Why Clients Choose the Therapist With Higher Rates [Based on Research] (Episode 95)
Why would someone choose a therapist charging $250 or $300 per session when less expensive options are available? The answer isn't always about credentials, experience, or even affordability. In this episode, Anna explores the psychology behind premium-fee decisions and why choosing a therapist is as much an emotional decision as a financial one.
Drawing on research about how people make decisions—and a personal story about choosing a wedding photographer who cost significantly more than she'd budgeted—Anna breaks down the four stages clients move through before committing to a higher-fee therapist. You'll learn why first impressions matter, how emotion and logic work together, and what your website needs to communicate to help potential clients feel confident choosing you.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
1️⃣ Why clients don't always choose the least expensive therapist—and how price can influence their perception of quality.
2️⃣ How emotional and logical decision-making work together when potential clients evaluate a premium-fee therapist.
3️⃣ The four stages of a premium-fee decision, from the initial trigger and gut check to justification and commitment.
4️⃣ How to align your website's design, copy, credentials, and client experience so your marketing creates connections first and then gives clients the reasons to say yes.
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Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of Marketing Therapy number 95. I'm excited about this one. I want to start this episode, where we are talking about why clients would choose a therapist with a higher fee, by telling you a story. So I got engaged to my husband, and man, I- if we had a little bit longer, I'd tell you how we happened to, to be engaged.
There was lots of time together, time apart, a Notebook style reunion in the parking lot of my college apartment, but I won't bore you with those details. Now, we get engaged, and it's time to start planning a wedding. We were gonna get married pretty quickly.
We got engaged in the end of September and set a date for the following July 12th, so I had, what was that? Nine, 10 months. And obviously one of the top things that I'm looking for is a photographer. Now, I'm on a budget. This was not a six-figure event that I could go hire a planner and all the fancy things as much as I would have liked that.
So I'm on a budget, and I'm a, just a budget seeker anyway. I'm a very financially conservative, risk-averse person, so I'm always, I'm looking for a deal. But I also recognize this is my wedding, and these are my wedding pictures, right? So anyway, I had a number in my head and in my budget document for photography, and I found a photographer who fit that budget.
The, the photos were fine. They were good, and I did, I went ahead and I signed a contract. Checked that off the list, on to other things. Well, then I found another photographer, Sasha. I found Sasha, and Sasha's work was beautiful. I am not myself a photographer. I can't say exactly why she was so good.
I just know, the way that you know when you see good photographs that there's something special here, right? The lighting, the posing, whatever it was. Sasha was also way more than I had budgeted. Shocker. And I'd already paid a deposit on that first photographer, okay? So I'm sitting here.
I'm seeing Sasha's portfolio. I am seeing her price. I already have a perfectly fine photographer booked, but I knew that I liked what I saw, and I wanted that for my wedding. Now, I didn't mention that when I booked with that first one, something about that relationship felt a little bit off. And I still can't say exactly why, but you know, you just have that gut feeling.
So here I am. I'm a little bit unsettled with photographer A, and then I run into Sasha, photographer B, who is more than I wanted to pay. Well, guess what I ended up doing? I backed out of that signed contract with photographer A, and I paid a lot more for Sasha. Now, as a financially conservative, very risk-averse person, that was a big deal for me.
I spent a lot of time hemming and hawing about it. I absolutely hesitated, but you know what I told myself? This is a once in a lifetime situation, right? We only get to do this once. I can only take photos of my wedding one time. And the moment that I knew that Sasha was worth it was when I was sitting in my hotel.
Kyle and I went to Maui for our honeymoon. It was lovely. Sitting in my hotel in Maui and getting that preview gallery. If you have gotten married, you know how exciting that first glimpse is. I opened it up, and it was like, "Yep, I made the right choice." So I wanna open up with that story because you'll see how I didn't really choose Sasha because of logic.
In fact, I could have logiced my way right on out of picking her. Instead, I found the logic after I'd already chosen her. Well, I, I can only do this once. Well, I guess we can flex our budget here. This is exactly how premium fee clients are choosing or not choosing you. So we're talking today about why do clients choose therapists with a higher rate, and I wanna walk you through a couple points of research that support this and that give us a lot of insight into how these decisions are actually made.
Now, a couple episodes ago, I said that a premium fee is an emotional decision as much as a financial one, and that's really what this episode is all about. We're gonna unpack that line. Now, there's a lot of research on this. The main point of research I want to share with you is called the dual process theory.
You may have heard of this, but it's one of the leading explanations of how our minds process information and ultimately make decisions. So Daniel Kahneman, if I'm saying that correctly, he's a Nobel Prize winner. He essentially boiled this down to two systems, so the dual process theory is two systems.
System one is a very fast, intuitive, and emotional system, and then system two is slow and deliberate and logical. Now, most decisions start in system one and then system two essentially signing off on whatever system one found out. So system one is kind of that first responder. It's gonna run automatically.
You're not gonna realize it. It's effortless. It is all the time scanning. Every ad, every website, every choice passes through system one before system two even gets involved. Okay? So system one, fast, intuitive, emotional. System two, slow, deliberate, logical. Your clients, when they're making any sort of decision with their money, including therapy, are going system one to system two.
Now, a couple other points of research, and then we'll really unpack this into four categories. But a couple other things to know. Gerald Zaltman, he's at Harvard Business School. He estimates that about 95% of purchasing decisions happen subconsciously. Another neuroscientist, I thought this one was really interesting, Antonio Damasio, he studied people with damage to the emotional centers of the brain, and he found that while their logic was intact, they still struggled to make simple decisions.
I'm talking, like, whether to book an appointment on a Monday or a Tuesday, because of damage to the emotional systems. Okay? So emotions are at the core of every decision we're making as humans, especially the ones that relate to our money. Without emotion, we cannot decide at all. And spoiler alert, choosing a therapist is more emotional than just about anything else that we pay for.
Now, when you hire a plumber, they're gonna come, they're gonna fix the leak, and you hopefully never have to call them ever again. But when you choose a therapist, you're choosing who's going to see you at your most unguarded, right? So where does price come into this? Now, when we can't judge quality directly, which we can't in therapy, when-- at least when choosing our therapist, system one reaches for shortcuts, and price is one of the oldest shortcuts we have.
So in that case, when system one is doing that fast, intuitive, emotional thing, more expensive therapists actually have an edge as long as everything that that client is seeing is backing the price up. So this happens in four stages, and they're really the same four that I went through with my photographer, and price shows up in every single one of them.
So let's look at this, how a premium client is actually deciding who to work with. Okay? So using the dual process theory, we know this. First thing that happens is the trigger. There is something that leads your client to decide now's the time for a therapist, right?
No one wakes up and casually decides, "I feel like paying two hundred and fifty dollars a session for a therapist today." No one does that. Something happened, right? The fight went too far last night, the panic attack in the parking garage, the fortieth birthday where you still don't feel like you've arrived, whatever that is.
That readiness comes before they even start searching. In my case, obviously, getting engaged was my trigger. I wasn't just looking at wedding photographers for funsies. But by the time your therapy client is searching, they've already been carrying this for a good long time, right?
They have been living in a level of distress or discomfort for weeks, months, years. They don't need convincing that therapy helps. And when something matters this much, their wellness, the cheapest option can actually start to feel like a risky one. So by the time they find you, the decision to get help is already made.
Now it's who. Who's gonna be that person? So then we go to the second, and this is the gut check. Does she get me? This is where system one is at work. So this is that fast, intuitive, emotional process. So system one comes on board and starts scanning the search results, the directories, the websites, the social media profiles, whatever and wherever your client is looking in seconds.
And we know that most clients, all of them, can't evaluate your clinical skill. Some of them don't even know the difference between EMDR and EFT and CBT and all the things. Right? The same way that I couldn't evaluate lighting, I couldn't say, "Oh, Sasha was doing this so much better than the first photographer."
Economists call services like therapy credence goods. So these are things you can't fully judge the quality of until after you've paid for them. Obviously, therapy is a shining example of that. So legal advice would be another thing, medical care.
Right? They carry a ton of weight, but we don't actually know if they're gonna be any good until after it's over. And so with credence goods, people are leaning on cues. How is it presented? Who recommended it? We've talked about trust transfers on this podcast before. What it costs.
And as I mentioned, price is one of system one's favorite shortcuts when it's looking for cues. A major review of research actually found a consistent link between price and perceived quality. So there is a correlation in our minds between how much something costs and how good we think it's going to be.
And this effect is strongest when people don't have much else to go on. They don't know if you're a super great therapist or not. So my photographer's price told me something before I could put into words. She knows what she's doing. Your clients evaluate what they can, right? The cues, how it feels. Do I see myself here?
Does this feel safe? Does this person actually understand my unique experience So that first photographer that I booked looked ultimately fine on paper, but something still felt a little bit off, and that was my system one starting to filter her out a little bit. Because system one is going first.
That's the first impression of your marketing that is emotional and mostly subconscious. So this is why a premium fee, you're charging, we'll say $300 a session, next to a website that feels dated or confusing or DIY'd creates friction. Now we still have system two to get to, and we're gonna, we're gonna get there, but system one is saying, "Huh, something's off here."
Prospective clients do this to therapists every single day. They see something that feels dated or confusing that creates that friction, and they just click away. So we don't actually know what happens. No one emails you to explain why they're not working with you, right? They just go with someone else.
So a premium fee next to a premium experience through the eyes of system one reads as quality. The same fee next to first impressions that feel off reads as a mismatch, which is threatening. So then we have to bring in system two, but that's what's happening in that first couple of seconds, that fast, intuitive, subconscious process. So while they cannot judge your expertise yet, they can judge how you're making them feel.
And system one is gonna give a red or green light based on that. Now, the third step, the justification. This is where system two comes online. Logic starts showing up. So once the feeling says yes or no, system two arrives. And a lot of times, as I mentioned, its job is mostly just to sign off.
So I had kind of already made my decision about Sasha, and then system two came through and started giving me the logic, "Well, I can only do this once," or, "Well, this is once in a lifetime" was me using system two to build the case for, quite frankly, a decision I'd already made.
A psychologist named Paul Slovic, he calls this affect heuristic. When we feel good about something, when system one gives us a green light, we judge its benefits as higher and its risks as lower. Isn't that fascinating? That's what happens to your fee. So once she feels understood, once she feels like you are going to understand her, the fee feels less risky.
If she doesn't feel understood, if a mismatch has been presented in system one, then that exact same fee number can actually feel more like a gamble. Now, the fact is premium clients still need reasons to back the feeling. So just because they feel good about it does not mean they're necessarily going to say yes, 'cause system two is gonna come online and say, "Okay, can we back up this feeling in order to ultimately make the decision?"
Especially at a fee that's going to stretch them. Especially if they are looking at multiple different therapists and this one that they're considering is on the higher end. So she's looking for reasons. Well, she works specifically with people like me. She says she does. Her website feels premium and trustworthy.
She has the training and the credentials. I understand what the process looks like. I understand the fee. She's looking for those actual logical statements to back up something about this feels right. I mean, no one's Googling discount LASIK surgery, right? When the stakes are high around your eyeballs or your mental health, then a premium price can actually read more as safety.
Sometimes therapists though get this backwards. We've talked recently about being credential first versus connection first in your marketing. If you're just leading with the credentials list and your modalities, you're asking for system two, hoping it creates the feeling, when in fact we need feeling to precede what backs it up.
Logic cannot create the feeling. It can only back it up once the feeling is there. So one of the things I want you to take away from this episode is your marketing needs to give them the feeling first, then give them the reasons to say yes to it. Create the feeling first.
Get system one online, and then back it up with system two. Okay? All right, so then number four, the actual commitment, right? The decision-making. This last hurdle, especially when we're talking about fees, is weighing the fear of the price, 'cause we're always a little bit scared when we hand our money over, against the fear of choosing wrong.
Am I more afraid of paying this, or am I more afraid of getting this wrong? I mean, think about the wedding photographer. I hesitated big time. This was terrifying for me. That was a very, very real number. However, regretting those photos for the rest of my life felt bigger to me. So for your client, it's the cost of the fee next to the cost of another year like this one, right?
Another week or month of being in this relationship that is so deeply unfulfilling, whatever that might be for yours. Plenty of premium clients have already been in therapy where they didn't get what they needed, or at least not all of it, so they're paying to not repeat that.
What's really interesting, and we could do an entire episode on this, but once they've decided to sign on with you at that fee, your fee actually keeps working. There was a really cool study in 2008 that gave people the same wine labeled $10 and $90, and almost universally they said that the $90 one tasted better.
And the brain scans while they drank that showed more activity in the region tied to pleasure. It was the same wine.
Price shapes our expectations about things. Our expectations shape our experience. And so your fee has nothing to do with your clinical skill. We talk about that all the time. You could be the best therapist in the world and charge $10 an hour. That's not what we're talking about here. But your fee can change the posture that your client comes into therapy with.
If your client decides to pay $250 a session, system one, system two, it all checks out, she's probably gonna walk in expecting this to matter, expecting this to work. For some, paying more is actually part of the commitment. I'm investing in this, so I'm gonna show up for it.
And then of course comes the moment that it's worth it. For me, it was sitting in that hotel room and opening up that preview gallery. For your clients, it's that moment of relief that they didn't think was possible. It's the freedom from the pain of their past that they've been grappling with for decades.
It's the becoming friends again with their partner. Whatever that is, that's when it becomes worth it.
So now let's talk practically about how we touch on each of those four stages, right? So we have the gut check, we have creating the feeling, that's system one, the justification, system two, and then there's actual commitment and decision-making.
Okay? So the fact is, you are a really great therapist. I operate from that place no matter what. I recognize that quality of therapy varies. I'm gonna assume if you're listening to this podcast, you're really good at what you do, as long as you're with the right client.
Once someone is in your office or even once they're on a consult, chances are you do fantastic work. But almost everything that we just walked through in these four steps happens before they ever talk to you. The trigger and the gut check, the justification, the commitment. Almost all of this is being led by their experience with your marketing, which is most often your website.
We have the gut check. We have that immediate feeling, that system one coming online. That's being led by your design, the first couple lines of your copy, right? We actually covered in last episode, episode ninety-four, the four design mistakes that, that can fail this in just a handful of seconds, so go back and listen to that one if you need.
That's where we're, we're creating that initial gut reaction. Yes, no. System one. Green light, red light. Then there's that feeling understood, okay? We're looking for cues. That's where copy that sounds like you know what's going on in their head, right? That's where we're really connecting and empathizing with them comes into play.
Then there's the justification, the system two. This is where your credentials, your training, your niche, your micro-niches, your process, all of these things are gonna come into play. And then there's the commitment, where we need to present a next step that makes reaching out feel very safe, very easy, like an absolute no-brainer once system one and system two have both checked out.
Now, when I look around at the clinicians I know right now who are booking, you know, 200, 250, $300 plus a session, they've created, they've curated an entire experience of choosing them on purpose, right? They've got the copy and the design telling the same story as that fee. They are all in alignment.
There's no room for that system one to be like, "Uh-uh, something's, something's not right here. Something's mismatching." It's all created, curated intentionally. In my case, it was that photographer's website and portfolio did all four for me before I ever reached out to her and asked her to come shoot our wedding.
You're the reason your clients stay. You're the reason your clients get amazing results. Your website has nothing to do with whether or not your client is going to experience tremendous transformation once they're in the room with you, but your website and your marketing is the reason they reach out.
So why do clients choose the more expensive therapist? Well, they can't judge clinical skill, so they're going on feeling, they're going on cues, and price is often one of the strongest cues that there is. Once they feel understood, that fee feels less of a risk to them, and the fear of choosing wrong again or staying in this place outweighs the number.
Then we know that what they pay actually shapes what they expect to get out of it. It's a really fascinating way to understand this decision-making process. But all of that only works when everything that they see actually backs that price up.
Now we know that people are out there looking for a therapist right now. Isn't that interesting to think about? That you could be sitting here listening to this episode and there's someone perhaps on your website who'd be a fantastic fit. They're making that same kind of choice about you every single week.
And we know that often it is your website that is giving them that feeling or sending them to someone who does.
Remember, if there was only one thing I wanted you to take away from this episode, it was this. Use your marketing to give your clients the feeling first and then give them the reasons to say yes to that feeling. Is your marketing doing that right now? Is your website doing that right now? And if not, what needs to change?
We've got lots of resources available to you. We've got our done-for-you services, Confident Copy, our templates, whatever that might be. But I hope today you're walking away from this episode with a better understanding of how people are making decisions and how your marketing needs to come into alignment with that process in order to make saying yes to you feel like, quite frankly, a no-brainer.
I heard from a Confident Copy student just yesterday who said that they got on a consult with someone. They said, "Based on your website, we don't care if you don't take insurance. We will make it work." Is your marketing, is your website inviting people into that type of experience? And if not, what can we do to change it?
Is it copy? Is it design? Is it just being more thoughtful about these things? I hope this one was helpful for you. I so enjoyed getting to do this research and learn alongside you. I'm here for you. I'm cheering you on. I'll see you in our next episode. Pasted text
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About Marketing Therapy
Marketing Therapy is the podcast where therapists learn how to market their private practices without burnout, self-doubt, or sleazy tactics. Hosted by Anna Walker—marketing coach, strategist, and founder of Walker Strategy Co—each episode brings you clear, grounded advice to help you attract the right-fit, full-fee clients and grow a practice you feel proud of.
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