What a client pays
The price shown on the profile. That’s the whole answer. Because therapy is GST-free health care in Australia, a client’s session invoice carries no GST. See Paying for sessions.What a therapist pays
Listing on Open Therapy is free. There is no monthly fee, no seat licence and no minimum. Four things come off a session, and only when there is a session.Card processing is passed through at cost. Open Therapy doesn’t mark it up. Before a payment exists,
it’s quoted using Stripe’s published Australian domestic rate of 1.7% + 30c, but what’s deducted
is whatever Stripe actually charged for that specific card, read from the transaction.
The introduction fee
A one-off that pays for the match rather than the hour. It’s charged the first time a particular client books with a particular therapist, and never again for that pair — not on the second session, not on the two hundredth.
Two cases where it isn’t charged at all:
Clients you brought yourself
Anyone who arrives through your own
opentherapy.link profile carries no introduction fee. We
didn’t make that introduction, so we don’t charge for it.Sessions that can't carry it
The introduction fee is capped at whatever is left after processing, the platform fee and GST. A
cheap first session nets you nothing rather than putting you in debt to us.
A worked example
A psychologist charging $180 for a 50-minute session, paid by card.- First session with a new client
- Every session after that
Total deducted: $57.81, or 32.1% — almost all of it the one-off introduction.
GST
GST is shown as its own line rather than folded into the percentages, so your invoice reflects what was actually remitted instead of implying the commission was 2.75%.- The session is GST-free. Health services of this kind aren’t taxable.
- Open Therapy’s platform and introduction fees are quoted ex-GST with 10% added on top.
- Card processing arrives GST-inclusive, because Australian card fees are published that way. Its tax is carved back out for the invoice rather than added again.
Fee changes never re-price the past
Every settlement stores the rate charged at the time it was made. If a rate changes tomorrow, it applies to new sessions only — it cannot re-price what you earned yesterday.Membership discounts don’t come out of your fee
Open Therapy+ members get a discount on sessions. That discount comes out of Open Therapy’s margin, not the therapist’s fee. No therapist opts in, and nobody is paid less for taking a member’s booking. See Membership.Related
Fees and earnings
How to read your earnings screen and reconcile a settlement.
Invoices and tax
Your monthly tax invoice from Open Therapy, and what to give your accountant.