This content is provided by zynnyme, an affinity partner of AAMFT. This information is not necessarily the view of AAMFT and should not be interpreted as official policy.
We live in a time of growing awareness about the importance of mental health care. However, stigma remains pervasive—and much of it has been internalized by us as therapists. This internalized stigma impacts not only our clients but also how we run our practices and care for ourselves.
Minimizing the value of our work often shows up in the ways we neglect our business needs. This might include haphazard decision-making, a lack of planning, or not setting clear boundaries for sustainable practices. It’s common to find therapists charging inconsistent fees, taking on clients they know they should refer out, or even avoiding their own mental health support. These patterns don’t just harm us—they ultimately affect the quality of care we provide.
This guide is meant to support you in pricing your therapy services while also honoring your needs as you seek to create a private practice that supports your life.
Reflecting on the Power of Your Work
Take a moment to reflect on the powerful work you do. Think of a recent session where you witnessed a breakthrough with a client, or recall how your efforts have changed lives, broken cycles of abuse, or fostered deep healing. The work you do impacts not just individuals but entire generations. Sit with the awe of what you provide—not just for your clients but also for their families and communities. Your work changes lives, and that transformation changes you too.
I want to encourage you to pause here and reflect, maybe even write down some of the changes you have seen in your clients through your work with them.
And when you come back, I want to ask you, what is that worth? If you ask me, it’s priceless. This work cannot be valued in dollars, because its true value extends far beyond an exchange in a session.
So how do you price something that is priceless?
The Cost of Therapy and The Cost of Living
Because your work is priceless you can’t price it based on worth, but you can price your services based on the cost. There is a cost to running your business and a cost to living your life. Those costs are going to be unique to you! The cost of living and running a business in Los Angeles is far different than Mobile, Alabama. Your private practice is here to not only get great clinical outcomes for your clients but to also sustain a good life for you.
Honoring Your Needs as a Therapist
If your purpose and passion are to help others, how will you ensure you’re able to continue doing this work? Sustainable therapy requires attending to your physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. It means investing in continued learning, securing support through supervision, and creating financial and scheduling boundaries that allow you to thrive. Without these supports in place, it’s impossible to show up fully for your clients.
Take a moment and look at your life, your circumstances, your privileges, and your struggles. No one has a life like yours and what you need to do is different from your colleagues. You may be a caregiver, a sole provider, or have a chronic illness that limits the size of the caseload you can manage, all of which can impact what you need your fee to be to take care of you so you can do this work well. Accepting ourselves opens the doors to setting a fee that sustains our work without burnout.
The Preventing Burnout
Burnout isn’t just harmful to you—it impacts your clients as well. Overworking leads to reduced focus, diminished energy, and less effective care. It’s not uncommon to hear of therapists taking on 10 clients a day or working without breaks, leading to exhaustion and forgetfulness. This isn’t why you became a therapist. Every client deserves your full presence and expertise, which can only happen when you respect your own limits.
Imagine leaving your last session of the week with enough energy to enjoy dinner with loved ones or take a peaceful evening walk. This vision is possible when you set boundaries and honor your capacity so that you can also give clients the highest and best care possible. Your fee needs to allow for this.
Understanding the Importance of Your Fee
Your fee isn’t just a number—it’s a reflection of your unique circumstances and the value of your work. Yet too often, therapists base their rates on what others charge, without considering their own needs or the cost of running a sustainable business. Your financial realities are shaped by factors such as student loans, family responsibilities, location, and the cost of living. These need to be factored into your decisions.
- Determine how many clients you can realistically see in a week while maintaining your best work. You might be tempted to look to your colleagues and figure out what “full” means when it comes to a caseload. You want to look inward, knowing yourself and what feels good to you physically, energetically, and emotionally. This can also be impacted by the type of work you do. Longer sessions with couples might take more out of your energy than seeing an individual for brief sessions. Suspend judgment and really look at how many weekly clients can work for you.
- Calculate the number of weeks you’ll work in a year, accounting for vacation, holidays, and sick time. Again, your circumstances may mean that you need more time off. If you plan for it in your fee, you will have less stress when these circumstances arise.
- Identify your gross income you need to make to cover the cost of running your business and the cost of being in your life. From business expenses to taxes to personal expenses, you want to look at the whole package of what money you need to bring in to pay for your business to run and for your life to be lived well. Going back to what you need to sustain a good life, look at what it costs to live and to plan for retirement, savings, and other financial needs. Your fee is also determined by the amount of money you need to have in your life.
The Private Practice Fee Formula
To create a fee that takes into consideration what you need to have a good life, to show up in the therapeutic relationship with full presence and attunement, you want to take the above elements and put them into the following formula:
Gross Income Goal / Weeks Worked Per Year = Gross Income Per Week Needed
Gross Income Per Week Needed/ Number of Sessions Per Week = Session Fee
Now oftentimes when people do the math, they have an 'aha' moment and decide - wait, I want more time off than that or I want to see fewer clients. That’s fine, play with the numbers but you can see their impact overall and what it means for your weekly schedule and your time off. We would say about 90% of people going through our business school who apply this formula, change their fee. And another 20 - 30% ultimately begin developing other streams of income when they discover that 1:1 is not enough to provide the income they desire but not until AFTER they manage their clinical practice’s needs.
Challenging the Profession’s Money Stories
Now that you have played with the fee, you may notice emotions or narratives arising. Many therapists shy away from charging sustainable fees because they fear being perceived as “money-hungry.” This fear often stems from early money stories shaped by culture, family, and societal influences. Reflect on your own history with money. What were your first experiences earning, saving, and spending? How do these lessons show up in your practice today? Understanding these roots can help you rewrite your narrative around money and value.
The therapy profession has its own collective story, particularly in the United States. Many of us began our careers overworked and underpaid, with unpaid internships, low-paying placements, and heavy workloads. This “paying your dues” mentality sets a dangerous precedent that devalues our work and perpetuates burnout. It’s time to break this cycle.
Building a Sustainable Practice
A sustainable practice benefits both you and your clients. When you set fees that reflect your needs, create space for professional growth, and prioritize your well-being, you model the very self-respect and boundaries you encourage in your clients. This also creates space for high-quality care, as you’re able to focus fully on your work without the distraction of financial stress.
Your practice should align with your values and support your vision for the future. This means considering not just your fee but also your schedule, the number of clients you see, and the resources you need to provide excellent care.
Ready to achieve great clinical outcomes while building a practice that works for you? Click here for our FREE How to Set Fees training and take the first step toward a sustainable, thriving practice.