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How To Price Your Therapy Sessions in 2025

PRICE YOUR THERAPY SESSIONS

Setting the right price for your therapy sessions is one of the key steps to running a successful practice. It’s about finding the balance between making your services affordable for clients while keeping a decent income that can support your professional goals. The aim is to create a fee structure that is competitive yet sustainable.

But how do you go about pricing therapy services? Unlike goods, where pricing is often tied to production costs, therapy doesn’t have a clear-cut formula. This article will share practical tips to help you confidently set rates that work for both your clients and your bottom line.

1. Look at Costs on a Micro-Level

Understanding your cost structure is a good first step in determining the right price for your therapy session. This means looking at your therapy practice’s fixed and variable costs. Fixed costs, like rent, insurance, and software subscriptions, remain consistent. On the other hand, variable costs respond to changes in activity levels like consultation hours.

The impact of fixed costs becomes less significant because they remain constant regardless of how many patients you handle. That’s also another reason why increasing patient volume or hours can be beneficial. However, if revenues decline, you’ll likely feel more of the impact of fixed costs. In contrast, variable costs fluctuate alongside revenue because they rise when your earnings increase and decrease when your income drops.

To calculate your hourly rate, start by determining your annual income goal. For example:

  • Annual expenses: $40,000
  • Desired income: $60,000
  • Total revenue target: $100,000

If you work 48 weeks a year at 20 billable hours per week, that’s 960 hours annually. The average price per hour would be $104, computed as $100,000 divided by 960 hours.

In our example, the base rate of $104 is a good starting point for pricing. You can work your way up if you think this rate is way below competitors. The main disadvantage of this strategy is that it assumes that all therapy services are the same. In reality, different services have different rates. For example, group sessions are more affordable for patients than individual sessions. Use this strategy only if you don’t offer different kinds of therapy services.

2. Segment Your Services

Offering a variety of session types allows you to meet diverse client needs while maximizing your income. This strategy provides more granularity in pricing than the first strategy. By segmenting services, you can look at different income sources and set a different rate for each.

Standard, extended, and group therapy sessions, along with package deals, give clients more options and encourage long-term engagement.

For example:

  • Standard Sessions (50 mins): $150
  • Extended Sessions (1-2 hours): $300
  • Group Therapy ($60 per person, minimum of 3 persons): $180
  • Package Deals: 6 sessions for $850

Segmenting the price of services gives you different income levels. For example, group therapy sessions can give you income equivalent to one standard session. Moreover, six standard sessions are $900, making it $50 more expensive than the package deal at $850. Regardless of your patient’s pick, you have a guaranteed profit for each service.

3. Craft Sliding Scale Policies Strategically

Sliding scales make it easy for you to give affordable pricing to patients with different income levels and financial capacities. Not all patients can continuously afford therapy sessions, especially if they are only gig workers or freelancers with unstable income sources. One way to address this obstacle is to offer sliding scale policies to ensure continuous treatment for these clients.

However, it might affect the profitability of your practice if you just give out discounted rates to everyone. Instead, it’s best to limit the number of discounted spots, such as 20% of your client load, and define clear eligibility criteria, like income thresholds.

For example, you can give a discounted rate to five clients who deserve it. If the regular price is set to $150, the discounted rate may be around $100 per session. In a weekly load of 20 clients, you can give discounted rates to four to five clients per week, and the rest will be charged at regular rates. 

Sliding scale policies are beneficial for clients who need it most while maintaining the financial stability of your practice. On top of that, financially challenged clients get to continue their treatment without straining their wallets.

4. Incorporate Value-Based Pricing

Value-based pricing highlights the unique benefits of your services, allowing you to charge based on client outcomes and your expertise. This is a good pricing strategy if you offer specialized therapy sessions. It means that you can charge higher rates for therapies that require deeper expertise, experience, or risk.

Communicate the value of your services clearly. Highlight faster progress or unique benefits, such as resolving trauma efficiently. Use testimonials and success stories (if permitted) to demonstrate why your rates are justified.

5. Leverage Payment Models to Increase Revenue

Payment models like memberships offer steady income while accommodating diverse client budgets. For example, you can offer monthly subscriptions that can entitle patients to two in-clinic therapy sessions plus six therapy sessions via chat.

With 10 clients on memberships, you’d generate $5,000/month. Balancing insurance clients with cash-paying ones further ensures stability, avoiding administrative burdens from lower reimbursement rates while prioritizing financial health.

Need More Guidance in Pricing?

Setting the right price for your therapy sessions can feel overwhelming, especially if you’re not familiar with business and pricing strategy.

TL;DR Accounting specializes in providing therapy practices with tailored support in accounting, taxes, and business management.

Ready to take the guesswork out of pricing and streamline your practice? Schedule a discovery call with us today to get started.

Khaled - TLDR

Khaled Albadawi, CPA

Principal & CEO

Khaled joined TL;DR as Principal in December of 2022, and has quickly hit the ground running offering a fresh new perspective for the TL;DR team and clients. He’s a natural entrepreneur & leader, starting his days at 4 AM with a nice cup of coffee to get a jumpstart on projects before the business world wakes up. His one piece of advice to business owners? Ask yourself if you are creating just another job or a business. Ideally, you should be building something that doesn’t require you to be there 40 hours a week!

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