Therapy Fee-Setting Calculator
Enter your income goal, caseload, and practice overhead to find the minimum session fee that keeps your practice sustainable — plus a recommended fee with a 20% buffer for unexpected costs and income growth.
Fee-Setting Calculator
Find the minimum and recommended session fee to hit your income goal
Minimum Fee
$76 / session
Covers overhead + target income — no buffer
Recommended Fee
$91 / session
Minimum + 20% buffer for unexpected costs
Session Breakdown
1,200
Scheduled sessions/yr
120
Lost to no-shows (10%)
1,080
Billable sessions/yr
Annual Overhead Breakdown
vs. National Average (CPT 90837)
National average for a 53-min individual therapy session is $150–$175. Your recommended fee of $91 is below the national average. Consider whether your overhead inputs or income target need adjusting.
Once you've set your fee, create superbills for clients seeking out-of-network reimbursement.
Create SuperbillThis calculator provides estimates only. Actual income depends on session volume, payer mix, collections rate, and many other factors. Consult a financial advisor or accountant for business planning specific to your practice.
How to Set Your Therapy Fee
Setting a private-pay fee is one of the most consequential business decisions a therapist makes, yet most clinicians rely on gut feel or peer comparison rather than actual numbers. This calculator takes a bottom-up approach:
- Start with your income goal — what do you need (or want) to take home after taxes?
- Account for all overhead — rent, liability insurance, EHR software, continuing education, phone, and anything else you pay to run your practice.
- Adjust for no-shows — most practices lose 8–15% of scheduled sessions to late cancellations and no-shows, even with a solid cancellation policy. Those lost sessions still cost you time.
- Add a 20% buffer — income tax, slow-fill periods between clients, emergency expenses, and paid time off all erode your nominal caseload income. The recommended fee includes a 20% cushion above bare minimum.
The No-Show Rate Matters More Than Therapists Expect
At a 10% no-show rate on a 25-session week over 48 working weeks, you lose roughly 120 billable sessions per year. At a $150 fee, that's $18,000 in unrealized revenue. The slider in this calculator makes that cost visible so you can price accordingly — or tighten your cancellation policy.
Overhead Is Often Underestimated
New private-practice therapists frequently forget to count:
- Professional liability (malpractice) insurance: $500–800/year
- EHR / practice management software: $30–80/month
- Billing software or superbill tools: $15–50/month
- Continuing education and licensure renewal: $500–1,500/year
- Website hosting and marketing: $100–300/year
- Self-employment tax: ~15.3% of net income (not included in this calculator)
Add all of these into the overhead fields for a realistic minimum fee. The most common mistake is setting a fee that covers income but not overhead — which means you're effectively subsidizing your practice with personal funds.
How Superbills Help You Charge What You're Worth
Therapists in private practice often fear that a high fee will make clients leave. In reality, clients with out-of-network (OON) insurance benefits can recover 50–70% of your fee through reimbursement — which dramatically reduces the out-of-pocket cost. The key is providing a compliant superbill that the client can submit to their insurer. Superbilled generates professional superbill PDFs in seconds, making the OON reimbursement process seamless for both you and your clients.