Why I’m Not Changing My Prices This Year

About every 6 months since I started ROOTS, I have gradually increased my rates. I do this because I was 1) grossly under charging for my services and 2) as I pursue the highest quality of care I have the ability of providing, costs increase.

I try to exemplify business morals that I, as a consumer, would appreciate. Increasing prices is a fact of life, business, and inflation. Striving to honor the loyalty and consistency of my pre-existing patients, they were always exempt from the mid-year increase.

It’s a bit more administration, but I highly value integrity.

So here we are, at the end of 2023 and per my current precedent, I should be bumping my rates up again, for everyone. While I’m still earning about half of what my US equivalent rates would be, as I sat down to think about the implications of further increases, I saw the pros and cons no longer weighed out in favor of what I care about.

I got into this business because I care so much about doing it well. If you read my last blog post, you’ll know that in order to prioritize my passion for this work I have to cut back my hours in 2024. So wait, I’m cutting back my hours and not increasing my rates to cover that difference? Ding, ding, ding - that’s correct.

You see, there’s a line somewhere in there. To earn what I’m worth as a cash based provider requires that at some point I price myself out of the people I love working with.

I try to imagine how my budget as a single earner living alone could absorb the costs of sessions 1-2x/wk if I were my own patient. Would I be able to afford myself? Regardless of how much I thought it was worth it?

I don’t want to increase my rates past a point where the answer to that question is no.

Right now, I feel I’ve landed at a spot where I feel respected for my work and my ideal patient population can afford to come see me, even if it’s a little tight. I don’t mind being a splurge, I really do know I’m worth it. But I don’t want to be inaccessible.

I would rather preserve the heart and soul behind all of this work than exploit it and scale it up to the most profitable it could be. Not very capitalist American of me, I know. I just believe there’s more than money to this life and health and medicine (like scuba diving).

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So what’s happening? January 2024 everyone will be bumped up to the rates currently posted on my website here*. I’m sure I’ll have to increase rates mildly in the future to keep up with inflation but that time is not now.

Happy Holidays to you all, I couldn’t do this without you. Wishing you peace, health, safety, and liberation wherever this blog finds you.

*Unless previously discussed and agreed upon for sliding scale options reserved for case by case exceptions.