You're looking at your options:
Setting 1: your work for yourself out of your home. You charge $80 / hour.
Setting 2: you work in a group practice. They charge $80 / hour. You get 50% of that ($40).
Setting 3: you work for a chain. They charge $65 / hour. You get $20.
It's obvious that working for yourself out of your home is the absolute best way to go and you'll definitely make the most money that way, right? Why would anyone work for someone else??
What you've just done is compare, head to head, apples and lawn furniture and used the results to decide which type of car to buy.
It absolutely matters how much money we make. You know what matters even more? How much money we get to keep and how much work it takes to make that money!
If you want to have a good life as a massage therapist, you have got to look at more than "how much money do I make per massage". That is one small part of the equation. Here's the full equation:
How much money can I make as a massage therapist?
minus
What will it cost me to run my practice?
divided by
How much effort will it take me to make that money?
Let's take a look at each of these questions in a little more detail.
How much money can I make as a massage therapist?
This a good place to start. This question has a little equation built in as well:
How much per massage x how many massages + tips
That first part -- how much per massage -- is where too many of us stop. But you're still reading so let's keep going.
How many massages? When we compare private practice to group practice to a massage chain, there really is a difference between how many massages you're likely to do in a week.
In private practice, some of us have full schedules most of the time. Many of us don't. It takes constant marketing to fill your schedule. That takes time and energy.
In a group practice, having a full schedule depends on how good the owner is at marketing the practice. Read manymessage boards and you'll learn pretty quickly that lots of owners aren't necessarily any better at filling the calendar than we are.
One of the things a massage chain has going for it is that they do marketing really really well. And they've got the budget (and national office support) for it. So you're more likely to have a full schedule at a decently-run massage chain.
Let's look at tips then. Lots of clients have a complicated chart in their head when it comes to tipping. Are you the owner? Are you working out of commercial space (i.e., do you have a lot of overhead)? Are you a health necessity or a luxury? It seems those first two -- owner, commercial space -- affect the tips the most.
I find that in my home office, I get very few tips. Your experience may vary. I figure about 10% of my clients tip me.
When I worked in a group practice, I got more tips. Not 100% of the time but probably 50% of the time.
From the conversations I've had with people working for corporate massage chains, tipping is the norm. Closer to 100% of the time.
What will it cost me to run my practice?
We really don't think this through well enough! Often because we don't want to think about it. It makes us feel nervous, uncertain, incompetent, uneducated, overwhelmed (not to mention frustrated). It can make us feel lots of unpleasant things.
Plus, it involves the not-fun part of math (that is, the subtracting-from-what-we-make kind).
Calculating the costs of running a practice often comes down to the difference between being self-employed, an independent contractor, or an employee.
Working out of my home means I am self-employed. Here's a rule of thumb for being self-employed in virtually any profession: 50% of your income will go to your expenses.
Yep, I said 50%. Ouch. But I can also say that having analyzed years of my own business bookkeeping gives credence to that number.
Again, ouch.
Why? You buy your own massage supplies and office supplies. You pay for all of your own marketing. You pay for the laundry. You pay 100% of your taxes. You pay for all of your licensing and continuing ed. You pay for your scheduling software and credit card charges. You drive to the bank. You suck up the discounts. Etc. Etc. Etc.
It's all you, baby.
If I work for a group practice, the odds are I'm an independent contractor. Some of my costs go away / are covered by "the split": space rental, massage equipment, some office equipment, some marketing expense, laundry. You've still got your license, continuing ed, taxes, some of your marketing (because you should still be putting at least some effort into marketing yourself).
When I worked for a group practice as an independent contractor, I found my expenses were more like 40% of my income.
Most people working at massage chains are employees. Virtually all of the expenses (beyond your license and about 75% of your taxes) are paid for by the employer. Plus you might (depends on the chain) get paid health insurance and paid time off, something you pay for yourself as a self-employed MT or an IC.
So your expenses drop down to more like 20-30% of your income.
How much effort will it take me to make that money?
You know, none of us have endless energy or endless time (if you do, don't tell me, it'll just depress me). So we really do ourselves a disservice when we don't take the amount of time and energy it takes to run a practice into consideration.
This is an entirely personal calculation -- how much time and energy (and interest) do you have for the business of massage -- but let me give you some numbers, short and sweet, based on my experience and lots of interviews:
Self-employed home-based practice: 40-50% of my time and energy goes to managing the practice. This includes the time I spend randomly worrying about whether I'm doing the right thing or have forgotten something or should be trying something new or....
Independent contractor in a group practice: 20-30% of my time and energy goes to worrying whether the owner is keeping my schedule full, doing my bookkeeping, staying on top of my license and continuing ed, paying my quarterly and annual taxes, helping with laundry, and (if the owner isn't keeping my schedule full) worrying about whether I should jump ship or wait for things to get better...
Employee in a massage chain: 15-25% of my time and energy goes to keeping up with the schedule (every hour on the hour!), worrying about whether I'm being taken advantage of or could be doing better elsewhere, possibly stewing about being expected to do too many massages in a day, and filing my annual taxes.
How much money can I make as a massage therapist?
minus
What will it cost me to run my practice?
divided by
How much effort will it take me to make that money?
Sometimes working for yourself is the best way to go. Sometimes working for someone else is. You have to ask yourself deeper questions about what you're good at outside the massage room, what kind of energy and enthusiasm you have for running a business, what the rest of your life needs from you, etc.
Don't start and stop at the "how much money do I make per massage". You deserve a better-thought-through answer than that will provide.
At the end of the day, all you have is your time, energy, and skills. Spend them wisely.
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