One of the big questions that faces all people who provide personal service to clients is what to charge. What is a fair price? What will make me feel that I have been adequately compensated for my efforts? What do others charge for a similar service?
In the body work world, the answer is all over the place. In Chicago now, it seems that the median price for a legit massage from an individual in his space (as opposed to a spa or an out-call) is $100. I know in other cities it is a good bit higher.
I charge $80. Since I began fourteen years ago, I have only raised my rates once, from $75 to $80 several years ago.
I have toyed with the idea of raising them again. With this questioning, I mull over several questions in my mind - Do potential clients think less of a body worker who charges less? Does it appear less professional somehow?
I have decided to keep my rate where it is because I have always felt that body work is a right not a privilege. I want to keep it financially possible for the greatest number of people. I know that even for some people $80 is out of reach on anything but a very occasional basis, but for a good percentage of my potential customers, this is a fair-to-low rate. For me, I feel that I am well enough paid even without a gratuity. (About 50% of clients add a gratuity, in my experience… And just fyi… for certain categories - students and active military - I am willing to give a discount because I think that this work will benefit them greatly and might be out of reach otherwise.)
The other question that I encounter both with my work and that of others is time. Is an hour really an hour? Do you offer different rates for different amounts of time?
What brought this up for me was a recent (very nice) massage that was billed as $100 for an hour, but ended up being about 50 minutes long. I kept thinking about what nice things could have happened in that extra ten minutes. I know there are some men who do this as a matter of practice, copying a therapist’s hour. Just by my nature, I tell people a “generous” hour, and my sessions tend to last about an hour and fifteen minutes all told. There is only one type of session that I offer - anal massage - that I tell people will be longer and billed accordingly. Everything else, I let stand at a single price.
I do this in part because it’s just plain easier for me. Also, it presents me with the opportunity of practicing the Buddhist quality of generosity - “dana” in Pali, the language of the earliest Buddhist scriptures - which asks: just how far can your generosity stretch so that it opens your heart but causes you no harm?
So for now, I’ll stick with my rate and my timing, hoping that the generosity will find its way farther out into the world.
Happy June to all!
