When I first learned Ashiatsu barefoot massage, my instructor told our class that we should definitely charge more for the modality. The theory behind it was that people would pay more for a specialty massage.

I had been working at a day spa, and we were supposed to charge more for deep tissue and hot stone. “Supposed to” being the key words, as no one ever booked the pricier massage but simply asked for more pressure.

Paying more for hot stone massage–I get it! There’s a lot of prep time and clean up time, so there’s the massage time plus a good additional 15-20 minutes of extra work. Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to include the time spent trying to fix my frizz ball hair I had after sticking my head over a hot pot of steaming water. 😉

Bringing ashiatsu to paying clients, the problem I first encountered was that I worked for a chiropractor who did insurance billing. Massage is massage is massage in the land of billing. No upccharge for craniosacral, trigger point, ashiatsu, etc.

On my own–let’s charge more!

So when I started to take my own ashiatsu clients, I decided to charge just $5 more. At the time, my fee was $50/hour, so an extra 5 bucks seemed reasonable. But then my first client, who is 6’3″ and 240 lbs, said he’d love to try it but couldn’t afford $55.  He could barely squeeze out the $50.

“Nevermind!” I answered. “I’ll do ashi anyway because it’ll be easier on me and I know you’ll love it!”

With regret, client number 2 said something similar.It occurred to me that I’d rather charge more for hands-on massage instead of vice versa.

Basically, I just stopped doing deep tissue massage with my hands and only gave the option of barefoot massage if the client wanted deep bodywork.

This worked really well for a couple of reasons:

1. I didn’t stress about having to charge more money.
2. I could easily talk people into trying ashiatsu because it was basically a money back guarantee–“Don’t like it? I’ll hop off the table and we can just do regular massage.” (No one in 15 years has ever taken me up on the offer).
3. It’s easy to incorporate any other modality into the session as I see fit without having to tell them it’ll be extra money. Cupping? Right on. I’ll just hop off the table for a few minutes and do that. Stretching? No problem! Let’s do it.

This has served me well for many years. My theory is that people shouldn’t have to pay more for their body type (big, muscular, deep-tissue-boney-ladies, pregnant, etc.)

But why should you charge more?

A common reason for charging more for ashiatsu or a specialty massage is that it cost you time and money to learn the modality. In the case of barefoot massage, you may have a significant investment as far as installing the bars (don’t let that scare you–it’s not the case lots of times).

Continuing eduation can be spendy. In 2002, I paid over $1000 just for the class, airfare, lodging, and rental car. I haven’t added in the cost of money lost for taking 5 days off of work.  Also I have not included the price of having my ashiatsu bars installed.

But I learned Ashiatsu to save my career.

What is especially relevant here is that the average career span of a massage therapist is 3-5 years. Burnout, injury, repetitive use strains, etc. are the common causes. You spend a year or 2 and lots of money learning your craft. Wouldn’t you want to continue doing it?

Not charging more for any modality has served me well for the past 18 years. I know that some people charge higher for different massage skills and hey–good for you!

You need to do what works best for you, though, not what’s necessarily common in the industry.

Do you charge more for some massage modalities?