How much to charge?

[Miren]

Some movie theatres in my area lower their prices by a couple bucks for students, so long as you have your ID. So it wouldn't be too hard to check...these are photo IDs and I doubt that people would forge them for a tarot reading. And if they're not being honest with you...their bad karma, not your problem.

 

[Brigantia]

At my college job, that's almost as much as I make in a week! I make a lot more at home, but they limit our hours here and I only make about $6 per hour (especially factoring in taxes). So if I had to compare between a $20 and $40 reading...I'd definitely go for the former. Of course, I wouldn't do that either...I'd do an exchange on here or do the reading for myself

Miren if you'd taken the time to read my posts thoroughly, you'd see we are in different countries and are talking about different currencies and economic conditions.

Anyway, at the end of the day, I'm not a charity and don't feel obligated to use my working hours to give free readings to people who can't afford them. I have rent to pay too. I think a reading is a bit of a luxury, not an essential. If people need therapy or counselling, there are plenty of free services here in Australia. I don't need to be the 'rescuer' who provides is.

As I have said repeatedly, I give free readings on my site, for charity etc. I also give free energy healing, run free meditation groups etc. I run inexpensive tarot and psychic devolopment groups where people learn to give readings, so they also get readings from the other students.

I give a lot back and I don't feel bad about charging what is in my area a standard rate for a Tarot reading. I have paid a small fortune myself for my Tarot training - when you look at the cost of books, courses, travel (I'm about to pay AUD$2,500 for an airfare to do a tarot course) so why should I feel bad about charging to provide something I have spent 20 years working on and training for?

There are a dozens of free and swap readings sites. People are free to make use of those if they can't afford a reading. Personally, I don't buy things I can't afford. I also don't think it serves anyone by seeing them as poor, unfortunate or whatever.

The $ value of something needs to be considered in context so if anyone else wants to jump up and down saying that $40 or $50 is a lot of money, please remember that I'm not in the US, we have a different economy and currency. It's all relative!

 

[Miren]

Sorry, with all the people saying $40 or $50, I got confused as to who was from which country. eg. terri, who charges $40 in NY and her assertion that it was the low end of the scale. $40 AU is still $31 US, which is a lot to me.

My comment was meant to illustrate that one might seem inexpensive for one person, or reasonable, might be very different for another. I have to think hard before I spend $5 US. As a professional, there's no need for you to set your prices and lower than you see fit. Because either people will come to you or they won't.

But I still think you're wrong about discount readers taking work from you. You have chosen to work in a certain bracket of the tarot economy (as it were) and thus you're competing with others in that bracket, not those in the discount line. Plenty of people like to pay high-end because they feel that they're getting a better product, and maybe they are.

And while I don't wish to question your horror stories, I certainly doubt that they fairly represent the population. They certainly show what one has to look out for with discount readers, but I would not be surprised if people could tell us the same stories about full-price readers. It's an overall risk in this industry, as in many.

 

[Brigantia]

But I still think you're wrong about discount readers taking work from you. You have chosen to work in a certain bracket of the tarot economy (as it were) and thus you're competing with others in that bracket, not those in the discount line. Plenty of people like to pay high-end because they feel that they're getting a better product, and maybe they are.

Miren you really need to read posts properly! I never said I was worried about discount readers taking work from me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said in MY EXPERIENCE, the cut price readers I have heard of make their money preying on the fears and insecurities of their clients. I am aware not all discount readers do this. I was talking about my own experience.

I have been a professional reader for 13 years. I am booked out until next year. I have my own clientelle and I consider that I work for 'Spirit'. When Spirit wants me to stop, the clients will stop coming. I am not in competition with anyone.

 

[nelsleep]

...Always charge what you need to fairly live your life and to fairly provide your service.
I don't charge for readings as I'm not that good (I applaude you all who do) but I have worked for myself providing a health service for ten years and have been responsible for solely putting the bread on the table by what I do which is not very mainstream and in a small population.
I believe that one cannot compare in judgement the charges between any service providers as everyone has a unique set of circumstances surrounding their ability to provide that service and live as well. If anyone was truly overcharging with a view to exploit they would not last long as karma would catch up.

 

[Brigantia]

...Always charge what you need to fairly live your life and to fairly provide your service.
I don't charge for readings as I'm not that good (I applaude you all who do) but I have worked for myself providing a health service for ten years and have been responsible for solely putting the bread on the table by what I do which is not very mainstream and in a small population.
I believe that one cannot compare in judgement the charges between any service providers as everyone has a unique set of circumstances surrounding their ability to provide that service and live as well. If anyone was truly overcharging with a view to exploit they would not last long as karma would catch up.

Good post, Nelsleep.

 

[Miren]

Miren you really need to read posts properly! I never said I was worried about discount readers taking work from me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I said in MY EXPERIENCE, the cut price readers I have heard of make their money preying on the fears and insecurities of their clients. I am aware not all discount readers do this. I was talking about my own experience.

I am infuriated by readers who undercut the average price. I think it does the rest of us a disservice.

Major Tom I see undercutting the average price as being in competition with others.

While the first of these two quotes may not refer to competition (Though why single out discount readers as being the only bad ones? Have you never heard of a non-discount reader who also broke all kinds of ethical contracts? Is it because you feel threatened by the discounts that you specifically target them? --all these questions come to mind while reading your posts), mentioning competition implies that they are competing with you as one of the "others."

After copy-editing some 160 pages in the last few weeks, I'm pretty familiar with reading and analyzing.

You may not be intending to convey this message, but the one that comes across to me (and others) is that you feel threatened by discount readers because they're in competition with you, because they're devaluing the tarot by selling it so cheaply(?), and because they're liable to have ulterior motives (these are the things which you appear to be concerned with). And you feel very threatened because people on this site don't agree with you. This is the message that you convey, I'm not saying that it's what you were thinking...perhaps you were distracted or have a style of talking which does not come across online which would have conveyed a totally different point.

Yes, I was reading your posts as others have been. Because I made a simple mistake and quoted your Australian figure instead of terri's US one (probably because your posts are so vehemently against discount tarot readers that they caught my eye), you have jumped on my disagreement extremely defensively. I was not even addressing you personally in my first post, I simply wanted to point out income discrepancies which account for the usefulness of discount tarot readers or of tarot readers who give discounts.

 

[Brigantia]

No, I don't feel threatened by cheaper readers. As I said, I have been in business for 13 years. If clients stop coming, I will do something else. I am not attached to being a Tarot reader and I am not in competition with anyone.

My defensiveness comes from that I feel I'm being attacked for not agreeing with everyone else, not that they aren't agreeing with me. I'm defensive because I don't feel that I am being 'heard' in this discussion and that people are ascribing motives to me that I don't have and putting words in my mouth that I haven't said.

I replied to this topic because someone asked for information. I shared my experience and got attacked for it. So I defend myself.

 

[Tansey Ella]

edited

 

[starrystarrynight]

Just my musings on the subject...

When the Internet was relatively much newer, and I used to write copy for new websites, a lot of aspiring writers of such copy would email me to ask me how much they should charge (of course, they really wanted to know how much I charged--which was information I more than willing to share with them. Why not, I figured, because I know many of them were running or considering running their writing businesses at a loss, and that didn't benefit anyone in the long run.)

Anyway, my formula then, which may be something to consider here, was to sit down and figure out what I needed and felt I deserved to get for a good living wage.

That meant figuring every cost I faced into the equation along with a good profit margin above what I felt my time was worth (at the time, I figured 15% was pretty good--and yes, that was arbitrary, but I was in the driver's seat as I had something at the time that webmasters clamored for--good, clear and concise copy for their sites).

Costs included my time and skill level (again, arbitrary...what was my time worth?? And how I figured it was by looking at my personal expenses and how much I needed to earn to survive and prosper at the time), the cost of hardware and software (depreciated), electricity, office space, (even child care was figured in)...you know, all those things any business would take into account before setting its bottom-line price.

When I figured out how much I needed to get per hour, I figured out how long a particular piece of copy would take me to create...and then just multiplied it out.

That is how I set my price for freelance copywriting. And it is somewhat how I do it today, as well, for readings.

Yes, you have to take into consideration what the market will bear. Can or should you get more per hour for in-person readings than for online readings? That's something you have to determine for yourself. If you go to a center to give readings, you've got to figure in the cost of transporting yourself there, as well as the extra time it takes you to get there.

Anyway, that's how businesses run businesses. If you look at this as a business, maybe those are things you might want to consider. If this is just a hobby for you, your mileage will vary.