Free tool
Find the session rate your numbers actually require
Most therapy fees are set by looking sideways — at what the therapist down the hall charges, or what feels defensible on a directory profile. The trouble is that the market knows nothing about your rent, your caseload, or how many weeks a year you can actually work. Before you look sideways, it is worth looking down: at the rate your own numbers require.
This calculator works backward from the year you want. Enter your target pay, your weeks off, your client hours, your real monthly overhead, and the share of sessions that quietly go unpaid — and it returns the per-session rate that makes the year add up, plus what happens if your caseload runs five hours lighter or heavier. It is arithmetic, not advice — a starting point for your own decision, alongside your market, niche, and payer mix. For the fuller thinking, read setting your therapy rates.
Completely private: everything runs in your browser — nothing you type is sent or stored anywhere.
1. Your year
What you want left for yourself after practice expenses, before personal taxes — this calculator does not estimate taxes.
Vacation, holidays, conferences, likely sick days. Blank counts as none.
Sessions that go unpaid — neither refilled nor charged. Blank counts as 0%. Size yours with the no-show cost calculator.
2. Your overhead, itemized
Monthly figures. Leave anything at zero that does not apply — the line items just have to add up to your real costs.
Phone, supplies, accounting, health insurance and retirement if you count them here.
Overhead so far: $0 / month — $0 / year.
3. The rate this requires
If your caseload runs lighter or heavier
Five client hours a week is roughly the difference between a full and a spacious caseload — and it moves the required rate more than most overhead lines do.
These figures are a starting point for your own decision, not financial advice. Your market, niche, training, and payer mix belong in the decision too — and if part of your caseload is discounted, pressure-test it with the sliding scale calculator.
This calculator is arithmetic on the numbers you enter — a starting point for your own decision, not financial, tax, or legal advice. It does not model taxes, and contracted insurance rates are set by your payer agreements regardless of what the math asks for.
Rate-setting questions, answered
What overhead do therapists forget?
The quiet recurring ones: self-employment and income taxes (which this calculator does not model), health insurance and retirement you now fund yourself, unpaid hours — notes, billing, emails, consultation — plus CEUs, license renewals, small software subscriptions, and the weeks off no one pays you for. Rent and the EHR are easy to remember; it is the annualized small stuff and the unpaid time that skew the math.
How many client hours per week is full time in private practice?
Fewer than people assume. Every clinical hour brings documentation, scheduling, and billing along with it, so many full-time private-practice therapists carry roughly 20 to 25 client hours a week — some sustainably run more, and many deliberately run fewer. The right number is one you can hold for years, not months.
Is the number this produces the rate I should charge?
It is the rate your own numbers require — a floor and a starting point for your own decision, not financial advice. What you actually charge also reflects your market, training, niche, and payer mix. If the required rate lands far above what your market bears, the levers are the same ones in the calculator: client hours, overhead, weeks worked, and target pay.
Why does my no-show rate change the rate I need?
Because you plan around scheduled hours but get paid for kept ones. If 5 percent of sessions go unpaid, every kept session has to carry a little more of the year's income and overhead — which is exactly what the calculator does when it discounts your hours by the rate you enter.
Should weeks off include conferences and sick time?
Count every week you will not see clients at your normal load: vacation, holidays, conferences, likely sick days, family obligations. Most therapists who plan on 52 weeks discover the real number is closer to 45 to 48 — and a rate built on 52 working weeks quietly underprices every session.
What if I take insurance and the payer sets the rate?
In network, the contracted rate is the rate — you cannot bill the client extra to close a gap. The calculator is still useful in reverse: compare the rate your numbers require against each contracted rate, and you can see which panels actually work for your practice and how much private-pay balance the math asks for.
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