Pricing your practice: models, sliding scales and international payments

Deciding how to price your work is one of the first business decisions in private practice, and there is no single right answer. Different practitioners use different models, and each carries its own practical trade-offs. This guide describes the models that exist and the questions they raise. It does not suggest what to charge, does not recommend one model over another, and does not offer financial or tax advice. Where a question turns on your own finances, it belongs with your accountant; where it turns on who you can work with, it belongs with your insurer and professional body.

Pricing models that exist

The common ways practitioners structure fees are worth knowing as neutral options, each with different implications for administration and access:

• Flat per-session fee — a single rate for a standard session. It is simple to state and to administer.
• Sliding scale — a range of rates offered according to a client's circumstances, often used to widen access.
• Concession or reduced rates — a set number of lower-cost places held alongside standard-rate ones.

These are descriptions, not recommendations. Which model suits your practice depends on your goals, your capacity and how you want to handle access — decisions for you to make. The professional bodies publish material on fees and the ethics around them, and that is a sound place to read more: see BACP, UKCP and the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society.

Sliding scales: the questions they raise

A sliding scale sounds simple but raises questions worth thinking through before you offer one. How will you decide who qualifies for which rate, and will that basis be consistent and explainable? How many reduced places can you sustain without straining your own finances? How will you communicate the scale so it feels fair and clear to clients? These are design questions for your practice, and the ethics-of-fees guidance from your professional body is the reference point for the professional dimension. What the right rates or bands are is not something a guide can set for you — that depends on your practice and your own financial position.

International payments: an operational view

If a client pays you from outside the UK, that raises practical, operational questions about how the payment is taken and displayed — not questions this guide can resolve about who you may work with. On the operational side:

• Currency display — deciding which currency your fees are shown and charged in.
• Payment processing — whether your payment setup accepts payments originating abroad.
• Foreign exchange — how currency conversion is handled and who bears any conversion cost or fee.

On processing specifically, Stripe supports payments in multiple currencies, which is one way practices handle clients paying from abroad; you can read what it does on the Stripe GB product page. That is an operational point about moving money, and it is as far as the operational view goes.

Crucially, whether you can take on a client based outside the UK is a separate question for your insurer and professional body. It is not a currency or payments question, and it is not one this guide addresses — so if it is relevant to you, put it to your insurer and professional body and treat it as its own decision.

Tax and financial questions belong with your accountant

Pricing decisions touch on tax and finances, and that is precisely where a general guide should stop and point you elsewhere. Anything to do with how your income is taxed, or with VAT and whether or how it applies to you, is a matter for your accountant, who can look at your actual figures and circumstances. This guide states no thresholds and no treatments and gives no view on what applies to you — your accountant is the right person to answer those questions for your practice.

What this guide deliberately does not do

To be explicit about the boundaries:

• It does not suggest prices, rate ranges or sliding-scale bands. What you charge is your decision, informed by your professional body's fee ethics and your own financial position.
• It does not give any view on VAT or tax treatment directed at you. Those go to your accountant.
• It does not comment on whether you may work across borders. That is a question for your insurer and professional body.

None of this is a shortcoming. A general guide can describe the models and surface the questions; the answers depend on your practice, your finances and your professional obligations, and they come from the people equipped to advise on each.

In short

Practitioners price their work in different ways — flat fees, sliding scales, concession rates — and each is a neutral option with its own practical questions rather than a recommendation. International payments raise operational questions about currency, processing and foreign exchange, and multi-currency processing is something tools like Stripe handle; whether you may take on an overseas client is a separate matter for your insurer and professional body. Tax and VAT questions belong with your accountant. The job of this guide is to lay out the landscape; the decisions within it are yours, made with the right professional adviser for each.