What do paid mentoring programs for teenagers charge?
These are the prices programs publish on their own sites, checked on September 25, 2026.
- Polygence, research mentoring. One on one programs "start at ~$3,000", and group Pods of 2 to 5 students start at $495. Paying in six monthly installments adds an 8% fee.
- Lumiere Education, one on one research with a university researcher over 12 weeks. It does not publish a price.
- LaunchX, entrepreneurship. From $1,995 for its online BootCamp to $6,495 for its online summer flagship, and $11,495 for its in-person summer flagship with housing and food included.
- Leangap, entrepreneurship classes with mentors who are entrepreneurs. $6,450 online, or $9,950 in San Francisco with accommodation and meals included.
- Young Founders Lab, entrepreneurship in an online team or one on one. It does not list a price on its home page or FAQ.
- Private college counselors, for comparison. CollegeVine's guide puts them at $125 to $500 an hour, about $225 on average, or $2,000 to $10,000 for a full package.
Polygence and Lumiere are built for a research paper, and the other three for starting something. Compare prices only between programs built for the same goal.
A strategy session with me is free, online and 20 to 30 minutes. We talk through your teen's project, and you leave knowing what help it needs and what that help should cost. It commits you to nothing.
What makes one mentor cost more than another?
- Format. One on one costs more than a group, because your child has the mentor's full attention.
- Hours with the mentor. Divide the price by the hours your child spends with the mentor, not by the length of the program.
- Who the mentor is. This is what the money really buys. Ask for the name and the experience of the person your child will actually work with.
- What is promised at the end. A certificate, a paper and a launched project are very different things.
What does one paid session get you?
A session with me is 60 minutes as standard. Some run 20 minutes and some run 90, depending on what the session is for. We work on the next piece of the project together, and your child leaves with the next step written down and a date they set themselves. Between sessions they can text me with anything. Your child keeps a progress tracker with a named checkpoint for every session, and you can see it whenever you want.
What does the NaviFounders program get you?
Your child finishes with a launched project with their name on it, something real that other people use or join. Along the way they work out what they are good at and which direction is worth their time. In the last sessions we work out what the project taught them and how to say it on their applications, in their own words.
About half of my students arrive without a direction. One student is good at explaining things and cares about climate, but only has "start a nonprofit" in mind because it sounds impressive, and the work is finding where those two meet. The other half know what they want to build. Another has a half-built app nobody has used. Projects like that rarely fail in a dramatic way. They just stop, one skipped step at a time, and the sessions are there so that yours does not.
What the price covers:
The full details are on the for parents page and the questions page.
When is paying for a mentor not worth it?
- When your teen does not want to build anything, and the project would exist only for a line on an application.
- When the hope is that someone else will build it. We do not.
- When you want a guaranteed admission. Nobody can promise one.
- When the goal is a research paper or a place in a lab. We do not place anyone in a lab or a research group.
If you are still weighing whether a program is worth it at all, read is a paid program for my teen worth the money?
What should I ask before paying any mentor?
- Who exactly is the mentor, what have they built themselves, and can I meet them before I pay?
- How many hours will my child spend with the mentor in total?
- What will my child have at the end?
- What happens if it is not working, and where are the refund terms written down?
- Is there a payment plan, and does it cost extra?
- Is anything promised that nobody can control, like an admission or a publication?
A program that answers all six plainly can be compared fairly with any other.
Book a free strategy session and ask me all six about NaviFounders. You meet me before anything is paid.