Episode #647: Are You Charging Too Much - Abundant Practice Podcast

Summary

Abundant Practice Podcast - Episode #647: Are You Charging Too Much

Release Date: May 10, 2025
Host: Allison Puryear

In Episode #647 of the Abundant Practice Podcast, host Allison Puryear delves into a crucial concern for many therapists: "Are You Charging Too Much?" This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of fee setting, addressing both mindset challenges and business model alignment to help therapists cultivate thriving private practices.

1. Understanding the Concern: Is Your Fee Too High?

Allison opens the episode by acknowledging the discomfort that arises when therapists question their fee structures. She emphasizes that determining whether a fee is too high isn't a straightforward yes-or-no decision but involves a deeper analysis of both mindset and business alignment.

“I want you to know it's okay if you've been questioning if your fee is too high. But here's the thing. It's not a simple yes or no question and answer situation.”
— Allison Puryear [02:15]

2. Identifying the Two Groups

Allison categorizes therapists facing fee concerns into two distinct groups:

Group 1: Mindset-Related Concerns

Characteristics: Therapists in this group often struggle with imposter syndrome, fear of rejection, or doubt about their worth.
Core Issue: The perceived high fee is more about internal fears and inadequate marketing rather than the actual price.
Solution: Enhance marketing strategies to effectively communicate value, and work on mindset to confidently state fees.

“The fee is not the problem. It's your marketing.”
— Allison Puryear [06:30]

Group 2: Alignment with Business Model

Characteristics: These therapists have been charging a fee for some time but feel a disconnect between their pricing and their business's evolving goals.
Core Issue: The fee may have once been appropriate but no longer aligns with the therapist’s current vision or the services offered.
Solution: Reflect on business goals, possibly restructure service offerings to better align with personal and professional aspirations.

“When you are in business for yourself, it is not just about what you charge. It's how your fee aligns with your vision for your work and your life.”
— Allison Puryear [07:45]

3. Allison’s Personal Journey: From Consulting to the Abundance Party

Allison shares a personal anecdote to illustrate Group 2’s challenges. In 2017, she raised her consulting fees due to increasing demand but soon felt uneasy despite the business growth. This discomfort wasn't about the money but about misalignment with her purpose.

Initial Success: Raised consulting fees to alleviate time constraints, resulting in continued client acquisition.
Growing Unease: Despite financial success, Allison felt something was off, leading to introspection.
Realization: The issue wasn't the fee but the delivery model, which limited her ability to impact a broader audience.
Solution: Transitioned from individual consulting to creating the Abundance Party, enabling her to serve more people at accessible price points, aligning with her mission to help build successful practices broadly.

“My purpose wasn't about working with just a few clients at a time. My model was about helping more people build successful practices.”
— Allison Puryear [05:20]

4. Aligning Fees with Purpose and Business Goals

Allison underscores the importance of ensuring that fees reflect both personal values and business objectives. She advises therapists to undertake self-reflection to determine whether their current pricing aligns with their desired impact and operational model.

Steps to Align Fees:

Self-Reflection: Assess feelings about current fees. Are they driven by money shame, imposter syndrome, or misaligned service offerings?
Evaluate Business Model: Consider if the current structure supports your long-term goals. For example, transitioning to group sessions or scalable models may better serve your mission.
Align with Purpose: Ensure that your fee supports the kind of work you want to do and the lives you aim to impact.
Continuous Adjustment: Recognize that as your practice evolves, so might your fee structure. Regularly revisit and adjust as necessary.

“Your fee could support your overall business and your personal goals.”
— Allison Puryear [08:30]

5. Practical Tools and Resources

To aid therapists in navigating fee structures, Allison offers practical tools and resources:

Free Worksheet: Setting Your Fees Worksheet to explore and establish appropriate fee structures.
Membership Program: Abundance Party—a step-by-step membership program designed to help therapists work fewer hours, increase income, and better serve their clients.
Additional Resources: Access to free trainings, checklists, and a supportive community through AbundancePracticeBuilding.com.

“If you're struggling with pricing or you want some guidance on how to navigate it, I've created a worksheet to help you explore your own free structure, make the right decisions for your practice.”
— Allison Puryear [09:30]

6. Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Allison concludes by reinforcing that fees are not a reflection of a therapist’s worth but a component of a well-aligned business strategy. She encourages continuous reflection and adaptation to ensure that fee structures support both personal fulfillment and professional success.

“The fee you charge should feel expansive. It should feel aligned with your personal goals.”
— Allison Puryear [09:55]

Key Takeaways

Identify Your Group: Determine whether your fee concerns stem from mindset issues or misalignment with your business model.
Reflect and Align: Regularly assess if your fees and business structure align with your evolving goals and values.
Utilize Resources: Leverage available tools and communities, such as the Abundance Party, to support your practice’s growth and alignment.
Continuous Evolution: Understand that fee structures and business models are dynamic and may need adjustments as your practice develops.

For therapists seeking to refine their fee structures and align their practices with their personal and professional aspirations, this episode of the Abundant Practice Podcast provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies. Whether grappling with self-doubt or restructuring business models, Allison Puryear offers guidance to cultivate a more fulfilling and prosperous private practice.

Access Additional Resources:

Free Worksheets and Checklists: AbundancePracticeBuilding.com
Membership Program: Abundance Party
Support Email: help@abundancepracticebuilding.com

Join the Conversation: If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it with a therapist colleague and leave a rate and review to support the podcast's mission to help build successful private practices.

Transcript

A (0:00)

Foreign welcome to Ask Allison.

B (0:09)

Y' all ask the questions about having a fun and thriving practice, and I answer them.

A (0:13)

We have a worksheet for you today.

B (0:15)

So you can bring this answer into your life. You can Access that@AbundancePracticeBuilding.com links where you'll also be able to ask any questions.

A (0:23)

You have for Ask Allison.

B (0:25)

If you want more support, we've got some free trainings in there, too. If you can't get enough Ask Allison, check out our YouTube channel for our entire Ask Allison library.

A (0:36)

Welcome back to Ask Allison. Here's today's question. I'm worried I'm charging too much. What do I do? So first, I'd like to thank Therapy Notes for sponsoring Ask Allison. I have talked about Therapy Notes for years. I know their features by heart. You probably do, too. But I want to talk about what truly sets them apart. They genuinely care about your experience. It is not just about troubleshooting. They actively implement user suggested features, features like their new AI notes and automated client payments. Everyone at TherapyNotes believes in the product and wants you to love it, too. Plus, they're independently owned, which means no venture capital and no pressure to prioritize investors over customers. That independence allows them to keep prices fair, to focus on innovation, and to prioritize customer experience. With over 100,000 therapists already on board, they have proven that you don't have to compromise success for quality. If you're ready to see for yourself, try TherapyNotes free for two months for with the code abundanttherapynotes.com all right, so I get it. The question can be really uncomfortable. And I want you to know it's okay if you've been questioning if your fee is too high. But here's the thing. It's not a simple yes or no question and answer situation. There are two distinct groups of people when it comes to this issue. And today we're going to talk about the group that might actually be charging more than they should. If the fee doesn't feel right for you, it might actually be too much. But before you start stressing out, let's break it down. I want to first acknowledge group one. Those of you who feel like you're charging too much, but when you dig deeper, you realize it's more about your mindset than the actual fee. This is the vast majority of people who are wondering if their fee is too high. This group might be dealing with imposter syndrome, feeling like they're not good enough, or the fear that no one's actually going to pay the price. They're asking, they might not be getting a ton of clients at that fee. And so they're wondering, maybe the fee is the problem. The fee is not the problem. It's your marketing. And while these feelings are real, they don't mean your fee is too high. You just need to get comfortable stating it and seeing that clients are in fact happy to pay it. When your marketing is on point, this is where the fear of rejection or judgment comes into play. It is natural for people in Group 1 to feel the way they feel when they raise their rates. But I promise you, when you keep practicing seeing your fee, you keep seeing it's not leading to rejection. Because your marketing is solid. You're going to find your rhythm eventually. You're going to settle into a place where saying your fee feels comfortable. And if you're in group one, I strongly suggest getting some support, whether that's the Abundance Party or one of our other programs. It does get easier over time to raise your fees and to market so that people pay them. And there's usually some deep mindset stuff that you can work through. All right, today we're actually talking about group two. These are the people who have been charging a fee for a while. And. And despite everything looking fine on the outside, something feels off inside. You may have set your fee at some point because it felt like the right thing to do. Maybe you were looking around. Everybody else is charging this really high amount where you live. Maybe it's a high cost of living area, but over time, it hasn't felt quite right anymore. And I get that it can happen to many of us. It's happened to me, and it's important to address this. So why the fee you set might not be right anymore. It's about alignment, essentially. So I'll tell you a personal story. Back in 2017, I raised my consulting fees. The demand for my services was growing. My calendar was fully booked. I had a waiting list for my $5,000 three month consulting package. And so I thought, okay, well, there's a lot of demand here. Let's raise the price and relieve some of the pressure. On my time, I shifted to a new offering that was one month, three sessions for $3,000. This was encouraged by a coach. It seemed like a reasonable adjustment. And within a month, I had several people take me up on it. But even though I was getting clients, something inside me felt really uneasy. I wasn't sure why. I felt like the model wasn't quite sitting well. It wasn't about the money, and it wasn't about feeling unworthy. It was just this gut feeling that something was off. And I tried to ignore it. I tried to like, just push through it. Because this is what we do in business, right? We push through discomfort. But after reflecting some more, I realized my initial gut feeling wasn't about charging too much. It was about how I was delivering my services. What I was really struggling with was the purpose of my offer, not necessarily the price tag attached to it. So that fee was kind of a red herring. The more individual work I was doing with clients with consulting, the fewer resources I had to serve a larger group of people. My business was growing, but the way I was delivering my services didn't align with my purpose anymore. My purpose wasn't about working with just a few clients at a time. My model was about helping more people build successful practices. So by sticking to an individual model, I wasn't able to do that. I was limiting myself. So despite the fact that my fee wasn't necessarily too high, it was still not aligned with what I wanted to offer and the impact that I wanted to have. And it led to this huge shift. I decided to retire my individual consulting packages for a while and I created the Abundance Party. And that shift allowed me to serve a much larger audience at a much more accessible price point. And it felt really expansive. It felt aligned with my purpose and full transparency. I was able to make more as well. And once the Abundance Party was really rolling, I could consider offering individual again. But not until I felt like the party was out there able to help the people who couldn't afford individual consultation. So here's the thing. When you are in business for yourself, it is not just about what you charge. It's how your fee aligns with your vision for your work and your life. If your fee feels off, it's not necessarily that you're charging too much, but it may be. It's because the offering might not be right for where you are in your business and what you're wanting to do. So if you're feeling like your fee is not aligned, whether it's a red herring or your actual fee, I want you to do some self reflection first. I do not want you to mistake not getting clients. And I've said this a few times already, not getting clients is not the same thing as having your fee being misaligned. You're not getting clients at the fee that you're at because you haven't honed in on your marketing well enough. That is a sign. You should join the Abundance Party, not change your Fee. Let's break down what to do. If it truly is a fee alignment issue, I want you to do the inner work. The first step is always to take a hard look at your feelings. Are you uncomfortable because of money shame or imposter syndrome? Is it the discomfort coming from the structure of your offering or the way you deliver your services? Or your overall business model? Spend some time getting really clear on why your fee feels off. Next, I want you to consider a different business model to see if that makes sense. Maybe you want to be doing more groups because they light you up more. You definitely wouldn't charge the same amount for your group per person as you are for your individual appointments. So see if maybe that's something that fee discomfort is pointing you to. Align your fee with your purpose. Your fee could support your overall business and your personal goals. So for me, the individual consulting model was no longer in alignment with my desire to help more people. If you are feeling burned out or stretched too thin, it might be time to reconsider the type of work you're doing and how you're offering it. There's so many ways to be really creative in how you structure your services while maintaining a fee that feels good for you. And for that, I want you to know it's a process. It's not a one time thing. Keep in mind that your fee and your business model are not set in stone. As your practice grows and evolves, your fee may need to evolve too. Constant reflection and course correction are a normal part of business. You may need to adjust your pricing or your offerings as your practice matures, as you offer different things. That's okay. It's just a part of creating a business that really aligns with your needs and values. And I think it's really great to have some discomfort that pushes you to look at that so that you're not just in this career doing the same exact thing for 30 years. So at the end of the day, the fee you charge should feel expansive. It should feel aligned with your personal goals. It's likely to feel uncomfortable when you first increase your fee. But if you are getting clients and you've had your fee for a while and it is still feeling confining or uncomfortable, listen to that inner voice and see what might be underneath it. Whether that means raising or lowering your fee, remember, you are worthy no matter what you charge. Your value is not tied to the price that you put on your services. It's about the work you do, the impact you have on your clients. There's no amount of money that we can actually put on the life changing work that we do. If you're struggling with pricing or you want some guidance on how to navigate it, I've created a worksheet to help you explore your own free structure, make the right decisions for your practice. It's the setting your fees worksheet. It's completely free. DM me the word sheets to receive this week's worksheet and I'll send you that link. And it has all the other previous free worksheets too. If you need help with any of this, the Abundance Party has your back. You can't afford it. It is very affordable. So I want you to DM the Word Party. If you're on social or if you're listening to this on the podcast, I want you to look at the show notes and click the party link. Thanks for tuning in. I will see y' all later.