Group programs

Groups in your workspace is for programs you run with more than one person. They’re listed in their own directory, booked as a place rather than an hour, and charged differently to sessions.

The three formats

The format decides how people find your program in the directory.

Format	What it means
Course	A fixed number of sessions building on each other, with the same people each week. You join at the start and finish together
Workshop	One sitting, one topic, in a room or online. Nothing to commit to beyond the day
Support group	Ongoing, drop-in and facilitated. Come when you need to, and stop when you don’t

Course covers a skills course and a therapy group; Workshop covers what used to be a webinar. Old links still work — ?format=webinar resolves to Workshop, ?format=group-therapy to Course.

Writing one

New group asks for a name and a format. The program stays a draft until you publish it.


Summary	One or two lines. This is the whole of the card in the directory
Description	The long version, on the program’s own page
Who it’s for	A list. Also the honest place to say who it isn’t for
Session plan	What happens across the meetings
Sessions	How many meetings in one intake. One for a workshop
Session mode	Online, in person or home visit. An in-person program needs a venue
Age group	Who it’s aimed at
Price	Per program or per session. Per session is multiplied by the number of sessions to price one place
Funding	Whether people can claim against Medicare, NDIS, private health or an employer program
Photograph	Required to publish. The card is a photograph and a title

Don’t claim an outcome or compare yourself to other practitioners in a program description. The rules that govern reviews govern a listing. See Reviews and advertising rules.

Intakes and places

An intake is one run of the program: a start date, a schedule line — “Tuesdays 6:00pm, 8 weeks” — and a number of places. A program can hold several at once, and places are counted per intake. Places remaining is seats minus confirmed enrolments, minus anyone part-way through paying. An abandoned payment releases its place after 30 minutes. When an intake is full, the next person joins that intake’s waitlist and is emailed to confirm it.

Publishing

Publish refuses until the program is finishable by a stranger. You’ll be told which of these is missing:

A name that isn’t still “Untitled group”
A summary
A description
A venue, if the program is in person
A photograph
At least one intake
A published, verified profile
Payouts set up, if the program is paid

The Groups screen with a New group button and three programs: two drafts, one saying it has no cover photo and no intakes scheduled yet, and a published six-week anxiety course with two intakes, each showing its schedule line and one of eight places confirmed, with one person waitlisted on the September intake — A draft says what's still missing

A program somebody has joined can’t be deleted. Unpublish it instead — the people already on it keep their place.

How people enrol

A client picks an intake and pays for the place in one go, up front rather than per meeting. A free program skips payment and confirms immediately. Enrolling still needs an account. Each intake shows confirmed enrolments, waitlisted people and places left.

The money

Group enrolments are charged on their own model.


Commission	15% of the enrolment, flat
GST on the commission	10% of the commission
Introduction fee	None, ever — including for a client you’ve never seen
Stripe’s processing fee	Not passed on. Open Therapy absorbs it out of the commission
Your cancellation policy	Doesn’t apply. A group place isn’t a session

Your rate is recorded on each settlement when it settles, so a later change never rewrites what you were already paid. See Fees for the session model.

A worked example

A place on an eight-week course, priced at $240.00 for the program.


Client pays	$240.00
Commission at 15%	$36.00
GST on the commission at 10%	$3.60
Stripe’s processing fee	$0.00 to you
You receive	$200.40

The arithmetic:

commission  = 24000c x 15%  = 3600c    = $36.00
GST on it   =  3600c x 10%  =  360c    = $3.60
net         = 24000c - 3600c - 360c    = 20040c = $200.40

Eight places on that intake: $1,920.00 collected, $288.00 commission, $28.80 GST on it, $1,603.20 to you.

When you’re paid

A place settles when the payment clears, not when the group meets. The transfer goes out on the same hourly run as session payouts, so it behaves like any other line in Earnings.

A group place is settled up front, and there is no self-service refund for one. To cancel an intake after people have paid, write to billing@opentherapy.app with the program and the intake.

Joining

Your listing

Your practice

Policies

Getting paid

Being found

The three formats

Writing one

Intakes and places

Publishing

How people enrol

The money

A worked example

When you’re paid

​The three formats

​Writing one

​Intakes and places

​Publishing

​How people enrol

​The money

​A worked example

​When you’re paid

The three formats

Writing one

Intakes and places

Publishing

How people enrol

The money

A worked example

When you’re paid