Doula hourly rate calculator
This free calculator works out the hourly rate a self-employed birth doula should charge for their time, starting from the income you need, then builds the birth package fee families actually pay out of the hours a package really holds. Families rarely buy “an hour of doula support”; they buy knowing someone experienced will be there, whenever the birth happens. With the honest presets below the rate lands near $80 an hour, $644 for a full day — and the package built from it: two prenatal visits, continuous support through the birth and two postpartum visits come to about twenty active hours, a $1,600 package — with the two on-call weeks priced inside it, stated plainly, never smuggled in as clock hours.
The pricing reality for birth doulas
A birth package is bought flat and earned in hours that refuse to sit still. Inside the flat fee sit two prenatal visits, the messages in between, a birth that starts when it starts and lasts as long as it lasts, and the postpartum visits after. A package price copied from another doula’s website carries all of that whether it covers it or not — and it was built on her client load, her travel radius and her costs, not yours. Price the active hour first, and the package becomes an assembly: so many hours of your presence and preparation, at a rate that adds up, plus the thing this trade sells that no clock measures — being on call.
That on-call window is the honest difficulty, so say it plainly. For roughly two weeks around a due date your phone stays on, your bag stays packed and your own plans stay provisional. That availability is real work product — it is most of what a family is buying — but it is not twenty-four billable hours a day, and pricing it as if it were would make every package absurd. The shape that holds up: the active hours are counted and priced at your rate, and the on-call window is covered inside the package price as availability, named as such in your agreement. And a boundary worth stating on a pricing page: a doula is a non-medical support person — no part of this page prices clinical care, because a doula does not provide it.
The numbers below are starting presets, not a survey: a $42,000 target income, $7,300 a year of expenses — certification and training and liability insurance lead, with travel to clients, a backup doula arrangement, supplies and a small lending library, marketing, booking software and memberships — a 22% tax estimate, four weeks of vacation, a 40-hour week and 45% billable time: births, visits and client calls bill, and the on-call weeks cap how many families you can honestly hold at once. With those starting numbers the calculator lands near $80 an hour.
Your numbers — doula presets
Your recommended rate
| Income + expenses needed | $0 |
| Grossed up for tax | $0 |
| With profit margin | $0 |
| Working weeks | 0 |
| Total working hours | 0 |
| Billable hours | 0 |
Your rate is saved on this device only, so the Proposal Generator can show it when you price a project.
Costs doulas forget to put in the rate
- The backup doula. Births overlap, and doulas get sick. A standing arrangement with a backup — often a retainer, or a split of the fee when she attends in your place — is a real cost of promising “I will be there.” Price the promise with the backup inside it, or the first clash teaches you why it belonged there.
- The on-call fortnight’s other price. Two weeks of provisional plans means the family events, trips and other work you quietly do not book. It never appears on an invoice, but it is a cost of every package — the reason the on-call window belongs in the package price as availability, named, rather than absorbed as if your calendar were free.
- Travel at 3 a.m. Hospital runs are rarely one trip: a false start home and back, parking, fuel across a wide patch at unsocial hours. Travel time and mileage belong in the rate at their real size, not reconstructed from memory at tax time.
- The lending library and kit. Birth balls, a TENS machine, cloths and props, books families borrow and do not always return — the kit is small capital that wears out in service. A modest annual line replaces it steadily instead of arriving as one lump the month everything frays at once.
- The births you turn away. On-call honesty caps your load: one or two families per due window is a promise you can keep. A full diary is not the goal — a kept promise is. The rate has to work at the client load you can actually serve, which is exactly what the 45% billable share is admitting.
How this calculator works
Start with the hours you can genuinely sell. Take 52 weeks, subtract your vacation weeks, multiply by your hours per week, then multiply by your billable percentage. With the doula presets — four weeks off, 40 hours a week, 45% billable — that is 864 billable hours a year: the births, visits and calls clients can pay for, once on-call waiting and admin have taken theirs.
Next, work out what those hours must bring in. Add your desired income and your annual business expenses together — $49,300 on the presets — gross the total up for tax by dividing by one minus your tax rate — at a 22% estimate, divide by 0.78 to get $63,205 — then add your profit margin to reach $69,526 and divide by your billable hours. That final number, $80, is the rate below which the year stops adding up.
Now translate the hour into the package families actually buy. A typical birth package holds about twenty active hours: two prenatal visits at about two hours each, $320; continuous support through the birth itself at about twelve hours, $960; two postpartum visits at about an hour and a half each, $240; and the calls, messages and notes in between, about an hour, $80. That is a $1,600 package — with the on-call window of roughly two weeks written into it in words, the stretch in which those hours can fall at any time. A shorter engagement — a postpartum-only block of ten hours, say — is simply ten times the rate, $800. What never works is pricing the package from another doula’s menu and discovering your hours in it afterwards.
Doula rate questions
Rates differ by trade — the same maths runs with different presets for graphic designer rates, freelance writer rates, web developer rates, marketing consultant rates, photographer rates, video editor rates, virtual assistant rates, social media manager rates, bookkeeper rates, translator rates, business coach rates, illustrator rates, copywriter rates, UX designer rates, SEO consultant rates, data analyst rates, motion designer rates, technical writer rates, podcast editor rates, email marketer rates, life coach rates, proofreader rates, event planner rates, voice actor rates, online tutor rates, personal trainer rates, interior designer rates, music producer rates, grant writer rates, UX researcher rates, book editor rates, transcriptionist rates, presentation designer rates, brand strategist rates, video producer rates, art director rates, WordPress developer rates, mobile app developer rates, 3D artist rates, game developer rates, Shopify developer rates, online business manager rates, podcast producer rates, data entry specialist rates, UX writer rates, copy editor rates, wedding photographer rates, resume writer rates, data scientist rates, instructional designer rates, business analyst rates, email designer rates, interpreter rates, audiobook narrator rates, landscape designer rates, wedding planner rates, wedding videographer rates, personal chef rates, dog trainer rates, music teacher rates, florist rates, cake baker rates, tour guide rates, pet groomer rates, house painter rates, handyman rates, locksmith rates, home organizer rates, pressure washer rates, carpet cleaner rates, chimney sweep rates, pool cleaner rates, window cleaner rates, tattoo artist rates, massage therapist rates, barber rates, makeup artist rates, hairstylist rates, nail technician rates, tailor rates, house cleaner rates, electrician rates, plumber rates, pest control technician rates, ppc specialist rates, content strategist rates, wedding DJ rates, dog walker rates, audio engineer rates, caterer rates, mover rates, appliance repair technician rates, nanny rates, piano tuner rates, garage door technician rates, bicycle mechanic rates, house sitter rates, upholsterer rates, jeweller rates, cobbler rates, blacksmith rates, sign writer rates, farrier rates, mobile car detailer rates, genealogist rates, saddler rates, arborist rates, travel agent rates, watch repairer rates, sleep consultant rates, home stager rates, wedding officiant rates, college admissions consultant rates, mobile notary rates, personal shopper rates, welder rates, carpenter rates, glazier rates, plasterer rates, tiler rates, roofer rates, bricklayer rates, HVAC technician rates, dressmaker rates, concrete finisher rates, drywall installer rates, flooring installer rates, gardener rates, fence installer rates, gutter installer rates, solar installer rates, stonemason rates, deck builder rates, insulation installer rates, cabinet maker rates, paving installer rates, furniture restorer rates, blind installer rates, driving instructor rates, picture framer rates, aerial installer rates, car mechanic rates, clock repairer rates, oven cleaner rates, smart home installer rates, alarm installer rates, drain cleaner rates, curtain installer rates, irrigation installer rates, shutter installer rates, artificial grass installer rates, fireplace installer rates, bathtub refinisher rates, snow removal professional rates, landscape lighting installer rates and radon mitigation specialist rates, or start from the general freelance hourly rate calculator.