Income Calculator for Private Practice Startup
Don’t leave your livelihood up to chance, emotion, or guilt.
Private Practice Fee Calculator
Private Practice Fee Calculator
Money mindfulness for therapists in private practice means looking intentionally at your finances, and making private practice fee decisions based off of what you actually need, not what you think you “should” charge or what others are charging in your area.
With this simple but effective therapy session rate calculator, you can learn how much to charge for therapy in order to increase your private practice therapist salary, save for retirement, go on vacation, set enough aside for taxes, and more—all while taking into account the number of therapy sessions you want to have each week, how many weeks you want to work in a year, and how to budget for cancellations and no-shows.
Stop Making Financial Decisions from Fear, Scarcity or Comparison Games
Chances are, you’re feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, and even guilty at the idea of charging anything over $75 per therapy session.
Everywhere you turn, you’re hearing other therapists, healthcare colleagues, and even family or friends make their thoughts about therapists who “charge too much” explicitly clear, sometimes in the most uncomfortable ways
They say “those therapists” are selfish, unethical, inconsiderate, and inaccessible.
They say they can’t imagine paying over X amount of dollars for therapy, because therapists are just “profiting off of pain.”
They say it’s wrong—and some therapists even tout the fact that they, themselves, live just above the poverty line out of a sense of duty (ahem: martyrdom) to the cause.
Let me just say loud and clear, right here and right now: that’s some grade-A bullshit.
I know it, and the fact that you’re here still reading this says you probably know it, too—even if it’s scary to admit so.
Hi, I’m Meg, and I’m a Private Practice Coach for Therapists.
I’m here to help you figure out how to set private practice fees that allow you to live the life you want to live, both inside your practice and outside of it.
My private practice income calculator is a simple, no-frills tool that you can use and re-use to make sure you’re meeting your financial goals in private practice, without burning yourself out.
Stop Leaving Your Financial Security to Guessing Games
This private practice income calculator acts as a private practice budget template and personal budget template that gives you the power to:
Plan and budget for all business expenses, current or anticipated, including costs to maintain your office space, documentation/scheduling software, CEU budgeting, emergency business savings, and more.
Plan and budget for all of your personal expenses, which includes the “non-negotiable” items, personal savings and retirement funds, fun/leisure money, and more.
Base your self-pay fee off of what your business needs to bring in annually before you pay taxes, in order to meet your financial goals (this calculator uses a 30% tax rate—your personal rate may need to change depending on your location & other circumstances).
Base your fee off of the ideal average number of therapy sessions you want to have each week, and ideal number of weeks you want to work each year.
Private Practice Income Calculator FAQs
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The private practice income calculator is a simple but powerful Google Sheet (kind of like an excel spreadsheet) that allows you to understand how to grow your therapy salary while keeping a doable average number of therapy sessions per week. Using this calculator, you’ll enter in all of your monthly expenses—both personal and professional—and the calculator will spit out your net monthly budget needs, your net annual budget needs, and the gross annual income needed to meet those needs, based on the number of therapy sessions you want to hold each week and the number of weeks per year you want to work.
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This private practice income calculator was created to help early-stage private practitioners who are expecting to have a solo practice, at least to start. Group practices & those with other unique circumstances may not find this calculator applicable.
It was created by me, an American, for use primarily by other US-based clinicians (or by those in countries with similar financial and tax considerations) with very limited understanding of international taxes. So keep that in mind when using this calculator if you’re not based in the US.
It’s designed with approximately 30% in expected taxes built into the calculation. Depending on your business expenses, physical location & associated taxes, and any other special considerations, that number may need to be lower or higher.
Please consult with an actual tax professional who is qualified to serve clients in your region to solidify your numbers if you have any doubts or questions about taxes for your particular business entity/personal circumstances.
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Yes! This calculator gives you room to add whatever budget items you want and need—anything from the cost of doing business (rent, supplies, EHR costs, accounting costs) and business savings goals, to personal financial needs AND the things you really want—like having enough money on hand for rejuvenating vacations, being able to create a generous college savings for your kids, buying new clothes because you want them, fancy date nights, and more.
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Yes! This calculator can be used to calculate consulting fees, coaching fees, therapy fees, or any other type of fee where you have a business that is based on a fee-for-service model. Your considerations for cancellations may be different depending on whether your consulting contract or coaching contract has a policy around no-shows and late cancels. For many therapists, there is no fee applied when someone cancels with a certain amount of notice; however, consultants and coaches may require payment regardless of whether someone shows or not.
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The answer to this is highly unique to your and your situation, and should be based more on the number of sessions that work for YOU, rather than what you think you should do. Some things I, personally, consider when looking at my weekly caseload are the following things:
1) what is my session number “sweet spot” when it comes to feeling mentally and emotionally engaged with clients, without feeling drained or exhausted—that is, if I saw ___ clients each day, I would feel mentally stimulated without having my emotional or mental capacity drained by the end of the day.
2) how many weeks (yes, weeks) of non-work “off” time do I need to feel like I have an appropriate work-life balance, where I can take time off and really disconnect. not only that, but how much time do I really want away from work—maybe I’m used to 2 weeks of PTO at my CMHC job, but I’d love to have 4+ weeks plus at least two weeks of dedicated paid sick time for myself each year.
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Sure! You can do whatever you like with your self pay fee. Just know that charging less means working more—sometimes more than is healthy or doable for you, the clinician—which is a choice that many therapists make because of personal & professional values that they hold as priority over their financial circumstances.
If you don’t like the number, you’ve got a few (non-exhaustive) options:
change the number & change your workload with it;
keep (or slightly increase) the number & your workload, while adding in some sliding scale spots to accommodate those who need a lower fee;
change the number and don’t change your workload and find other ways to meet your financial needs;
keep the number and do lots of internal work, either by yourself or with a therapist business coach, to address the fear, concern, guilt that rise up when you charge that number;
keep the number and don’t do anything to address the icky feelings that come up with it, and cringe every time you speak your fee out loud.
At the end of the day, this calculator is here to give you data about what you need and want to pay for in your personal and professional life. It’s information for you to use as you see fit.
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Of course! Creating plans, policies, and strategies around private practice finances and figuring out how to set private practice fees is one of my favorite parts of the work I do. I often find that setting private practice fees helps use address other parts of your business that feel “sticky,” challenging, or edgy. My main goal is to help my clients get to a place where they feel incredibly supported and deeply aligned with their business—and addressing the Big Green Elephant in the room is one hell of a way to get right to the core of it.
Get your private practice income calculator
Start making private practice financial decisions that allow you to live the life you want to live, not the life everyone else tells you you “should live.”