About Our Pricing
How we set prices, and how this helps us focus on supporting inclusive class and group music-making.
At Drums for Schools, our focus has always been on inclusive class and group music-making: making and curating the instruments, sets and teaching support that enable schools, hubs and communities to get more pupils playing together.
Because we are musicians, for us it has always been "music first". That has shaped the way we work, the products we choose, and the support we provide.
But we also have to be honest that our historically "non-business" way of doing things has caught up with us. We have tended to under-recover costs, avoid regular price reviews, carry too much stock in some areas, and keep too wide a range. Over time, that has made it harder to focus properly on the educational work and specialist products that matter most.
We are now making a number of changes to make Drums for Schools more professional, more focused, and more dependable.
These include:
- reducing overheads where we can
- making sure prices properly reflect supplier, shipping, warehouse and staffing costs
- clearing overstocks so we can carry the right stock more consistently
- focusing on the products and sets we do best
- prioritising products that are hard or impossible to source elsewhere
Why Prices Are Changing
Costs now change more often, and more quickly, than they used to. Supplier prices, international shipping, warehousing, materials and staffing costs can all move, sometimes significantly.
In the past, we changed prices only rarely. That meant some prices gradually became too low to cover the real cost of supplying the product, while others became less well aligned with the rest of the range.
We are now moving to a more regular, cost-based pricing approach. This means prices may change when the underlying costs change by more than a small amount.
Some prices will go up. Some may come down. The aim is not simply to increase prices, but to create a better-aligned, better-priced product range.
How Often Prices May Change
We expect to review prices monthly.
We do not want prices to change constantly for small cost movements, so minor changes in costs will not automatically lead to a price change.
Where a larger change is needed, we will normally phase that in rather than making very large jumps at once. Our current working limit is that we will not normally move a price by more than 15% in a single monthly update, unless there is an exceptional reason.
Our goal is that by 1 January 2027 we have a well-aligned, well-priced product range focused on our speciality: inclusive class and group music-making.
Quotes
If we have already given you a written quote, we will honour that quote for its stated validity period.
Our standard quotes are normally valid for 30 days, unless the quote says otherwise.
Future quotes will use the current prices at the time the quote is prepared.
Sale Prices And Overstocked Lines
As part of this work, we are also clearing overstocks.
Over the coming weeks and months, some products may be available at reduced promotional prices. These offers will usually be on lines where we are carrying more stock than we need, or where we are simplifying the range.
This is part of making the business more focused: less tied up in slow-moving stock, and better able to support the products and sets that matter most to schools, hubs and group music-making.
Our Direction
The purpose of these changes is positive.
We want Drums for Schools to be a stronger, more dependable music-first partner for schools, hubs, resellers and community organisations.
That means clearer pricing, better-focused stock, and a product range shaped around what we do best: inclusive class and group music-making.
