Private practice startup cost calculator
Every cost of setting up as a private therapist in the UK, itemised, with your total to launch.
Cost to launch
£444
One-offs plus your first month of running costs.
- Monthly running cost
- £172
- First-year total
- £2,330
Your first-year costs are covered by 34 sessions, which is what the break-even calculator turns into a weekly number.
The honest total
Here is the thing most startup guides will not say: this is one of the cheapest professional practices it is possible to start. The mandatory core, insurance, ICO registration, membership and supervision, comes to around £1,400 a year at 2026 prices. An online-only practice can credibly launch for a few hundred pounds. Half the lines on most startup lists are optional polish, and the calculator lets them stay switched off.
The room is the only decision with real money attached. Sessional hire keeps it a per-client cost you only pay when you work; a lease turns it into a fixed cost that has to be earned before you keep a penny. Start online or sessional, and sign a lease when your diary, not your optimism, says so. The break-even calculator shows exactly what a lease does to your minimum viable week.
One warning from watching people overspend: directory listings before you have availability are a subscription to being found by people you cannot see. Get insured, get registered, get supervised, take the first clients, and buy visibility when there is something for it to fill.
These figures feed the other money tools: the fee calculator tells you what to charge to carry them, and the leaving the NHS calculator uses the same cost model on its private side. None of this is financial advice; it is a shopping list with honest prices on it.
Frequently asked questions
The software line above is the one Bloom fills: diary, notes, agreements, payments and video in one £29 subscription, so the tool stack does not become its own startup cost.