Stick Shift Instructor Basics, FAQ, Quiz
What to do:
1. Read through the information on this page carefully.
2. When you’re done, scroll to the bottom and answer the short quiz to move to the next step of your signup.
This is Giuseppe Frustaci, the Founder of Stick Shift Driving Academy. Below, you’ll find:
A breakdown of what it’s like to be an instructor with us
Answers to the most frequently asked questions
A short quiz at the bottom of this page (takes about 2 minutes)
Nuts and Bolts
I started the business in 2018 and since then, we’ve done a little over 4,600 manual transmission lessons nationwide. We currently have roughly 130 instructors in 38 metro areas throughout the United States and are on our way to being in 50 metro areas by the end of 2022. In the past four years we’ve received all sorts of questions from potential instructors, so I’m going to go into the most commonly asked questions and details that potential instructors typically want to know.
FREE to Join
First, there is nothing to buy from us. We are not a multi-level marketing company. We are not going to ship you yoga pants or essential oils or any of that junk. There is no cost to sign up, no cost for the insurance, and no cost for using our services. Everything about your signup and use of the website is completely FREE.
Who Is This For?
Our ideal instructor is looking for a part-time side gig. The average instructor currently teaches 6 to 12 hours per month and earns about $250 to $500 per month. If you need a full-time job or if you need to earn a lot of money, this is not going to work. No instructor has ever taught more than 25 hours in a month.
How Does This Work?
Our website operates pretty traditionally as long as your traditions go back to the early 2000s! Our business model operates similar to the way eBay or Airbnb work. When the customer comes on the website, they make a reservation on your calendar, similar to how you might make a reservation on a website like Airbnb. When that reservation comes through, you would get a text message and an email with the customer’s information and their booking information. You would reach out to them to coordinate where you want them to meet you and discuss any concerns that either you or they might have, especially Covid-related. You will have them meet you in a parking lot and you would teach them the very basics of stick shift driving, like getting into gear, upshifting and downshifting. Then after the lesson, we would process the payments. Within a couple of days your pay would go to your bank account via direct deposit.
Managing Your Schedule & Availability
Please note that we can only work with you if you have at least 15 hours of availability per week AND at least one (1) of the following:
3 weekdays of availability and at least 4 hours each day OR
1 weekend day of 5 hours or more each day OR
2 weekend days AND 4 hours or more each WEEKEND day
If you can do more than what's above (say, 5 weekdays of 8 hours AND 2 weekend days of a few hours), all the better.
Our assumption going into this is that most people already have jobs, are in school, or have kids, and that you are going to be doing this as a side gig. You’ll have a calendar where you can indicate your regular availability. You can also block off specific dates if you want to be unavailable. Additionally, you can sync your Stick Shift Driving Academy calendar with your personal calendar (Google, iCal, etc…) so that you automatically block time off on your Stick Shift Driving Academy calendar.
Where Do You Teach The Lesson?
As far as the location goes, a couple of details there. It would need to be a paved off-road area. Our insurance does not cover any incidents that take place outside a paved off-road area. Typically a paved off-road area means something like a parking lot, but a cemetery would also work. You would have the customer meet you at your preferred location so you don’t need to drive far. Most instructors teach in their hometown and you also don’t need to pick up the customer, since they can already drive.
What Will You Teach?
If you are wondering how much you can really teach in a parking lot (it’s a totally fair concern), customers are only expecting to learn the very basics of stick shift. They’re expecting to have an opportunity to learn things like getting into gear, upshifting, downshifting, and so on. Additionally, they’re only booking 2 - 4 hours with you and they know they’re going to stay in a parking lot, so their expectations are pretty modest.There is just a limit to how much you can teach someone in a couple of hours, and there’s a limit on how good they’re going to be by the end of the couple of hours. The problem that you are solving for them is that you are just helping them to develop the fundamentals, like modulating the gas pedal, the clutch pedal, upshifting, downshifting and things of that nature. You’re only going to be spending 2 to 4 hours with them so we try to do a good job of keeping their expectations reasonable and realistic.
Requirements Of Your Lessons
If you are looking for ideas about what to teach, there is a recommended-but-not-required curriculum that we wrote and it is on our website. You are welcome to use it and you are welcome to ignore it. What you teach and how you teach are totally up to you. The only requirement of how you will conduct a lesson is that you give the customer the amount of time that they purchased. If they purchased 2 hours, you just need to give them 2 hours behind the wheel. Same goes for the three and four hour lessons. We don’t make any requirements about what you teach or how you teach. If you’ve taught any of your friends or family, you know that some people pick it up very quickly, some take a bit more time to get it. Therefore, we don’t guarantee the customer any level of competence and we don’t make any requirements on you about how good the customer is at the end of the lesson. The only requirement is that you give them the time they purchased.
Earning Potential
The compensation is $100 for 2 hours, $125 for 3 hours and $150 for 4 hours. You will be paid as a 1099 contractor via direct deposit. We process funds transfers similar to the way eBay and Airbnb process funds. We’re just managing the flow of dollars from the customer’s credit card to your bank account and then we take out a cut of that. If you are an amazing instructor and you are able to teach them faster than the amount of time they booked, you will still get paid the full amount of money for the time the customer originally booked. For example, if the customer booked 3 hours of lessons and you managed to complete the lesson In 2 hours and 30 minutes, you will still get paid for the full 3 hours.
Our Relationship with You
In addition to providing you with customers and handling all the sales, the way our relationship would work is that we are really working for you and not the other way around. You are not our employee. Rather, you are an independent contractor and we’re providing you customers through the website (similar to how Airbnb and eBay would work) and support your decisions.
We Support Your Decisions
At a very high level, we support any decisions that you want to make in the name of safety and security. If a customer makes you feel uncomfortable and you don’t want to take a lesson, we will support that decision. If during the lesson they are driving erratically and you feel uncomfortable and you want to end the lesson early, we will support your decision to end the lesson early. If they are not obeying your Covid-19 requirements, definitely end the lesson early. If they are wearing a Yankees hat and you are from Boston and the Yankees are your sworn enemy, we will support your ending the lesson early (kidding). In all seriousness, you don’t need our permission to ever do whatever you think is safest. Insurance is included in our offering (which we pay for) and I will get into it shortly, but my attitude is I’d rather avoid problems entirely rather than rely on insurance. That is also why the lesson must be done in a paved off-road area like a parking lot. By staying in a parking lot or similar paved off-road area, you’re helping to reduce the risk.
Insurance
Regarding the insurance, there is a $10,000 collision policy and $1,000,000 liability policy covering every lesson. The insurance is included as part of your signup and you do not have to pay anything to be covered by it. We cover it 100%. To be covered by the insurance, a lesson MUST take place in a paved off-road area. Typically, this means a parking lot or cemetery. Finally, after you do your first lesson, you’ll need to take your car to a mechanic for basic safety inspection. Our insurance company needs to be sure that they’re insuring a decent and road-worthy car. Typically, these inspections cost about $50. We completely understand if you want to wait until after your first lesson (and get paid) before spending the money.
Clutch Damage & Wear and Tear
You’ll note that what is not covered by insurance is wear and tear. Sometimes instructors say “Hey, if I’m using my car to teach someone stick shift, and they destroy my clutch, is Stick Shift Driving Academy going to cover that?” That goes back to what I said earlier about being cautious and avoiding problems. If a customer’s operation of your vehicle is ever giving you concern, end the lesson immediately. If they’re burning up the clutch, grinding the gears, or doing anything else to your car that you don’t think is safe, reasonable, or normal, you have our guaranteed support in ending the lesson early. We’ve had a few situations where lessons were going poorly and the instructors were getting concerned about their transmission surviving the lesson. The customers were grinding the gears a bit and the clutch was getting a little burnt up and the instructor said that they were not comfortable with what was happening to their car. They ended the lesson early and we just processed the refunds to the customer. To be clear, we do not cover any wear and tear expenses to the clutch or drive train or anything like that but, again, we also support you if the lesson is not going well and you want to end it early.
Worried your clutch will get destroyed by beginners?
You’re probably imagining the worst — clutch smoking, gears grinding, student panicking. Totally fair. But think about it:
If stick shift lessons really destroyed clutches, how do our instructors keep teaching for years with the same car? If clutches were burning out every couple of lessons, it wouldn't be profitable to stay and those instructors would simply quit. But they didn’t.
Here’s what real SSDA instructors actually do to prevent clutch damage, word-for-word from instructors with hundreds of hours taught.
Vishnu Persaud — 114 lessons / 338+ hours taught
I teach in a large empty parking lot with long rows, so there’s space and zero pressure.
The first two drills are clutch-only — NO gas. I have students go on and off the clutch slowly until they understand it. Then I show them how little gas is actually needed to move the car.
The Clutch-Saving Curriculum makes students learn faster and with minimal clutch wear.
If I see jerking or excessive stalls, I immediately shut the car off, we take a 5-minute break, and reset — no panic, no damage.
I've never had to end a lesson early, but I know I can if it’s really needed.
My #1 advice: teach gears first, especially 2nd to 3rd, then do the slow clutch drills before anything else.
Josh Buckwalter — 157 lessons / 545+ hours taught
I use a huge parking lot with a slight hill and visual markers everywhere so students feel calm and safe.
For the first 20–30 minutes, we ‘walk’ the car — clutch ½ inch at a time, with 2-second pauses — to build muscle memory slowly.
The Clutch-Saving Curriculum really helps slow students down and allows them to focus on one leg at a time during the start of the lesson, thus creating confidence for the rest of the lesson.
My clutch has not changed in 5 years of teaching.
The early warnings that a student is having trouble are multiple fast stalls or staying on the friction zone too long.
In 5 years, I’ve only paused lessons twice, and I just calmly stopped them, discussed what went wrong, then continued — problem solved.
Advice for new instructors: think deeply about how you explain the clutch to someone who literally has zero vocabulary for it.
Belther Alvarez — 118 lessons / 390+ hours taught
I teach in wide open spaces because a safe environment = confident students.
I emphasize clutch technique constantly — I explain it in the plainest, simplest way possible so they immediately understand.
The Clutch-Saving Curriculum has also helped me deliver clear, straightforward instructions to students, which saves time and helps them develop real skills efficiently.
You only touch the clutch when shifting — never ride it.
Students only struggle at the beginning, and I step in immediately and show it again calmly.
I have never needed to stop a lesson early, but I know the option is always there.
My advice: patience — and always have a Plan B when someone learns slower.
vocabulary for it.
Bottom line:
There’s a gentle, proven way to teach a stick shift that prevents clutch abuse. We have over 250 instructors, most of whom have been doing this for years without any issues because they’ve learned the correct teaching methods to protect their cars. Most potential instructors who worry about clutch damage learned stick shift the wrong way. If you remember stalling or grinding gears when you first learned, you’re not alone because almost every new instructor has that concern at first. But there's actually a very gentle way to teach and learning stick shift that prevents transmission wear and tear. After you sign up, you’ll get a copy of our Clutch-Saving Curriculum. It’s optional to use, but highly recommended if you want to teach stick shift the smart, car-friendly way and save your clutch from unnecessary wear.
If a student ever gets too rough, you are fully supported in pausing or ending the lesson immediately. We’ll even issue a refund if necessary, with no penalty against you.
Of course, you don’t have to just take our word for it! You’re more than welcome to join our private instructor Facebook group after signing up. There, you can chat directly with fellow instructors and learn what they do to preserve the longevity of their transmissions. They're the best source of advice and input for what you can do to make this work as a long-term opportunity.
Next Steps
If everything you've read so far sounds good, here are your next steps:
1) If you have questions or concerns, scan the FAQ below to learn more.
2) At the bottom of this page, answer a few questions to confirm your eligibility to work with us
3) If you pass the eligibility quiz, we'll email you with the next steps so you can complete your signup process.