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Your Doula Business

How should I price my doula services?

By Charlotte Bailey

Photo of Charlotte Bailey. Charlotte is a white woman with long dark hair and she's wearing a floral shirt.

When setting up your doula business, one of the most fundamental things you need to decide is how much to charge for your services. Setting your pricing correctly from the outset is an important part of your business success – although don’t worry, you can tweak it as you go along, too!

However, get it wrong and you risk either not earning enough money to cover your basic needs or you’ll be too expensive for your customers. So let’s take a closer look at how you might appropriately set (or re-set) your pricing…

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, confession time…It upsets me SO much to see incredible doulas – not exclusively, but most often women – charging much less than the value that they bring to their clients, struggling to make ends meet and concluding that being a doula is not a viable business option. Undercharging for your services doesn’t do anyone any favours. It actually pulls down the amount that other doulas can charge, making those whose fees are proportional to the difference they can bring to clients seem like they’re over charging. I’ve had potential clients ask me why I “charge so much when another local doula (not an NB doula!) charges half the amount?” Tricky one. I wonder where that doula is now; I haven’t heard her name since or seen her at on/offline doula events or any local networking groups. I hope she is still working, but my strong suspicion is probably not. And then there were the 3 times (yes 3!) I’ve been called to support a client at the very last minute because the 1st choice (cheaper) doula is either no longer able to deliver on their commitments or has suddenly ghosted the client.

The thing is that most (if not all) customers want the cheaper option. Don’t we all love a bargain?! I do! But if a client is choosing to work with you solely because you’re the cheapest option, is that really the kind of client you want to work with and have they truly understood the value of receiving support from a doula? We live in a world of dream-boat clients and extremely testing clients. Go find the dream-boat clients and stop undercharging! (I know there’s a grey area here concerning vulnerable pregnant women and birthing people in financial hardship but I’ll circle back to address this shortly… stay with me!).

Your time is precious. Your skills are valuable. We offer an exchange of our time and skills for money. So how much is your time worth to you? You need to start by figuring that out. This is of key importance, and it’s something that is discussed on the Nurturing Birth courses.

Most self-employed people running service-based businesses – plumbers, private tutors, beauty therapists etc – will charge by the hour and use a structured approach to calculating their rates. They decide an hourly rate they want and calculate out from there. For instance, a boiler replacement may take 6 hours to complete and the plumber charges £85 per hour, thus the fee for the job is 6 x £85 = £510. Or a massage therapist works for £30 per hour and thus charges £45 for a 90 minute treatment. This could work really well when pricing for antenatal and postnatal sessions. However, the problem with charging by the hour as a Birth Doula is that we cannot predict how long a birth will continue on for. It seems grossly unfair to put a birthing woman or person in a position where they’re calculating how much your support is costing them out of fear they’ll exceed their budget, rather than relaxing into their labour.

The answer therefore might be to choose a fixed price for a birth package. If the client is happy with a fixed price then it doesn’t matter how short/long their birth is. Obviously, you still need to know your hourly rate based on roughly how long an average labour takes, but the client doesn’t need to think about this.

I’ve been self-employed for about 15 years. I’ve learnt (the hard way) that if I charge any less than £30 per hour for my time, I struggle to make enough money to live on. But that’s LOADS more than minimum wage! I hear you cry. I wouldn’t feel comfortable charging that! Then please, please understand this:

An employee is paid when on holiday, when sick, when taking a coffee break, eating lunch, meeting new potential clients, travelling between client meetings. They’re provided with an office, the overheads are paid for as well as their business expenses, insurances and pension schemes.

As a self-employed person you don’t get paid when on holiday, off sick, on a break or having lunch. You do not get paid for doing your accounts, updating your website or attending networking meetings to find new clients. You do not get paid for the time spent being interviewed by new clients. You pay for your DBS, insurance, office resources and running costs. You do your own marketing, your own sales, you pay for your accounting and legal fees. You pay for your training and any additional CPD.

The hourly rate for an employee is approximated by dividing the annual salary by two and removing three zeros. So, if an employee earns a £30,000 salary, that’s roughly £15 per hour. But it DOES NOT work like that when you’re self-employed. If you want to make £30,000 per year from self-employment you will have to charge significantly more than £15 per hour.

So, how many hours can you actually charge for?

A great starting point is to decide how many hours you can feasibly spend face-to-face with your clients. If you’re offering birth support and working without a back-up you may feel that 1 or 2 births is the maximum you could support in a month. You may feel you want to limit the number of on-call weeks per year which will determine how many birth clients you can realistically support each year. Outside of supporting at the birth, you’ll likely be offering antenatal and postnatal doula support, so how will that time commitment work around any other obligations you may be balancing? Whatever limits the number of clients you can work with in a year, you’ll need to adjust your fees to off-set the ‘down time’.

The main things to consider:

  • The maximum number of hours you can work each day/ week
  • Travel time and lunch breaks
  • How many days per week you can work
  • How many days of holiday you want each year (the standard for the employed is 20 days plus 8 bank holidays)
  • How many days you need to assign to finding clients (attending MVP meetings, local doula gatherings, networking events etc)
  • How much time you need to set aside for admin (website updates, bookkeeping, invoicing, social media content creation etc)
  • How many sick days you ought to allocate (10 is common in employment)
  • Predicted work rate – this is such a tricky thing to estimate. Research I’ve done suggests estimating actual billable work won at 70% which you can review after your first year of business and it will likely improve with each year if you continue to deliver on a clear business growth strategy
  • Potential Earnings (your ‘guestimate’ hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours you are available to work x 70%)
  • Business running costs
  • Fuel and car maintenance
  • Mentoring/ CPD
  • Insurance/ DBS/ First Aid Certificate
  • Accounting and Legal Fees
  • Phone and Internet
  • Consumables – stationary, essential oils, drinking straws etc
  • Professional/ Networking memberships
  • Revised Earnings – Now you know your running costs you can deduct them from your Potential Earnings. If that’s leaving you out of pocket or short of your financial goals, then you need to adjust your hourly rate! In 2019, the average salary in UK was £36,611 according to this site so what would your hourly rate need to be in order to bring your annual earnings inline with the UK average? Having run these figures myself, I’m willing to bet it’s around £30 per hour.

Please understand that I am not sharing this information with you to be prescriptive. What you choose to charge for your services is ultimately up to you. But I want you to be successful. I want pregnant women and birthing people to benefit from receiving support from energised, grounded, compassionate doulas just like you. I don’t want you to hit compassion fatigue, burn out and pull away from your calling. This is a wake-up call. Reducing your fees may give an initial boost to the volume of clients but it’ll be temporary and working for such low rates is not sustainable. Keep the long-term view in sight and stay out of the race to the bottom.

Before I round off, I said I’d address the point about keeping doulas accessible to those in need.

When I launched my doula business in 2016 I was keen to make doula support accessible to those who were vulnerable and in financial hardship. Having reviewed my packages, personal financial needs and availability I aimed to support at least one pro-bono client per year. It took me longer than I hoped to build up to the number of births per year required to make this happen, but last year (my busiest year for births to date) I was able to offer a return client a hugely discounted birth package so that she could secure the support she wanted, at a price she could afford. I know many other doulas who will commit to supporting a specific number of births via the various different charities as an alternative option.

Please don’t see this as bragging. I’m trying to illustrate the fact that, despite being the most ‘expensive’ doula in Hampshire, I am working consistently and my client base grows each year. I am working well within my capacity, my energy level is high, I am able to afford regular mentoring sessions which keep my doula practice healthy, and I feel great about delivering on my promise to keep doula support accessible. My hope is that you experience the same and so much more.

If you would like to book a mentoring session to discuss your business practice as a doula please click on this link – https://courses.nurturingbirth.co.uk/mentoring-booking-form

I am literally bursting with excitement to have joined the team of facilitators at NB. Supporting fledgling Doulas as they take flight into the birth world is pure joy; I have limited ability in enabling birthing people to have awesome births, but by supporting Doulas as they support others, the impact ripples on and on. I am filled with hope that together we can make a real difference. – Charlotte

If you would like to reach out to Charlotte to discuss her becoming your doula mentor, click here: https://nurturingbirth.co.uk/mentors/charlotte-bailey/

Charlotte’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/birth.warriors

Charlotte’s Facebook: www.facebook.com/birthwarriors

What am I doing wrong? (Why am I not getting doula clients?)

By Sophie Brigstocke

Photo of Sophie Brigstocke. Sophie is a white woman with long, light brown hair and she's wearing a blue top.

This week a new doula was sharing that she hadn’t got any clients yet and wondered what she was doing wrong.

It’s been almost twenty years since I stepped into self-employment and I can still remember those early days when there was more fear than excitement around making it work.

It was so easy to look at what other people were offering and think that I wasn’t as desirable. It was so easy to dive into stories like …

  • Why would someone choose me over that amazing doula over there who also offers hypnobirthing
  • Why would someone pick me when I haven’t done any/many births?
  • Why would someone pick me when I haven’t got additional feeding qualifications?
  • Why would someone choose me when I didn’t have the “right” birth experience myself?

Comparisonitis as I like to describe it – the illness of comparing ourselves to others – it is rarely helpful!

Thankfully, on this call, there were other wonderful doulas – some really experienced and others nearer the start of their doula journey – who were all able to listen and offer reassurance and useful suggestions. I love the Nurturing Birth community so much – always compassionate and supportive. There was also a mentor who had valuable reflective questions to ask the doula about what they were actively doing to attract clients in.

Becoming a doula is not just about being passionate about supporting families in the perinatal period, it is also about stepping into running a business. We build business development into all our courses, however we also recognise the need for ongoing support which is why mentoring is so fundamental to everything we offer, as well as our weekly Virtual Cuppa gatherings.

Last week we had one of our regular Dreaming of Being a Doula workshops – an ideal opportunity for anyone thinking of training to be a doula – two hours of being in a Nurturing Birth space, hearing from recent Nurturing Birth course attendees and having your questions answered. Why not take a look at the next dates and sign up?

For anyone who wants to work one-to-one on self-confidence, removing limiting beliefs and setting positive goals for their future then come and spend a Step Into Your Power day with me. Those who have joined me recently have had such positive feedback, like Jan:

“I feel fabulous. The fear’s gone, the worry’s gone … Absolutely, would recommend this to anyone, it really, really has started another chapter for me, so thank you so much.”

Hope you have a wonderful week!

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How to market your doula business

Image of a woman thinking and planning. The woman is Brown skinned with shoulder length curly hair. She's wearing a white top and is reading a book.

When you’re looking at ways to market your doula business, social media often feels like the best and only option. And sure, social media platforms do offer the opportunity to reach thousands of users. But are the majority of those users your potential customers?

Probably not! Many people follow a great social media page but aren’t local enough to be a client, or are simply interested in the information being shared, with no plan to book your doula services. That may not be the best way to market your doula business!

That doesn’t mean that having a strong social media story isn’t important. It just means that there are lots of other really effective other ways promote your doula business as well. Here are some of our favourites.

1. Harness the power of SEO and optimise your website for local searches

3.5 billion searches are made on Google every day and according to stats, roughly four out of five people  use search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing to find local services. Optimising your website for local search results can make a huge difference to the number of people who discover your business online. And the best news, SEO is free!

Here’s how it works. Search engine ‘spiders’ (automated site visitors) visit and check out your website on a regular basis and use the content to understand who you are, what you do, where you are based and who you serve. To help them understand these things make sure the words on your website make these things ultra clear.

Here’s an example: <Your name here> is a birth and post-natal doula based in <where you live here>, I offer a variety of pregnancy, birth and baby services, including <a few examples here>.

If you’re a local yoga studio offering pregnancy or  baby yoga, make sure Google knows it by using words such as: From gentle pregnancy yoga to bouncing baby yoga classes <Your name or business name> welcomes all to our yoga studio in <your location here>. 

Try to think of phrases that people would use to search for you, and make sure they’re there on the page, as early as possible in the text, and perhaps repeated a few times. It’s important to not over-fill the page with the same search term, though, as search engines will see through that! Make the text sound natural, not as though you’re just trying to pack it with keywords. Balance is important.

2. Try out a local networking event

That’s right, it’s time to go meet some actual people! Local networking events are a great place to market your doula business as well as learn some really useful tips on business management. Pick the right meeting and you might also have the opportunity to investigate potential collaborations and even make some fab new business besties.

There are probably several dozen networking groups within your county and whilst not all might suit your personality or your business there’s bound to be a good fit closer to home than you think.

4Networking offers UK-wide events with over 5000 active groups, whilst BNI boasts over 12,000 members across the country.

Female only and mums networking meetings are also on the rise. BizMums offer small meetups across much of the country, as do the Mumpreneurs Networking Club and the Mums in Business Association. Remember, you’re not just speaking to business people, you’re speaking to people. And people have babies! Perhaps there’s pregnant women or people there in the meeting, or maybe they know someone who is pregnant.

Take along a smile and a fistful of business cards; who knows what might come of it!

3. Offer to write for your local rag

There’s no shortage of free and paid for local magazines and newspapers, all looking for great content. If you’re a dab hand with words you might want to consider offering a regular or semi regular short article on pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding or your particular doula interest. Try to make sure that they include a short bio about you, eg, “Nicola is a postnatal doula covering Guildford. She can be reached on [insert your website, phone number, social media and Nurturing Birth Directory listing!]

These articles are often read by pregnant women and people, or passed to them by friends and family, and you might build a local following of people who then learn more about how your services could be just the thing they didn’t realise they need!

4. Consider advertising in your local paper

Local papers often have a small but very loyal readership which makes print advertising within your local or regional paper potentially worthwhile as a way to market your doula business. If you think your ideal customer might be a newspaper reader, it’s well worth looking into the opportunities on offer. Poppy Rose Matless is an Advertising Agent on the Eastern Daily Press in Norfolk and gave us this advice:

“Local advertising provides lots of great benefits, here at the EDP we reach over 100k readers a day. We treat each client as an individual, when a business buys an advertising slot we’ll design a full colour advert to the exact size they need, free of charge. We feed back to them so they can make changes and have full input in the design process – this service alone can save our advertisers several hundred pounds.”

5. Exhibit at local baby shows

Pregnancy and baby shows can be a great way to get your doula business in front of local mums and mums-to-be. But they can also be costly. There will be an exhibitor fee to pay and then you have to hire a table. You’ll also need plenty of leaflets, business cards and perhaps a pop-up banner to attract attention.

Before you sign up, do your research. Don’t be afraid to ask the organiser questions about expected visitor numbers. If you know similar businesses who have attended previous shows get in touch and ask how it went for them.

You might be able to offset some of the costs of the stand by offering some pregnancy or birth related merch, if that’s your bag. Maybe you like to crochet or knit and could have beautiful baby hats and bootees to offer. Perhaps you sew nappies or slings, or you’re an artist and you can paint or photograph families and babies. There’s no reason why your stand can’t be multi-functional, while still clearly sharing information about your doula services. You can market your doula business and your doula related businesses together!

As you can see, marketing your doula business can be so much more than that next Instagram post and local marketing means you’re more likely to connect with people who are actually going to be able to book you as a doula. Let us know what works for you! What helps you most when you’re marketing your doula business?

Don’t forget to follow Nurturing Birth’s Instagram account and, if you’ve completed your course and you have your certificate, our Nurturing Birth Doulas Facebook page (contact us for access if you don’t know how).

How to support your Doula Business over Christmas

Oooh… there’s a whiff of excitement in the air and it smells like cinnamon and mulled wine! People are officially using the C word… which can mean only one thing. How the jeepers did Christmas creep round so quickly (again!)? And how do you support your doula business while also having a bit of a rest?

We’re all hoping for a fabulous Christmas. Let’s face it, we need it and we deserve it after the challenges of the last few years! Of course, the business of birth continues, and doulas keep on working. And to do that we need to keep on promoting our services. How do we do that at this busy time of year?

Well don’t worry! The Nurturing Birth team is on the case and we’re here to share four secrets to keeping your marketing efforts on point so you can slay that festive guilt, and focus on more pressing things, like your next cocktail choice, thinking up creative ideas for Elf on the Shelf or which present to open first!

The secret to staying visible, active and sustaining your marketing efforts throughout the Christmas holidays is to take a more relaxed, slimline approach.  This way you’ll still look like you’re blogging, posting on social media, and chatting with your subscribers, but, secretly, you could be lying (totally laptop-less) on the sofa letting your lunch go down and catching up on TV. Your doula business doesn’t have to take a back seat just because you are!

Christmas Marketing for Doulas

Republish your Blogs

You don’t always have to create brand new doula blogs. If you’ve been blogging for a while you’ve probably got more than enough content to republish some of your favourite, or more popular older articles instead. Your newer followers may not have noticed a particular blog first-time around (or second or third in fact) so don’t worry! And if you’re sharing great content then that content is still great and is still really valuable to parents. That’s what it’s all about! Not only does this help your time management, refreshing blogs (or any website content) helps your SEO rankings, too! remember to schedule blogs ahead of time so that they pop up regularly without you having to remember to do anything about it.

Schedule Your Social Media

There are stacks of social media scheduling apps around and some are worth their weight in brandy-doused Christmas pud. Scheduling your social media in advance gives you that Superdoula feeling of having everything organised for the entire week by 7am on Monday! If you’re feeling totally overwhelmed, it’s ok to give yourself permission to scale back on the number of posts you write and publish, and avoid posting on the days where people are more likely to be focused on turkey and crackers than searching for a doula.

Maintaining your visibility is important and if the bare minimum is one post a day, then schedule one post a day on each of your social media platforms. Manage your follower expectations by posting that you’re taking a wee break over the festive season. Many of your followers will likely be doing the same so they will totally understand. This way you’re keeping your doula services visible, supporting people and at the same time drinking wine. Everyone’s a winner.

Create & Schedule Your Newsletter(s)

If you’re a weekly newsletter sender, then ease that festive burden and adopt a monthly approach during December and January. A bumper Christmas edition or two (which also directs your subscribers to your republished blogs) is perfectly acceptable – and sometimes more likely to be read. Save more time by creating and scheduling your newsletters in advance and you’ll know your subscribers won’t assume you’ve abandoned them. Ah… the beauty of automation. We love it!

Decide on a Simple Christmas Content Subject and Stick to it

Another great way to avoid trying to post on Facebook while you’re tucking into your trifle is to think about (and plan) the type of doula content you want to focus on over the next six to ten weeks.  Keep it easy by sifting through your calendar and finding any upcoming National or International days which fit with your interest as a doula. Take a handful of your blogs and weave the same doula / pregnancy / birth related subject thread through your social media pages and newsletters too. Support your doula business with useful content for your potential clients.

In need of inspiration? Check out:

So go and enjoy your Christmas, make family memories (kids grow up so quickly!) and slay that festive business guilt. If you have any other ideas of how to support your doula business over the Christmas period, let us know!

Come January you’ll feel refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to conquer the world, again!

Nurturing Doulas – The Virtual Cuppa

Photo of a cup of tea with the text "Time for a Virtual Cuppa" and the Nurturing Birth logo

Community has always been really important at Nurturing Birth and pre-pandemic we often arranged opportunities to gather doulas together. 

One of the blessings of the pandemic was having to think outside the box.  Along with the rest of the world we became friends with Zoom, and, craving connection, we decided to create The Virtual Cuppa.  Hosted once a week in the daytime, and once a month in the evening, this was an opportunity for any Nurturing Birth-trained doula to come and join us for an hour to just be with other doulas and chat through anything that was affecting them as a doula in the current time. 

The Virtual Cuppa is now a fixture of many doulas’ weeks.  We have a lovely group of doulas who regularly attend as well as people who drop in for the occasional session, depending on the topic up for discussion or their availability. Doulas join us from across the globe and deep friendships have formed that wouldn’t otherwise have existed.  One of the fun things we do is ask people to add their location to their name on their Zoom account. It’s a joy when you see doulas realising that they are locals, be that in London, Northern Ireland or even further afield, like Abu Dhabi!

The Virtual Cuppa is a space for the doulas to decide what they want to discuss. The range of topics has been fascinating – from freebirth to business marketing.  And, the expertise comes from the group.  Most weeks we give people the opportunity to go in to smaller breakout rooms to chat through questions on a topic before returning to the larger group.  It gives all doulas, whether they are brand-new or hugely experienced, whether they are super-confident or shy and reserved a chance to share, be heard and speak if they want. 

For some doulas The Virtual Cuppa has been described as the highlight of their week. It feeds our souls to have so much time with Nurturing Birth doulas, to hear their stories, to hold space and provide somewhere for connection.  It is truly inspirational for us as we develop and grow, and being online anyone can access it! While we will undoubtedly want to start in-person meet ups at some point in the future, The Online Virtual Cuppa will remain a staple of Nurturing Birth’s doula support.

Access to The Virtual Cuppa is available for all doulas who have completed the Nurturing Birth doula training. If you’d like to join us, please see the Nurturing Birth Doulas Facebook page for the access code.

Nurturing Doulas – Nurturing Birth’s Retreat Days

Photograph of a tree and roots to represent grounding and growth of doulas during the Retreat.

Given that our company name is Nurturing Birth we often talk as a team about what it truly means to nurture.  It really saddens me when I see doulas caring for everyone but themselves!  There seems to be a belief that those in caring professions should put themselves last.  However, there are two expressions that really resonate for me:

The first is “Put your own oxygen mask on first”.  A lot of people argue that it is selfish to focus on yourself first, however I ask you how caring and helpful are you going to be without oxygen in your lungs?  

The second feels very doula-centric, given that we often spend time tea-drinking with our clients, listening to them and holding space.  “You cannot pour from an empty cup” makes sense – we need to fill our own cups before we can pour energy, heart and soul into the people and families we work with.  Our work is so vital and yet we often give so much of ourselves that we are left feeling depleted, exhausted and, if we are not careful, burnt out and resentful.  Over the years we have seen many doulas reach a point of burnout, so much so that they have stepped away from the role entirely, which is so sad. 

We created our Retreat Days at Nurturing Birth because we recognised the need that so many doulas have for connection – with each other, but also with themselves.  Bringing doulas together to share, to have space for reflection, to be nourished, was so special and the feedback was incredibly positive. 

Our Retreat Days are designed for doulas and birth workers to replenish – to fill that cup – so that we leave feeling recharged, revitalised and ready to go back out there and support people in a way that we love.   

Recently, we have upgraded our Retreat Days with the aim of nourishing body, mind and spirit. Having gone to our brilliant Nurturing Birth community and asked them what they wanted from a Retreat we have brought in collaborators and specialists so that we can weave together gentle movement sessions, relaxation, delicious food and opportunities for reflective work, all within lovely settings designed to leave you feeling calmer and more connected, both with yourself and other lovely doulas and birth keepers.  

Nurturing Birth’s focus goes beyond training doulas, to continue to provide spaces where doulas can be supported, be those virtual (at our weekly Virtual Cuppas or on our private Facebook group), one-to-one via mentoring sessions or in-person on Retreat Days and workshops.  The Retreat Days are a really special opportunity for us as a team to catch up with the lovely doulas we have sometimes never met in person.  They are a complete joy. 

To find out more about our Retreats and upcoming dates go to https://courses.nurturingbirth.co.uk/nurturing-birth-retreat