How much does an average massage therapist make a year?

How much money does a massage therapist make in a year?

• Answer:

  It all depends on the hours and massage that a therapist can handle in a day. On a perfect day I can do 4 massages very well .The 5th one I'm getting tired. We get paid 50% plus tips on whatever we do. Massage therapist can make ok money but I have been doing this for 11 years and my hands are paying the price .I get cortizone in my wrist for tendonitis. We have no benefits and we have no retirement. You have to be a therapist for the love of it. Its not easy work. But I do love when I can take away someones pain or just make them feel great after a good massage. So to answer your question, it all depends on how many clients you are able to do. I am just graduating school for massage therapy and I have learned that you can make a lot of money with massage therapy. I do agree that it can have its downside with no insurance, but if you are very determined you can make a great deal of money with massage therapy. For example, massages average about $60 - $80/ for a one hour full body massage. If you were to work for a company/spa/chiropractor's office then you would make 50%-75% depending on the office. That amounts to anywhere from $30-$60/hr, $600-$1200/wk, $2400-$4800/mo, $28800-$57600 . If you were to travel to people's house's then you could charge $50-$75 and keep all of it. That means that a massage therapist who works 20 hours per wk, you would be averaging $1,000-$1500 per wk, $4000-$6000 per wk and $48000-$72000 per year. Not bad for working part time and doing something you love. The key is to promoting yourself well and obtaining and keeping repeat customers. Almost double the income if you work for yourself. Good luck! First off, disclaimer; I am not a therapist nor do I have any knowledge at all on the subject, but, as a entrepreneur/small business owner I can improve a lot on this answer. When you are working on your own, you are responsible for a lot of things that you may not realize. Vehicle maintenance, overhead, insurance, retirement, Federal tax, Income Tax. I know that it doesn't sound like much, but those are things you cannot forgo. So now you have to ad at least 5 hours a week to keep up with all those things, and knock down about 50% of that income to take care of those other items properly. so that 48K to 72k quickly turns to a 24k to 36k. It is really expensive to run a business and very time consuming to manage it right. Do not forget, you have to do your own client prospecting, you have to go hunting down Doctors and Chiropractors, introduce yourself to the professional community in your region, make yourself available to make new business partnerships, and a whole bunch of other things. Since this is related to the medical field, ad on top of all this medical data entry, managing client insurance information, and last but not least collections. I am not trying to scare those new graduates, just sharing some of my experiences, to do a business right takes a lot of effort, but once you have started right, then it becomes an entity of its own and you can proudly watch take shape and grow. If you do it wrong, looking for that quick cash and cutting corners, you'll never make it out of the "knock knock massage" niche.