# Set your aircraft and instruction rates

> What an aircraft costs per hour, which meter it bills on, and what instruction costs, which together decide every number on a flight invoice.

Source: https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/set-aircraft-and-instruction-rates
Section: Billing and payments. For: Owners, Admins.

An aircraft's hourly rate, its wet or dry basis, and whether it bills on Hobbs or tach all
live on the aircraft itself under `Aircraft` (web console) → edit. Instruction is
priced from the rating's rate, or from the school's default instructor rate when the
booking has no rating.

**Who can do this:** Owners, Admins

## Set an aircraft's hourly rate

1. **Open Aircraft and choose the tail**

   Then choose to edit it.

2. **Set Rate (per hour)**

   What one hour on this aircraft costs the person flying it.

3. **Set Rate basis**

   **Wet (fuel included)** or **Dry**.

4. **Set the Bill by Hobbs time toggle**

   On bills the Hobbs meter, off bills tach time.

5. **Save**

   The aircraft list now shows it as, for example, "$165.00 wet /Hobbs". Every future booking
   of that tail prices from this.

![Aircraft, edit form](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/aircraft-rate-fields.png)

> **Note:** Picking a type template (Cessna 172, PA-28 and so on) prefills a suggested wet rate. It is
> a ballpark to save typing, not your school's price. Check it before you save.

## Wet or dry, and what that means for fuel

A wet rate includes fuel, a dry rate does not. An aircraft holds one or the other:
choosing a basis clears the other one.

> **Careful:** AerScheduler never adds fuel to an invoice. There is no fuel line item anywhere in the
> product, on a dry rate or any other. A school billing dry rates has to bill fuel
> separately, on a [manual invoice](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/create-a-manual-invoice).

## Bill by Hobbs or by tach

| Toggle                                  | What the invoice measures |
| --------------------------------------- | ------------------------- |
| Bill by Hobbs time **on** (the default) | Hobbs in minus Hobbs out  |
| Bill by Hobbs time **off**              | Tach in minus tach out    |

The pilot enters **both** readings at ramp-out and at ramp-in either way. Only the meter
you pick here is priced. Switching this toggle changes the number of hours on every future
invoice for that aircraft, so it is worth getting right before you go live.

## Simulators and rooms

A simulator has a single rate and its own bill-by-Hobbs switch, both on the facility form
rather than the aircraft form.

A room has no rate at all and is never charged for time. If you charge for a classroom,
bill it on a manual invoice.

## Set the school's default instruction rate

`Settings → Billing` (web console) → **Default instructor rate** → **Save
changes**. It starts at $0.00, and only the organization owner can save that card.

This is the fallback, and it is used only when the booking has no rating attached at all.

> **Careful:** A rating always carries a rate, so a rating saved at $0.00 bills instruction at $0.00. The
> school default is not consulted to fill the gap. If a rating's bookings are billing nothing
> for instruction, check that rating's own rate first.

## Set a rate per rating

`Settings → Instruction rates` (web console) lists your ratings and what
instruction on each costs per hour.

1. **Click Add rating**

2. **Enter the name and the rate**

   For example "Private Pilot", then its **Default instructor rate**.

3. **Click Add rating to save it**

   Bookings carrying that rating now price instruction at this figure instead of the
   organization default.

![Settings, Instruction rates](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/instruction-rates-tab.png)

> **Careful:** There is no per-instructor rate anywhere in AerScheduler. Every CFI teaching a given
> rating bills the same hourly figure. The only rate that varies is the one attached to the
> rating on the booking.

## When instruction is charged at all

Instruction is only charged when the booking has an instructor **and** somebody to
instruct: a student, or a guest on a discovery flight. An instructor flying alone is
renting the aircraft, not teaching, so no instruction is billed and the instructor becomes
the payer for the aircraft time.

The hours charged are the **Instruction time (hrs)** entered at ramp-in, not the length of
the booking. If the CFI briefed for half an hour either side, that goes in the same box.

## Rates for a membership tier

A membership plan can carry its own per-aircraft rates, so full members pay one figure and
associates another on the same tail. Set them in
`Settings → Memberships` (web console) by reopening a saved plan and filling in
**Aircraft rates**.

They are deliberately sparse: leave one blank and that tail bills at its published rate.

> **Important:** A tier rate is only used when **every** billable pilot on the booking resolves to the same
> tier. Anything mixed or ambiguous falls back to the aircraft's published rate. See
> [Set up membership plans and dues](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/set-up-membership-dues).

## Related

- [Close out a flight so it invoices](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/close-out-a-flight-and-bill-it): Where those hours get recorded, and when the invoice is raised.
- [Why a flight was not invoiced](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/billing/why-a-flight-was-not-invoiced): Including what happens when an aircraft has no rate at all.