One of the main things that I see massage therapists doing is undervaluing and underpricing their massage sessions.

While we want massage to be affordable to many - what is affordable? What are people willing to pay for their health and the service of massage?

It also depends on what you need to be able to make a nice living - so that you aren’t constantly struggling to get by. Figuring out your cost per client and figuring out what you need to charge can help you get clearer about what you need charge. It is a business after all and you need to be able to run it on sound financial principles.

Everyone should charge something different based on their needs. The massage profession also tends to attract people who don’t have many “need” or wants. While this may seem noble and all serving, it also creates an image that seems to say - we aren’t deserving.

There is such a fine line between wanting things for material purposes and wanting things because they will bring joy or peace to your life.

What we do is more powerful than what any doctor does. We spend so much more time with people exploring their health issues with them. What should we be paid for that? What is that worth?

How can we best serve people? Mainly by taking care of ourselves and having the money we need to do that.

Mikeann Valterra talks about noble poverty and other issues that we are faced with in her book “Why Women Earn Less“. I think it could be called “Why massage therapists earn less” The book really hit home in so many ways and I see the issues so prevalent in the massage profession.

In it she says:

“Underearning happens when you repeatedly (and consistently) make less than you need or than would be helpful to you , usually despite your desire to make more money. Put another way, An underearner is someone who doesn’t get paid as much as might be expected, given her experience, education and training.”

Some of the common “excuses” massage therapist use for not making the money they need are things like:

• it isn’t about the money — It is about the money. You need to make money to live comfortably and save for retirement. You deserve it. Money is what it takes to help relieve poverty, hunger and other social issues are world is faced with
• I don’t need much. –There is a fine line between not having needs and not feeling self confident enough to ask for what you need. Not needing much, people think that they are “noble” and think that to have money it is somehow wrong.
• Not being able to ask for what one needs is what I call “The code of the caretaker” - We do for others what we wish that they would do for us. It shows up in a massage practice in various ways. One of them is undercharging for our services. Thinking things like “who would pay so much for me to work on them” is loaded with inner beliefs that just aren’t true.

The other thing is the fact that there are people in poverty that could use massage and it is just not affordable. Places like Massage Envy are making it possible for everyone to get a massage. (Although I think there is a whole other side to companies like this in the way they treat massage therapists by only paying them $15 per hour. Who can live on that?

Feeling like you have to underprice your services to be available to such populations is a personal choice. When you have to work for less, you have to work more hours to pay the bills. As a massage therapist, the number of hours that you can do massage in one week are limited first by the number of hours and then your physical and emotional strength to do massage. The length of one’s career is greatly affected by how much you undercharge for your services even in the beginning. If you are having to work long hours the fact is that it does take it’s toll on you.

(I for one am the shining example. I have been doing massage for 17 years and I took over a practice where the guy was only charging like $25 per massage. I felt like I couldn’t raise it too much to start with or I would lose all his clients and prospects. So I worked more. After 17 years I can say I should have charged more in the beginning. One of the reasons why I started my website projects was because I was burned out! I couldn’t physically or mentally take dealing with clients and my health started suffering. While part is due to just plain aging - most of it is because I neglected to charge what I needed to live. I was always struggling to get by and always giving too much to others thinking it would get me more in some way. What it got me was burned out.)

So what is a realistic amount for massage therapists to charge for their services.

Charge what you need to make so that you don’t feel resentful about the work was the advice of Mikelann Valterra. I totally agree. I have been working for some insurance companies who pay me less than my $75 per hour fee and I am starting to feel resentful. I am hoping to move away from taking insurance and get back to my cash practice.

What do you need to charge?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 9:30 am and is filed under Building Your Practice, Recommended Reading, Starting Your Practice, The Wealthy Massage Therapist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.