How Much Do LPC Associates Make in the State of Texas?

Like most professions, licensed counselors experience a wide range of salaries. According to Indeed, the average salary for a licensed professional counselor is about $55,000. I wasn’t making anywhere close to that when I first started, so maybe it’s gotten a little better since then (maybe).

Associate counselors working at an agency or mental health clinic can expect to be paid anywhere from $12-$50 per hour. LPC Associates who work in a private practice or group setting may be paid $20-$75 per hour.

So when it comes to answering the question, “How much do LPC Associates make?”, the answer is it varies.

As an LPC Associate, you also have to take into consideration what benefits your employer will provide. Many salaried positions will offer health insurance, paid time off, and even 401k matching. This is not the case if you work for a private practice as an independent contractor. 

Another benefit worth considering is whether on-site supervision is included. This can save you hundreds of dollars per month and thousands of dollars over the course of your time as an LPC Associate.

This, of course, all reflects if you choose to work for someone else. What if you want to go into private practice as an LPC Associate? How much can you earn?

How Much Can an LPC Associate Make in Private Practice?

As an LPC Associate in Texas, you are no longer required to work for someone else (i.e. make someone else wealthier). You can now start your own private practice (while still under supervision of an LPC Supervisor) as soon as you get your license.

In private practice, you get to decide how much money you want to make, how many hours you want to work, how much vacation you want to take each year, etc. So how much can an LPC Associate make in private practice? Yes.

The sky truly is the limit here. You can dream big.

Let’s run some numbers. Let’s say you want to hit that average mentioned earlier of $55,000 per year. What will it take to get you there?

According to calculator.net, you can estimate your take-home pay to be about $1400 bi-weekly or $700 per week with a salary of $55k. Ignoring the fact that that is barely enough to live off of, let’s see how many clients you’d need to see to bring home $700 each week.

Since we are talking about take-home pay, we need to consider our expenses as well. Just taking $700 and dividing by the number of clients you plan to see isn’t going to cut it. For ease of math, let’s double that $700 back to $1400 to account for office rent, taxes, insurance, phone and internet, and other miscellaneous expenses. This means you’ll take home 50% of your gross revenue.

This makes sense as if you follow the Profit First Method (which I highly recommend), the owner’s pay is allocated as 50% of gross for businesses that bring in $0-$250k per year. Could you earn more than $250k in private practice? Yes! Like I said, dream big. First though, let’s just start with the $700 per week. To earn that much, what do you need to charge? This chart breaks it down:

Number of Clients Seen	Amount to Charge
40	$35
35	$40
30	$47
25	$56
20	$70
15	$93
10	$140

This, again, is based on a gross income of $1400 and working 52 weeks per year. In order to give yourself time off in private practice, you’re going to need to account for this and charge more. After all, if you are in a solo private practice, no one is going to pay you when you aren’t there. (Not unless you diversify your income.)

Let’s say you charge $50 per session and see 30 clients per week. You can take two weeks off per year and still bring home an average of $721 per week which is more than what you’d be making if you worked a salary position making $55,000 per year! (Not to mention that 50% expenses is really high for a solo practitioner, so you really should be bringing home more than that.) Isn’t math fun?

How Much Can an LPC Associate Charge in Private Practice?

As you can see from the above example, an LPC Associate needs to only charge about $50 per session and see 30 clients per week to earn the equivalent of $55,000 per year, but what if an LPC Associate wants to earn more?

If your gut response is that counselors “shouldn’t be greedy” or that charging more is “taking advantage of clients”, stop. Just stop and reflect on where those money messages are coming from. Know that you’re not alone in this and that we as a profession tend to have a martyr mentality when it comes to money, but I digress.

I’m going to say it now and going to continue to say it in the future, “you can be a wealthy therapist.” I give you permission. Perhaps you need to give yourself permission as well.

So if you want to generate wealth as a therapist, you typically have two options: raise your fees or see more clients. The latter has a ceiling that’s easier to identify. Most therapists consider seeing 30 clients per week as being full though some will schedule up to 40 per week. Some therapists, myself included, see a lot less. I consider my practice full with about 10-12 couples per week. This allows plenty of time for other things including providing supervision to LPC Associates.

So let’s say that you’re an LPC Associate in private practice, and you have determined you want to see 25-30 clients per week. Personally, I don’t recommend more than that. In fact, I encourage my associates to build up slowly to determine what they feel confident managing. Let’s say you did that already. This chart will show you how much you could make in private practice:

Number of Clients Seen Each Week	Average Fee per Session	Approximate Take-Home Pay Per Week (50% of Gross)	Approximate Salary Equivalent
25	$50	$625	$45,000
30	$50	$750	$55,000
25	$65	$800	$58,500
30	$65	$975	$71,500
20	$75	$750	$55,000
30	$75	$1125	$82,500
10	$150	$750	$55,000
20	$150	$1500	$110,000
30	$100	$1500	$110,000
30	$150	$2250	$165,000

How Do I Determine How Much to Charge?

Numbers. Numbers are your friend! Yes, I hear your sigh and see you rolling your eyes. Not everyone has the same love for math that I do. I’m weird; I know.

Still, too many therapists rely on “market research” or their gut when it comes to pricing their services. I put market research in quotes because most therapists simply look at Psychology Today and a handful of nearby therapists’ websites to see what they’re charging and settle on something they think is close to the average.

There are several problems with that. First, you don’t know that they are actually charging what they say they’re charging. Many therapists are quick to reduce their rate in order to gain a client (hello, money stuff). Second, it also varies widely whether the therapist takes insurance or not. If they do, they really have no say in their fee as it is set by the insurance company. (Don’t even get me started on that.) Third, and most importantly, you don’t know that what they’re charging is actually allowing them to make ends meet and not be an anxious, stressed-out mess every time the first of the month rolls around!

To determine how much you should charge, start backward. Start with how much money you want or need to take home each week. Next, add up all your monthly expenses and divide by 4. Add this to the amount you want to take home each week. Next, divide this number by .85. Yes, it will get bigger because we are dividing by a number smaller than 1. Stick with me. This is to account for about 15% in taxes. Now you have what your gross income for the week needs to be (approximately; I’m not an accountant).

With this new number in hand (or on paper) simply divide by the number of clients you want to see each week. Boom. That’s how much you need to charge to take home your target income.

If you don’t want to do all the math I just took you through, just double what you want to take home. This will be less accurate, but typically good enough. Again, divide by the number of client sessions you want per week. 

If you’re now thinking, “But Mark, I’m just an associate. I can’t charge that much! You even said in your post 5 Reasons to Choose an LPC Associate that they typically charge $60-$100 per session!” Right, right. Cool your jets.

I did say that most associates charge less for their services compared to fully licensed therapists, and that’s true. Most of them do. That doesn’t mean you have to though.

“I Can’t Charge That Much!”

Look, I hear you. I’ve heard you for years. I have a simple rebuttal to your cry.

You’ve heard of coaches, yea? You know the people who have as little as zero training and are charging $500 (or more) for a 30-minute phone call. Ridiculous, I know.

How are they successful? How do they convince people to part with thousands of dollars to seek their advice? Why would anyone in their right mind pay these snake charmers? How are they setting up shop and making multi-six-figures while we therapists struggle to put food on the table?

Because people are willing to pay. They are.

People are willing to pay for life-changing results. They are willing to scrimp and save and hand over copious amounts of cash for the chance to turn their life around.

And why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t people be willing to pay in order to improve their lives, to increase their happiness and satisfaction, to live a life that is fulling of meaning?

That is the value that we as therapists provide. That is the value that you, as an LPC Associate, have to offer.

But people aren’t just going to pay you a bunch of money because you ask them to. No, you have to give them a reason to. Just like coaches, you have to present yourself as the solution to their problem.

The reason most therapists don’t charge what they’re worth is they don’t know how to convey that value to their clients. In short, they suck at marketing.

Therapists don’t go to school to learn how to market. They don’t learn how to run a successful business. They definitely aren’t taught the power of specialization. In fact, most therapists leave grad school feeling like they need to be all things to all people.

You know who else is all things to all people? Wal-Mart. And how does Wal-Mart compete? Lowest price. If you want to be all things to all people, your only competitive edge is going to be lowering your price, and that is a race to the bottom.

You Don’t Want to be the Wal-Mart of Therapy

You want to be a bit more exclusive than that. And no, I’m not talking about being out of reach of potential clients or limiting affordable care. In fact, when you have clients who are willing to pay you your worth (or close to it because honestly, good therapy is priceless), you can then do pro bono work or volunteer your time for a cause you believe in.

So how do you charge more for therapy? You get clear on your marketing, you hone in on your ideal client, you show up where they are and offer a way out of the pain they are feeling. You’ve got to stand out from the crowd.

I make a lot of therapists uncomfortable when I say that too, so if you’re feeling a bit uneasy, you’re in good company. That’s okay. There’s work to be done.

We are therapists. We are healers. We are givers. AND we can be wealthy.

I work on a lot of this money mindset and marketing stuff with my associates when they are starting out in private practice. One thing I have them consider is how many clients they need. Most tell me about 20 to 30. Well, if you’re an LPC Associate in the state of Texas, you’ve got 30 million prospective clients out there. If you can show up as THE therapist for 0.000001% (literally one in a million for those following along at home), you’ll have your 30. 

In Conclusion

How much can an LPC Associate make? Working for someone else: peanuts. Working for themselves in private practice: the sky’s the limit.

If you are an LPC Associate in the state of Texas and are looking for a supervisor to guide you through the ins and outs of all things private practice, hit me up. You can schedule a free 30-minute Zoom call at the bottom of this page. There’s absolutely no obligation, and I don’t believe in strong-arm sales tactics. Let’s have a conversation about your hopes and dreams as a professional counselor. I look forward to chatting with you.

About the Author

Mark Cagle is an LPC Supervisor in Texas and provides online supervision to LPC Associates throughout the state. He also has a thriving private practice in Dallas focused on working with couples in crisis.

Being the nerd that he is, he also builds websites and creates digital marketing plans to help other therapists flourish in their practices.

There are many great reasons to work with Mark, but don't just take his word for it. If you want to skip the usual associate slog and jumpstart your career in private practice, schedule a chat.