HHW Therapists 48 - How I Went from $125 to $500 Per Session

But today, I want to talk about money and specifically the number on your fee schedule as a therapist because I think a lot of therapists are leaving that number too low for too long.

So I want to talk a little bit about my story.

I know that I've talked about it in different bits here or there, maybe on some webinars, maybe on some previous podcasts.

But I personally went from my university counseling center that I was working at as a staff, as a staff therapist, and I got out into private practice.

I did the traditional thing everyone said that you should do of look at what everyone else on Psychology Today is pricing.

Price around what people are pricing in your area.

And most people were pricing maybe between, like, $150 to $200.

So I said, "Okay, I'm gonna do $185.

I'm gonna do $185." And that felt terrifying for two days, and I decided, no, I am actually going to underprice myself so that I can get clients ASAP.

Because that was ultimately my goal, was prove to myself I can be successful in private practice.

And so I thought by undercharging what everyone else was charging, it would kinda guarantee that I would get clients and that, you know, it certainly worked.

But my story that I'm gonna tell is how I went from charging ultimately that $125 a session fee to up to $500 a session.

On average, my weekly clients, they are paying $350.

I've got a couple of sliding scale clients who are at $200 and $250, which even though those are premium numbers, those are still a sliding scale from my full fee.

But with my therapy intensives, they are anywhere between $400 to $500 an hour.

So I want to walk you through, like, exactly what changed for me, what I got wrong along the way, and how to actually know when you yourself are ready for premium pricing.

Because if you keep waiting, if you are ready, but you keep waiting, then it's not just costing you money, it's also costing your clients something too.

So when I started out, again, I was charging $125 a session.

I actually take-- took my first client for $85 a session.

They're like, "Well, I can't really pay that, but I can pay $85." And I said, "Great." Um, and I think we even-- I think we were bi-weekly.

We weren't even month-- Uh, we weren't even weekly.

weekly.So honestly, like even $125 started to feel like a stretch.

Like, if someone can't even afford $125, can I make this work? So I remember typing that number into my intake paperwork and putting it up on my website and still feeling like, you know, logically, I know I am under most people in my area, and still, is that a high number? Can people afford it? And I was ultimately choosing between-- I heard all the nightmares around insurance.

Um, so I did get on one EAP panel, and their reimbursement rate was $100 a session.

So I was like, well, at least a hundred and twenty-five is higher than that.