"How much to charge for the psychology session?" is the question that most disturbs the profession and, at the same time, the one that is the worst answered. In the faculty it is not touched, in the groups of colleagues it is answered with evasive, and the most repeated advice ("collect what seems fair to you") is not an answer: it is an elegant way to leave you alone with the problem.

The result is seen every day: psychologists with a full schedule who arrive at the end of the month, fees frozen for a whole year in a country with inflation, and the diffuse feeling that talking about silver betrays something of vocation.

The fees of psychologists in Argentina are not defined by intuition or guilt. There is an objective floor (the one that publishes the school of your jurisdiction), there is a formula to know your real cost per session and there are concrete criteria to position you above that floor. That is what we are going to disarm, step by step.

Why it costs so much to put a price on the session

Before the formula, it is appropriate to name what the formula does not resolve.

The first barrier is guilt. You chose this profession to help, and somewhere the idea was recorded that charging well contradicts that vocation. It is exactly the other way around: the fee is what makes the help sustainable. A professional who does not arrive at the end of the month attends tired, overloaded and with his head elsewhere. Collecting well is not a luxury, it is a condition of practice.

The second is the comparison. There is always a colleague who charges less, and the fantasy of "if I go up, they all go away" weighs more than any calculation. But competing for price in a bond-based profession is a race down that nobody wins.

The third is the framing. The fee is not an uncomfortable accessory to treatment: it is part of the therapeutic framing, as is the schedule and frequency. Defining it clearly and sustaining it is also an intervention.

The floor: your school's minimum ethical fees

Most schools and councils of psychologists in the country publish minimum ethical fees (sometimes listed as "ethical rank" or "suggested minimum honorary"). They are a reference value below which the school considers that the professional exercise is de-hierarchized.

Two important things about these values:

They are a flat, not a suggested price. Nothing forces you to charge exactly that: the reference exists so that you don’t charge less.
They are updated periodically. With Argentine inflation, a value published a few months ago is probably already old.

That is why we will not put amounts here: they would be outdated before you finish reading. Search the current value on the school website of your jurisdiction or consult it directly by email or phone.

Note

Each jurisdiction has its own school and its own values. The minimum fee of CABA is not the same as that of Cordoba or the province of Buenos Aires. Always consult the one that corresponds to your professional license.

In addition to the number, many provincial codes of ethics, in line with the Code of Ethics of FePRA, treat the issue as an ethical and not just economic issue: systematically charging below the minimum is considered a form of unfair competition that harms the entire profession.

The actual calculation: how much it takes to attend a session

The school floor is generic: you don't know how much you pay for rent or how many sessions you give per month. Your personal apartment comes from the other side: from your numbers. The account is simple and takes four steps.

Step 1: Add your monthly fixed costs

Write down everything you pay per month to be able to exercise, whether or not it is directly related to a specific session:

Rental of clinical practice (if you rent per hour, the total of the month): A
Share of monotribut: M
School professional license: C
Monitoring: S
Personal therapy: T
Training (courses, postgraduate courses, congresses, assessed per month): F
Other: management software, insurance, travel, video calling platform: O

Your monthly fixed cost is A + M + C + S + T + F + O.

Step 2: put a price on your non-invoiceable hours

For every session hour there is invisible work: evolution notes, medical records, appointment coordination, invoicing, WhatsApp messages, reports. Consider how many hours per week all that takes you and assign them a value: it is professional working time, not free time. Call it H.

If that number scares you, there is room to reduce it: much of that burden is administrative and is simplified by an orderly agenda and clear processes. But as long as it exists, it has to be in the account.

Step 3: tell your real sessions, not the ideals

Most calculations fall here. No matter how many gaps your schedule has: it matters how many sessions you actually charge per month, discounting holidays, holidays, cancellations and absences. Look at your last three months and get the average. Call it N.

If you register payments in Brauni, the payment module shows you how many sessions you charged and how much you invoiced each month, without drawing up sheets: that is exactly the number you need here.

Step 4: apply the formula

Cost per session = (A + M + C + S + T + F + O + H) / N

That result is not your fee: it is your point of balance. All you charge below that value is to attend to loss, even if the agenda is full. Your real fee is that cost plus the income you want (and need) to take you for your work.

Saying with variables: if your fixed costs plus your non-invoiceable hours add up to X per month and give N actual sessions, your equilibrium point is X divided N. With constant X, the fewer actual sessions, the more expensive it costs you each. That's why two psychologists with the same clinical practice can have very different personal floors.

Council

I re-calculated this every time I change a significant cost (increased rent, re-categorization of the monotribute, a new post-graduate) and at least a couple of times a year. It’s half an hour of work that defines all your income.

How to position yourself above the floor

Between the school floor and your equilibrium point you already have a minimum range. To define where to stand above that, there are three factors that weigh:

Experience and training. It is not the same for someone newly enrolled as for someone with fifteen years of clinical practice, completed postgraduates and specific training in a work model.
Specialization. The niches with little offer justify higher fees: perinatal psychology, neuropsychology, forensic evaluation, eating behavior disorders, among others. The more specific the problem you solve, the less alternatives the one who consults you has.
Demand. The most honest thermometer is your waiting list. If you haven’t had a free slot in months and you’re still getting inquiries, your fee is below what your practice is worth. Upgrading it isn’t abuse: it’s letting the price order the lawsuit.

Inflation adjustments: how much and how to communicate them

In Argentina, not adjusting the fees is not keeping them: it is lowering them in silence, month by month.

How often to adjust? There is not a single rule, but criteria that work:

I defined a review frequency in advance (e.g. every three or four months), so that the adjustment does not depend on your mood or on "the occasion".
Use your school's minimum fee updates as a reference: if the school updated, it's a sign that the context asks for it.
Check when your costs jump: rent increase, recategorization, tuition rise.

How to communicate? In advance (two to four weeks is fine), in writing, in neutral tone and without apologizing. There is no need to justify the adjustment with a speech about the economy: your patients also live here.

A brief model that you can adapt:

Hello, [name]. I advise you that from the [date] the value of the session is updated to [new value]. Anything you want to talk about this, we talk about it in session. See you on [day]!

Anticipating adjustment is not just courtesy: the fee is part of the framing, and framing changes are anticipated and, if they generate something, they are worked in session.

Wanting to attend to people who cannot pay your full fee is legitimate and even desirable. The problem is not the differential rate: it is the lack of method.

To make it work without messing with you:

I defined a fixed quota. For example, a limited number of places with a reduced rate on the total of your schedule. When the quota is full, it is full.
I set clear criteria. Who agrees, for how long, under what conditions. "I don't know what to charge the full value" is not a criterion.
Review it periodically. A patient's financial situation changes; the reduced rate does not have to be forever.
Also adjust the reduced rate. Reduced does not mean frozen: if your fees are updated, the social rate is updated in the same proportion.

Important

The differential rate is your decision, not an obligation. If most of your schedule pays reduced rate, you don't have a social scale: you have an unsolved fee problem.

Frequent errors

Collect less "while starting", forever

The classic. You start with a low fee "until the agenda is filled", the schedule is filled and the fee remains the same, because now raising it is guilty of the usual patients. The price of launch without expiration date becomes your price, and by the way it marks the ceiling for colleagues who have just started.

Never adjust

Freezing fees in an inflationary context is a real income reduction that no one decided: it just happened. If you’ve been charging the same thing for more than a year now, the question is no longer whether to adjust, but how much you’ve been left behind.

Adjust without warning

The other end. The patient arrives, pays and finds out the moment the session goes out the more. Besides uncomfortable, it erodes confidence: the fee is part of the work agreement and the changes are communicated before, not after.

Do not collect absences

A reserved session is an hour that no one else could take. If the patient is missing without notice and nothing happens, your schedule ceases to be a compromise and becomes a suggestion. The solution is not to be angry on a case-by-case basis: it is to have a clear cancellation policy, communicated since the first interview and always applied the same.

An operational detail that helps: the simpler it is to collect, the less it is postponed. If you issue the electronic invoice from the same platform where you register the payment, the collection and the voucher are resolved at the moment, with no outstanding tasks that accumulate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I charge below the minimum fee of my school?

The ethical minimum is a reference, not a regulated price. But systematically charging below has two problems: several schools consider it an ethical fault due to unfair competition, and it almost always means that you are working below your own real cost. Before doing so, do the balance point account.

How often do you want to adjust the fees?

There is no universal number. What works is to define a review frequency in advance (every three or four months is a reasonable pattern in high inflation contexts) and to use as triggers your school updates and your own cost jumps.

Do I charge the same per online session as in-person?

It depends on your cost structure. If you attend online without physical clinical practice, your cost per low session, and you can move that difference or not. What does not change is the value of your time and your training: the online session is full clinical work, not a reduced version. I decide with numbers, not with guilt.

What do I do if a patient tells me he can't afford the adjustment?

First, take it to session: the relationship with money is also clinical material. Then, evaluate concrete options: incorporate it into your differential rate quota if you have a place, space the frequency, or a responsible referral if there is no way to sustain the treatment. What is not appropriate is to freeze the fee indefinitely without criteria, because that silent arrangement ends up weighing on the link.

Do I have to collect the first interview?

It is professional work: you prepare the meeting, you dedicate your time and apply your clinical judgment from the first minute. Our suggestion is to charge it, and if you decide not to, make it a conscious choice and not an apology. In any case, communicate the value before the meeting to avoid misunderstandings.

Should we publish the fees?

There is not a single answer. Publishing them filters queries that are not going to materialize and saves uncomfortable conversations; not publishing them gives you room to differentiate according to the case. The important thing is that, published or not, the value is defined before you are asked: the doubt when responding also communicates.

Free Brauni test for 30 days, no card

Automatic session notes, digital medical records and more.

Start for free

Summary

"Coach what you think is right" is not an answer: fees are defined with a floor, a calculation and a positioning criterion.
The floor is the minimum ethical fees published by the school of your jurisdiction. They are updated periodically: always consult the current value.
Your balance point comes out of a formula: fixed monthly costs plus non-invoicing hours, divided by your actual sessions of the month. To charge below that is to attend to loss.
To position you above the floor weigh experience, specialization and demand. The waiting list is the most honest thermometer.
Adjust with a predefined frequency, notify in writing two to four weeks in advance and without apologizing.
The differential rate works with quota, clear criteria and periodic review. Without that, it messes with practice.
Absences are charged according to a cancellation policy communicated since the first interview.

How much to charge for the session: fee guide for psychologists