Is your acupuncture session fee actually paying you? Free, no signup.
Count every minute the patient touches your schedule, not just needle time.
An unpaid gap is an hour you already paid rent for.
Sessions per week to hit your goal, after no-shows. Assumes the fee above.
Session fees die on the fee schedule. A $120 initial visit looks fine until rent, charting, turnover, and no-shows are counted, so this calculator prices the session from real minutes and fixed costs. Start with your bar: minimum dollars per hour (75) and a monthly take-home goal. Pick a preset: Follow-up, Initial visit, or Community, each filling the fee plus hands-on, charting, and turnover minutes as editable starting points. Enter rent, sessions per month, needle and supply cost per session, insurance and software, and admin hours per week. Set your no-show rate and the late-cancel fee you actually collect. Results show real minutes per patient, rent per session, expected revenue after no-shows, true cost, and the effective hourly rate of the fee. Verdicts are PRICED RIGHT, CLOSE BUT LEAKING, or UNDERPRICED. The gut check grades your instinct fee against true cost, and the week planner turns your goal into sessions per week. No signup; runs on your phone.
Example only, not typical pricing. Initial visit preset at a $75 bar: $120 fee, 75 + 20 + 10 = 105 real minutes = 1.75 hrs. Rent plus other fixed costs = $1,450 over 60 sessions = $24.17 per session. True cost = 24.17 + 4.00 supplies + 1.75 x 75 = $159.42. Expected revenue after a 10 percent no-show rate with a $25 late fee = 120 x 0.90 + 25 x 0.10 = $110.50. Profit = 110.50 - 159.42 = -$48.92. Effective rate = -48.92 / 1.75 = -$27.95/hr, well under the bar, so the verdict is UNDERPRICED. The fee needs to be at least $160 to cover true cost. A $90 gut quote has expected revenue 90 x 0.90 + 2.50 = $83.50 and pays (83.50 - 159.42) / 1.75 = -$43.38/hr, which is $69.42 short of true cost.
**Q** Why count charting and turnover minutes?
Because the patient touches your schedule for all of them. A 60-minute session with 15 minutes of notes and 10 of turnover is 85 minutes of your day, and the effective rate must divide by all of it.
**Q** How does the no-show math work?
Expected revenue per booked slot is the fee times the show rate plus the late fee times the no-show rate. An unpaid gap still costs rent and admin, so the revenue line is what the slot is really worth.
**Q** Why does the tool recommend cost-plus with no margin?
The recommendation is framed for healthcare pricing: it shows the fee that covers true cost at your hourly bar, rounded up. Add your own margin policy on top if your market supports it.
**Q** What fee covers true cost?
True cost rounded up to the dollar. In the worked example that is $160, which is why the verdict says UNDERPRICED until the fee reaches it.
**Q** What does the week planner assume?
The fee you entered and paid visits after no-shows. It converts your monthly goal into booked slots per month, then sessions per week, and flags real hours past 40 per week.