Pricing Your Doula Packages
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Welcome to doula Tips and Tits. This podcast is a place where we answer one question about doula work, both to support you and to help you support your clients. I'm Kaylee Harrod. I've been supporting families in this perinatal space since my oldest was born, 12, nearly 13 years ago.
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I am a birth and postpartum doula childbirth educator, La Leche League leader and a doula coach. I love guiding and supporting doulas as they work out their doula business. It is a tremendous joy to be trusted in this way.
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Thank you for joining us on this journey. Welcome back to doula Tips and Tits. Today we're talking about doula package prices. Now if you have seen in the show notes or maybe you heard at the beginning of the episode that we have a freebie that I just made just for you that came out, I guess about three or four weeks ago now, that's called building your kick -ass doula packages.
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Now this guide helps you think about what kind of services and packages you want to have, how you want to price them, and then how to make them sound awesome, what things to include in them. If you're anything like me, when you are thinking about talking about your offers, you're like, I am a doula, right?
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Like your language is like, I will help you have a baby, you know? And I am not laughing at you or me, but I am kind of resonating with the fact that we as doulas very rarely come into this work with marketing background or with, you know, a proclivity towards copywriting.
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And so those are skills that we have to learn along the way. This package guide helps you do that because it gives you the language of how to write out things in like a sexier way, right? Now, what I want you to think about today, so want you to go download that guide.
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The link is in the show notes, so please check that out and go and grab that today. There's no reason not to. It is free. However, today we're going to talk specifically about prices. So this is something that I see all the time and relates back to last episode's topic, which was what if I don't make enough money?
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Honestly, I think we set our prices in some really ridiculous ways. Like we think about being cheap or affordable, however you want to talk about that, in a way that undermines us as doulas. And I think when we think about like free births and things like that, like what we're actually doing is undercutting our own pay and then also charging ourselves money, right?
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Like we are actually paying for that. And I think it's easy to forget those things when we aren't kind of naturally inclined towards business thinking. We'll be right back. And so when I hear someone say like, okay, I need to make $4 ,000 a month.
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And so I have four clients a month and I charged them all $1 ,000. My first thought is then you are not making $4 ,000 a month because you have fees for that money that's coming in probably, depending on how you're collecting money.
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And you have costs associated with serving those clients. You also have the potential cost of backup. If you have four people do, there's a decently high chance of backup at some point. And then you have just the ongoing business expenses.
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Like if you have a website or if you have a virtual assistant or if you have anything, like any kind of virtual anything, like even just, I have Vimeo because I have, I have a pro Vimeo account, I have a pro Zoom account because I do two hours Zooms with all of my clients, and because I do webinars and master classes and all of that on Zoom.
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So the expenses that I have as a business are higher than yours maybe, right? Like they're higher right now than they ever have been. So I'm not saying your expenses are what my expenses are, but also I'm saying that $4 ,000 does not equal $4 ,000 when we're talking about the money that comes into the business versus the money that goes out of the business.
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So I want you to think about what you need to make and then think about what it's going to cost you and how much money you need to leave into the business and how much money you need for taxes. These are the things that you need to factor in as you're setting your prices, because if you're not, then you're never going to have enough.
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You're always gonna be behind. And then we go back to that, what if I don't make enough money as a doula, which I guess was two episodes ago, then we are going back to that place and we're in this desperation of letting people hire us when we shouldn't, hire us who aren't a good fit, taking on more work than we need to, having ourselves just like be run into the ground because we actually are not charging what we need to charge.
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Now in general, I am an advocate for raising prices. That is true all the time. However, I do fully understand that that is scary. So I want you to do some reflection here. I want you to think about what does it look like for you to raise your prices to a place that actually would be sustainable for you.
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How would that feel? And also does that feel terrifying, right? And if it does, why? Like sit with that for a little bit and think through that a bit and think about what can you do to help your brain not be afraid of making what you need, you know, because we really undervalue ourselves in this profession.
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And I'm not a huge fan of Of the whole idea of like charging your worth like I'm I can't charge people millions of dollars and I would say I'm worth You know a million dollars or so but Also, I think it there is something to be said for paying Yourself the best that anyone's ever paid you right and not not to an extent of like You know exclusivity like it doesn't have to be to the point of saying like not a single person can afford me But also you don't need to be the cheapest like that's not that's not a goal here in this work, right?
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We don't want to be the clearance rack doulas That's that's a not a good way to have sustainability in your business you're going to burn out like crazy and be the kind of value that you're providing is reflected in that and then You actually can grow some resentment and whatnot from having the level of stress that you have of not having enough money and Having a lot of work to do.
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So I know that sounds like I was the person as an early doula saying like my $800 package has no negative impact on anyone else and doesn't have any impact on me and It did it did have negative impact on the profession on other people and on me And I was not willing to admit that at the time And I think that when we look at the prices around us and we keep ourselves boxed in by those prices That is a problem.
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Like that is not the kind of place that we should be making that decision from so I'll get off that high horse for a moment. I do want you to go download that that free guide. It's a free guide Why would you not download it?
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But also it works it walks you through the process of kind of looking at your packages If you already have your packages set I would still use it because you want to think about okay Am I doing this in a way that's sustainable?
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If not, what is my plan to change that because not sustainable equals my business dies out at some point, right? Like you stop being a doula. That is not what you want. And so, I mean, if that is what you want, you don't need the guide, right?
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But I'm guessing it's not because you're here listening to the podcast. And so when you're thinking about looking this over, I think have fresh eyes, right? Fresh eyes for new ideas and new space in your business because the reality is that very few of us charge what we should be charging.
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And then we're just working our butts off to a point that we will do detriment and harm to ourselves. So, all right, that is my prep talk for today. Go download that guide. Connect with me on Instagram at hiradoula and let me know what you think of it.
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I would love to hear your thoughts on the guide and also about your amazing packages. All right, I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the doula Tips and Tits podcast.
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If you learned something today or had an aha moment, we'd love for you to share that on Instagram and tag us at hiradoula so we can celebrate alongside you. If you found this podcast helpful, we would so appreciate you taking a second to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app.
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That helps other doulas find us as we do this work together. This podcast is intended as educational and entertainment. It is not medical advice or business advice. Please consult your own medical or legal team for your own needs around your health and your business.
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We'll see you again soon.
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Why do we do this to ourselves as doulas? We set our pricing so low. So let’s talk about creating packages that make sense for what you need income wise. It can be intimidating to raise your prices, so let’s put a number reason behind why you need to.
Quote from the show:
“Honestly, I think we set our prices in some really ridiculous ways. Like we think about being cheap or affordable, however you want to talk about that, in a way that undermines us as doulas. And I think when we think about like free births and things like that, like what we're actually doing is undercutting our own pay and then also charging ourselves money, right? Like we are actually paying for that. And I think it's easy to forget those things when we aren't kind of naturally inclined towards business thinking.”
CONNECT with Kaely on TikTok or Instagram
https://www.tiktok.com/@doulacoach
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Kaely Daily is produced by Kaely Harrod of Harrod Doula Services
It is sponsored by The Birth Prep Blueprint Childbirth Class
Music by Madirfan: Hidden Place on Pixabay
