41.25
total price 1^st semester (39 hours + initial fees)	$695	$1550	$1750	$1809
total price subsequent semesters (39 hours)	$695	$1365	$1560	$1609
student/teacher ratio	average 5 to 1	2 to 1**	1 to 1**	3 to 1***
weeks required to complete one semester’s worth of instruction	13	26	20	13
discounts	$100 off for all add'l children enrolled in same semester $100 per referral	none known	10% off for 100 hour prepayment	10% - 28% off for prepayment
money-back guarantee	100% unconditional	none	none	none

**	Because we use homogeneous skill grouping, our quality of instruction will approach that of any one-on-one or two-on-one tutoring program.
***	Each child has an individual program (i.e. this company does not use homogeneous skill grouping), and so this is more like getting a one-on-one tutor for a third of the time. Our program, where all students are appropriately grouped to study the same material at the same time, tries to approximate having a one-on-one tutor for the entire time.

Notice that the total cost for an equivalent amount of instruction time at our closest competitor (Company W) is more than twice our cost during the first semester, and almost twice our cost during subsequent semesters. The other two competitors are more than twice our cost all the time.

Along with these already-low prices, we actually offer discounts that allow you to drop our price even further:

referrals of new parents	We deduct $100 from your tuition for each child enrolled by parents whom you referred to us and who are entirely new to our program in the current semester.
two or more children enrolled	We reduce the tuition of each additional child by $100 (i.e. additional children are $595 instead of $695).
child repeats semester at the same level (very rare)	We reduce that child’s tuition for the repeated semester by $100.

How do we do this without sacrificing quality?

You might think that we'd have to sacrifice the quality of instruction in order to get our price this low - but we don't! Our teachers are highly qualified, highly trained, and as far as we know better paid than teachers at competing firms. So how do we do it? With a business model that's entirely different from those of our competitors:

We use a curriculum that allows us to group all our students efficiently. Children in our typical class of five can learn almost as easily and as quickly as children engaged in one-on-one tutoring - and in some cases even better, because of the quality of the curriculum. So we have more students sharing the expense of one teacher, but without the decline in instructional quality that you might expect from larger classes.
By subcontracting to park districts and paying them a commission, we avoid the need to lease or own buildings or to pay fixed rents. We have no expensive, centralized administrative facilities. So we have no leases, mortgages, or rents that you ultimately have to pay for.
We rely on extremely efficient promotional methods rather than buying expensive TV and radio ad time. Like the referral and multi-child incentives discussed above, for example.
We have such great word-of-mouth from our existing customers that we really don't need to pay for all that much promotion.

Quite simply, we have a much smarter business model with far fewer expenses than the typical tutoring firm. That's good news for you and your pocketbook!