How to Price Your Pet Bereavement Counselling Sessions
Pricing feels uncomfortable for most new practitioners. Here is how to think about it honestly — why a professional fee serves your clients, how to structure it, and what a TRACE practice typically charges.
Pricing is the question most new practitioners leave until last and then answer too quickly. This guide is an attempt to slow that down and help you think through it properly.
Why Pricing Feels Difficult
The discomfort most new practitioners feel about charging is not about greed. It is about doubt. The question underneath it is: am I actually giving them enough to justify this?
The answer lies in understanding what you are delivering.
TRACE is not a conversation. It is a structured, five-session programme grounded in established grief theory — Worden's Four Tasks of Mourning and Continuing Bonds Theory. Each session has a specific purpose. Each stage builds on the last. Your client is not paying for your time or your company, though both matter. They are paying for a defined process that helps them move through grief with structure and intention.
That is worth a professional fee.
When you charge an appropriate amount, you are doing something more than collecting payment. You are signalling to your client that this is real work with real value. That signal matters. It helps them arrive properly, take the sessions seriously, and actually benefit from the process. Charging less does not make you more generous. It can make the whole thing feel less serious, and your client deserves better than that. The fee is part of the trust.
TRACE Is a Programme, Not an Open-Ended Service
This distinction shapes how you should price the work.
General grief therapists often charge by the hour because their work is open-ended — they do not know how many sessions a client will need, or where the conversations will go. The hourly rate reflects that uncertainty.
TRACE is different. It is a five-session programme. Each session corresponds to one step in the framework: Tell the Story, Recognise the Bond, Acknowledge the Pain, Celebrate the Life, Embrace What Remains. The process has a beginning, a clear shape, and a defined end.
This means the right way to price it is as a programme, not as an hourly rate multiplied by sessions. Each session runs for approximately forty to fifty minutes. This is intentional — the precision of the framework means forty-five minutes of structured, purposeful conversation is enough. More is not necessarily better.
A Pricing Model That Works
Offer two options and be clear about the difference.
Individual session rate: A single session for clients who are cautious or want to experience the first session before committing. Set this at your full rate — do not discount it. This should be the same as, or slightly higher than, the per-session equivalent in your package.
Five-session package: Price this at roughly sixty to eighty percent of what five individual sessions would cost. At £90 per session, five sessions individually totals £450. A package at £315 to £360 represents a meaningful saving and reflects the reality that the programme is designed to be taken as a whole.
Why the package matters: Someone who has committed to the complete journey is far more likely to complete it and benefit from it. Each session builds on the previous one. A client who stops after two sessions has not had half the experience — they have had an incomplete one. Pricing the full programme as a package sets the right expectation and serves your clients well.
Some practitioners offer only the package. Others offer the individual rate for the first session and the package from session two. There is no single right answer — choose the approach that makes the most sense for how you work.
What the Market Currently Looks Like
Rates vary considerably by market, so the figures below are reference points rather than rules. The Academy for Pet Loss does not set or recommend specific fees.
UK practitioners:
- New practitioners: £65 to £110 per session; £260 to £440 for a five-session package
- Established practitioners: £90 to £160 per session; £360 to £640 for a package
US practitioners:
- New practitioners: $80 to $130 per session; $320 to $520 for a five-session package
- Established practitioners: $120 to $180 per session; $480 to $720 for a package
Australian practitioners:
- New practitioners: A$100 to A$160 per session; A$400 to A$640 for a package
These ranges exist because experience, location, client base, and professional presentation all affect what the market will bear in any given area. A practitioner with additional qualifications in counselling or nursing, an established referral network, and a professional online presence can justify the upper end of these ranges relatively quickly. A practitioner just starting out, without additional credentials, should start conservatively and raise their rates as their confidence and reputation grow.
Memorial Pages as an Additional Revenue Stream
Your TRACE certification includes ten memorial page credits. These are digital memorial pages you can offer to clients — a lasting, online space for the story of their animal.
How you price and position memorial pages is entirely your choice. Some practitioners include one as part of a session package. Others offer it as an optional addition at the end of the programme, when the work reaches the Celebrate the Life stage and a memorial page becomes a natural part of the conversation. Others price it separately as a standalone service.
There is no right answer. You decide what the memorial page is worth to you and to your clients, and you price it accordingly.
Reduced-Rate Spaces
Some practitioners choose to hold a small number of reduced-rate spaces for clients in genuine financial difficulty. This is a personal decision, not an obligation.
If you do offer reduced rates, be specific about what they are and how many you hold. Open-ended sliding scales create unclear expectations and awkward conversations. "I hold two spaces at a reduced rate — please ask if cost is a barrier" is clear and bounded. "I charge whatever you can afford" is not.
Your own sustainability matters. A practice that charges too little to cover its costs is not sustainable, and a practitioner who cannot sustain their practice cannot help anyone. Charge fairly for what you offer.
The right price for your TRACE sessions is the one that reflects the genuine value of the work, covers your professional costs, and allows you to build a practice you can maintain. Start where your confidence and your market support, and review it regularly as both grow.
Learn more about becoming a TRACE practitioner at academyforpetloss.com.