179 Raise Your Effective Hourly Rate

If you have ever finished a long week, looked at your calendar, and thought, “I should have made more than this,” this episode is for you.

Making more money in private practice is not always about raising your fee. Often it is about protecting the time you are already selling. When sessions run long, cancellations slide, and consultations spill over, your effective hourly rate quietly drops. And you feel it by the end of the month.

In this episode, I walk through how to calculate what you are actually earning and where the leaks usually show up. We look at the small boundary decisions that feel generous in the moment but expensive over time. This is less about hustle and more about structure.

In this episode, we cover:

• What “effective hourly rate” really means for therapists and supervisors
 • How unpaid admin time and session overages dilute your income
 • Why enforcing your late cancel and no show policy is an ethical business decision
 • Simple boundary scripts that protect your time without damaging the relationship

If you are tempted to add more clients, extend your hours, or create a new service just to increase revenue, pause. You may not need more. You may need tighter systems.

When your calendar is clean and your policies are consistent, your income reflects your effort. And your practice starts to feel sustainable instead of draining.

Want to learn more? Check out this month's free resource from Kate Walker Training. 

Want to go deeper? Inside the Step It Up Membership, we work through documentation, policies, and financial structure in a way that supports both clinical integrity and profitability. If you are ready to raise your effective hourly rate without burning out, that is exactly what we are building there.

Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit. 

Transcript

Why Your Rate Isn’t Your Pay;

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I could start this presentation off by saying, hey, the best way to make more money in counseling is to raise your rates. And I don't believe in raising rates on existing clients. So I would tell you, hey, yeah, let's raise your rates. But if you still have these leaks, you're gonna have to raise your rate a lot.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Welcome to Band's Therapists, building practices of love. And here's your host, Dr. Kate. Welcome to the newspaper.

Defining Effective Hourly Rate;

Calendar And Policy Audit;

The Hotel Room Metaphor;

Pricing To Cover Admin;

Boundaries Beat Endless Rate Hikes;

Late Cancel And No-Show Rules;

SPEAKER_01 0:40

We're wrapping up March, and with April 15th, right around the corner, a lot of therapists are looking at their tax prep and thinking, I worked way too hard for what I actually kept. So today we're talking about raising your effective hourly rate, not just your session fee, but the actual amount you earn per hour. So today we're talking about raising your effective hourly rate. Not just your session fee, but the actual amount you earn per hour of work when you factor in all the unpaid time. Because here's the truth: you can raise your session fee to$200, but if you're spending two hours on admin for every hour of billable work, your effective rate is nowhere near$200. And that's the number that actually determines whether your practice is sustainable. This applies to clinical work, supervision, consulting, any revenue stream. Let's talk about how to raise what you're actually earning per hour of effort. This is a good one to finish out the month. So let's get to work. Hey, welcome to your pre-recorded Tuesday coaching. Today is about stopping the leaks that are costing you money. And you guys have heard me talk about things like, you know, enforcing a no-show policy. Well, I want to dive into that, but I also want to talk about things that just kind of creep in without us realizing it. And these are common. And this isn't going to be a long recording, but you do have some homework at the end of it. And I'm going to challenge you to change a couple of things. I mean, be brave, do it in your own practice. All right. So here are the things where you're going to look at your calendar, your fee schedule, your cancellation policy. Okay, those three things. And when I say cancellation, I mean late cancel, uh, no show, uh, show up late, that type of policy. And I want you to think of the fee that you say you charge as kind of that's marketing. And no, I don't recommend you put your fee on your website. I I always encourage you to get the 10-minute consult, connect with people, then talk about your price. And I'll explain more about that in a second. So the fee that you say that you charge isn't necessarily your effective hourly rate. Okay. Your effective hourly rate, especially if you own your practice or you're a solopreneur and it's just you and you're running the practice and delivering the services, those two things aren't going to be the same. And you probably are figuring out where I'm going with this, but I want you to have a visual. So I'm going to go counselor on you. I want you to have a, I'm going to use a metaphor here. I want you to think of each hour in your schedule as a hotel room. Okay. So Monday, you have five hotel rooms. So let's call Monday the first floor, Tuesday's the second floor, Wednesdays the third floor, and on and on and on. And I want you to include Saturday and Sunday. And I hope you don't work on those days, but but I want you to get the whole effect of this metaphor, right? In this hotel that is your weekly schedule, you need more resources when you have rooms, hours, on these top floors. You know, think about having to clean the rooms, or you get up to the top to clean the room, but you left your phone downstairs. So you're going to go back downstairs. And every time you go up and down the stairs, you got to use an escalator or an elevator or the stairs. So you're using time and energy the higher you go. You can also define or design this metaphorical hotel by thinking, okay, first floor is the only day during the week that I see clients. Maybe you're juggling two jobs and you have Tuesday and Wednesday as the only days that you can see clients. So Tuesday would be floor number one, Wednesday would be floor number two, but I want you to include floor number three is Friday, floor number four is Saturday, because these days of the week still exist for us. And as a recovering workaholic, I can tell you that we tend to work on days that we don't see clients. I know, big surprise here. So when you are sitting on a Saturday and you should be enjoying time with your family or having some self-care time, but you're scribbling notes, that's you sitting on the sixth floor of your hotel taking up space. That yeah, I don't want you to sell a Saturday time, but that's your time. And it's diluting or it's lowering your effective hourly rate. Every time you do something for your business, I want you to imagine that it's costing money. That you have to imagine a big coffee jar. I'm switching metaphors on you. Think of a big coffee can. And every time you pick up your pencil, I'm really getting old school here, to write a note. I want you to put a dollar in the jar. And if you make$100 an hour, then you've got to put for every minute, if you work 30 minutes, you got to put$50 in that jar. That's what it just costs you to do those notes. Okay. And I know we have to have admin time. I recognize that maybe on that first floor, I'm back to the hotel metaphor. On that first floor, you're going to have four rooms that are sellable, but then that fifth room is admin time. You are going to rent that room and you incorporate that into your effective hourly rate. So maybe instead of charging$100 an hour, you charge$120 an hour. And that's because you know at the end of every day you're going to have one hour that is admin time, but you just made your effective hourly rate. So$120,$240,$360,$480,$5. I mean, so you now instead of$100 an hour, and then you're giving away an hour at the end. So I hope that makes sense to you. Whenever you pick up your computer to do work, you are putting a dollar into the coffee jar. That's how much you're worth. That's how important you are. So when you think of each hour that you use as a hotel room and think of the floors, think of you now pushing your boundaries. Because yeah, I could start this presentation off by saying, hey, the best way to make more money in counseling is to raise your rates. And I don't believe in raising rates on existing clients. So I would tell you, hey, yeah, let's raise your rates on the new clients coming in. And yes, absolutely, that's that's probably the easy and fastest way, not to do more TikTok dances, but just raise your rate 10 bucks, raise your rate 20 bucks an hour. Yes, you will make more money that way. But if you still have these leaks, these little boundary letdowns that you are still not holding yourself accountable, you can raise the rate 50 bucks. You're gonna have to raise your rate a lot if you don't have good boundaries and you keep letting that creep come in. I'm not talking about a person, I'm talking about the time creep where you are working during time that should be set aside for something else. So let's move to your late cancel and no show policy. And I know some of you are really, really good at this. So I may be preaching to the choir here, but with the advent of virtual counseling, I've heard a lot of folks who are like, yeah, well, they logged on 10 minutes late. So we went 10 minutes over. Go back to your hotel room, right? I know that when I'm trying to check into a hotel and they're like, I'm sorry, the cleaning crew's still there. I don't, I'm not happy. If I've got to wait and I knew my check-in time was one o'clock and it's two o'clock, or it's even 1.30, and I'm still sitting in the lobby with my luggage, not a happy camper. So for you to, you know, think, okay, it's telehealth, we're just gonna go a few minutes over, that is going to impact what you charge, your effective hourly rate. Because at the end of the day, you know, here we go again. We've got room number one, room number two, room number three. All of a sudden we've got all of this backup. You thought you were gonna have admin time, but instead of using it for admin, you blew it because all of your sessions ran late. And now you just basically gave away a hundred bucks because your boundaries were down. So having an effective late cancel, no policy, no show policy, that's great. And like I said, I know a lot of you do that. When somebody late cancels or they just don't show up, you're like, I'm so sorry. I sold your session this morning. That's how it works. Now, hotels are a little bit different. This is where the metaphor breaks down. Because when you check in, or I'm sorry, when you book your hotel online, you check a little box that says, I understand my credit card will be charged. And it's like a week before, or I have until 24 hours before to cancel. So be sure if you do have a late cancel no-show policy, that you're incorporating that into your paperwork. And we will talk about that during the paperwork shape up that's happening this week. Step it up, members. You guys get the replay. So if you missed it, no worries. But we will talk about having that in writing. You can't surprise your clients or your potential clients with, hey, by the way, I sold your time and I already charged your credit card. You know, they're gonna dispute the charge. You will see a chargeback. I mean, it's just not great for anybody, not to mention the counseling relationship. But have a policy about showing up late to session. And if that means you got to hold yourself accountable too, then hey, you know what? It works both ways. I know there are a lot of you out there that are really laxadaisical, I think that's the word, with your clients. Like you'll show up five minutes late and be like, oh, I'm so sorry I'm late. You know, I just my lunch went long, I went to Starbucks, they were. That is not your client's problem. You are a professional. Your job is to show up on time. And if you can't follow your own rules, and then you feel like, oh, well, to keep this fair, you know, I showed up late last time, they showed up late this time, we're just gonna go tit for tat. What are you showing your clients, right? That's theoretically no bueno. But now it's becoming a money issue because your effective rate has gone down, because you have backed everybody up. And at the end of the day, when you were supposed to take that hour that you had already incorporated into your budget, but it's gone. And now you're working on your time. Get the coffee can out because you are losing money. Hey, quick heads up. This month's free bonus is something I wish every supervisor had before their first supervisee inquiry. It's called From Inquiry to First Session, the Supervision Interview Guide. This is a step-by-step checklist that walks you through the entire onboarding process from initial contact to first paid session. And it includes the exact strategies to protect yourself from supervisee shoppers. You know, the people who schedule consultations, ask for documents, maybe even sign a contract or state paperwork, and then ghost you because they went with someone else. The guide includes screening questions, red flags to watch for, email templates, and a reference release form you can use right away. It also covers a new thing boards are looking really closely at about documenting dollar value in work exchange supervision arrangements. Grab it at KateWalkertraining.com/slash bonus. Whether you're supervising now or thinking about it for later, this will save you time and frustration. Okay, you know I preach the 10-minute consultation. You know that I talk about keeping it to 10 minutes. And I know that there are practices out there where their script goes a little longer, where they train their front office staff to ask a few more questions. It's a different clientele or perhaps a different specialty. And so I respect that. That's great. But the point is there is a beginning, a middle, and an end to a consultation call. So there are two kinds of consultations I want you to think about. The initial one where you're helping a potential client understand what it means to be your client. And remember our KPIs, right? You got the call, you connected. You want them to book and show up to that first session. And we talk about that, how to say it in the 10-minute consultation. But there's a second kind of consultation, right? That text. I just need to talk real quick. Or they send you a book in the text, and you're like, oh my gosh, I got to call this back. It's so funny. My husband and I were watching this show called Shrinking, and it's got Harrison Ford and that funny guy from How I Nut Your Mother, I can never remember his name. But his way of doing things is to pretty much just be available all the time and watch the show. That's not the worst thing to do. Dual relationships all over the place. So not recommending that. But if your boundaries are are lowered and you are responding to texts outside of your hotel room, all that means is you're you're still in your you're still in your hotel. Now you're just moved to a different floor, right? And again, you're taking up a room. Now, whether if it's it's a room you would sell to a client or it's a room where you would be playing solitaire on your phone, enjoying that me time, it costs you something. So having boundaries around consultations, out of session communication. And that's the other thing we're going to talk about in the paperwork shapeup are things like social media contact, text message contact, email contact, right? And the idea that every time, and you know this, you know this because you probably tell your clients this. Every time that vibrates, dings, goes off, that pulls me out of the moment. I attend to it. Then if I'm going to re-engage here, I've got to reset, I've got to get back into where I was. What was I doing? And if it dings and goes off again, and here and back and forth, it turns into, yeah, that's costing you a hotel room because you are attending to something having to do with your business during a time when it's supposed to be just you, right? So here's our hotel room, here's a hotel room, here's a hotel room for just your me time, but there you are on your phone. But you're not charging anybody for it. You're not making any money there. You're answering client communication, you're doing consultations, or your 10-minute consultation is turned into a full-blown session. And now here we are, you have lost money. All right. So if we review and we go to first thing, first way to make more money, raise your rates. Hallelujah. Amen. Great, awesome. And then we look at how your boundaries are with your calendar, your policies, and your time. And imagine, imagine how you could effectively raise your rate, tighten your boundaries, and how you could significantly raise what you bring home as an income. I mean, I'm not even talking about things like offering premium services, having a hotel room that's your hotel room that are weekend intensive, or having a hotel room that is your sliding fee scale, right? You can designate your time however you want to do that, as long as you're fair. And I have talked about this in other trainings, how to make sure that a sliding fee scale is fair and how to document that, or how to offer a premium service, you know, during a weekend or sometime during your day. So those are wonderful ways. And it definitely feeds our shiny object itis, you know, when we're thinking, oh gosh, you know, I'm not making enough money counseling. I need to do a shiny object thing. I need to do what she's doing over here, what he's doing over there. But I challenge you. Remember, I said at the end of this presentation, I was going to challenge you. Change one thing, tighten up your schedule. Here's some things I came up with. Here's some things you can say to your client. Based on my policy, the session is charged, has been charged, will be charged. I'm available for the full session time we scheduled. I'm no longer available now. Well, that's something we can address in session. So getting those scripts in front of you, having them as quick responses when you're just not sure what to say or how to close the consultation or how to tell the person that just popped into your Zoom call 20 minutes late, yeah, I can't do this right now. I'm closing the session. I'll see you next week. That's hard. And you may be terrified that you're going to lose your client. And I want to validate that. At the end of the day, though, how do you want to set up this hotel? How do you want to set up your life in your practice? All right. If you're watching this on YouTube, give me a comment. I'd love to hear what you think and your ideas as well. So, all right, I'll see you guys at our next coaching session. Bye. Thanks for listening. If you haven't grabbed this month's free bonus yet, head to KateWalker Training.com slash bonus and get the supervision interview guide. It's the exact process I've used to qualify serious supervisees and avoid wasting time on shoppers. And if you're already supervising and want ongoing support with situations like this, plus templates, live coaching, expert webinars, and CE credits, check out the Step It Up membership at KateWalkertraining.com slash step it up. I'll see you next week. If you love today's episode, be sure to leave a five-star review. It helps other badass therapists find the show and build practices that thrive. Big thanks to Ridgley Walker for our original fun facts and podcast intro, and to Carl Diamella for annotating this episode and making us sound amazing. See you next week.