Massage Therapy Salaries and Benefits
Massage Therapy Salaries vary greatly by region, place
of work and employers and whether you are a regular employee, a sub-contractor,
a part time employee. If there is one piece of information I can bring to
people who are looking into careers in massage it is this - Massage Schools will
try to tell you that you will be able to make $60-$65 an hour or they will try
to tell you that you can make $75K a year. The truth is that you
won't be doing that in a job in massage. You can do it if you start your
own business, but massage jobs only pay about $12-$20 an hour and you don't make
that unless you have a client. Full time work in the massage profession is
about 20-25 hours because of the physical demands of the work.
Here are more of the facts:
ABMP
Media Center - Massage Profession Metrics - Most accurate information
regarding the profession.
"Nearly half of the respondents report
supplementing their income with another job (45.2 percent), a job at which they
spend an average of 25 hours per week." Total earnings average
$32,506
Us Dept of Labor
"Median hourly earnings of massage therapists, including gratuities earned, were
$15.36 in May 2004. The middle 50 percent earned between $9.78 and $23.82. The
lowest 10 percent earned less than $7.16, and the highest 10 percent earned more
than $32.21. Generally, massage therapists earn 15 to 20 percent of their income
as gratuities. For those who work in a hospital or other clinical setting,
however, tipping is not common."
The employer can charge between $55 -$100 and more for a
massage (and charge extra for additional services.) What they actually pay
an employee is a very small percentage of that.
An ideal job (which are few and far between) would look
something like this if you are lucky to find this situation:
- $25.00-$45 per hour as a full employee.
- $25-$45 per hour if you are a sub-contractor as you
have to pay your own taxes.
- 25 hours maximum of actual hands on massage or less.
- 15 minute increments between appointments
- Consistent hours.
- Consistent days off.
- Full pay when you do not have a client.
- light phone duty, filing duty or other minor cleaning
duties if no clients.
- Health insurance completely paid for and option to
add family members for a fee.
- Incentives for booking repeat customers
- Vacation pay no less than 2 weeks a year preferably 4
weeks per year (1 per quarter) to help avoid burnout and injuries.
- Retirement funding of some sort.
In my opinion, if you are getting less than this you are
being taken advantage of and your risk for burnout and injury will increase
accordingly. It isn't worth it to work for less no matter how desperate
you are. Working to change your beliefs about money and your own value can
help you in getting the job of your desires.
If you are already a massage therapist and want
to know more about how to get higher paying jobs in the massage profession see
more in my Ebook -
The Massage Job Guide where I explain how to overcome many of the issues
that are currently holding massage therapists back from earning more.
If you are just in the process of researching careers in massage and want to
know more about what you are getting into and some of the things that massage
schools won't tell you about read -The Massage
Therapy Career Guide - The truth about becoming a massage therapist.
