How to Set Your Prices as an Equestrian Professional: A Practical Guide
- Jun 11
- 7 min read
Setting prices for equestrian services is one of those things that most professionals handle once — usually early on, usually by looking at what others are charging locally — and then leave more or less untouched. The number gets used, the number becomes familiar, and eventually the number feels like a fact rather than a decision.
It isn't. It was always a decision. And for most equestrian professionals, it was made without the information that would have made it a good one.
This guide covers how to actually set your prices: starting with the calculation, working through what belongs in your rate, and ending with how to communicate it and when to review it. It applies to sessions, packages, courses, and specialist services — because the method is the same even when the structure differs.
Why Most Pricing Is a Guess
The most common method for setting equestrian service prices is benchmarking: find out what others in the area are charging and pick a number in roughly the same range. It feels like research. It produces a number. And it has one significant flaw: the people you're benchmarking against are doing the same thing.
The local market rate is not a calculation. It's a collection of guesses, some of them made years ago, that have calcified into something that looks like evidence. Nobody in that loop has necessarily checked whether the number covers what it needs to cover. They've checked whether it looks normal.
Looking normal and covering your costs are different things. The sense check that would establish which one is true — the actual calculation — is the step that almost never gets done.
Step 1: Establish Your Net Income Target
Before anything else, name the number you need to take home. Not revenue — what actually lands in your account after tax and costs. This is your net income target, and it is the foundation of everything that follows.
Be specific. A vague sense of 'enough to live on' is not a number you can build a calculation from. What do you need per month, after tax, to cover your life? Multiply by twelve. That is your annual net income target.
Step 2: Calculate Your Realistic Billable Sessions
This is the step where most estimates go wrong — because capacity is almost always overstated.
Start from the full working year (260 days for a five-day week) and subtract what you realistically cannot bill:
Annual leave (even self-employed professionals need rest)
Public holidays (these vary by country)
Sick and contingency days
Non-billable working time: admin, invoicing, marketing, CPD, travel planning
Then factor in your daily session capacity — not the theoretical maximum, but what you can realistically sustain. And factor in dead time: the travel between appointments that you cannot bill. For mobile professionals, this is often the constraint that matters most.
The result is your realistic annual session capacity. It is almost always lower than people initially estimate.
Step 3: Add Up Your Annual Business Costs
Every legitimate business has costs beyond the work itself. For equestrian professionals, the full list typically includes:
Insurance — public liability and professional indemnity
Tax and accounting — self-employment tax obligations and the professional who helps you manage them
Equipment — spread over useful life, not just the purchase year
Vehicle costs — fuel, maintenance, and wear (not just fuel)
IT and admin tools — booking software, invoicing, subscriptions
Continuing professional development — qualifications, clinics, training
Marketing and online presence — website, photography, any paid promotion
Add these up honestly. The total is often higher than expected when seen as a single annual figure rather than individual monthly outgoings. A detailed breakdown of each category is in this article.
Step 4: Calculate Your Gross Revenue Target
To take home your net income target, you need to earn more — because tax, social contributions, and your business costs all come out before you get there.
The exact figures depend on your country and business structure, so this is where an accountant's input matters. The shape of it, however, is consistent: gross revenue needs to be substantially higher than your net income target. Add your business costs to your net target, then account for tax and contributions on top.
Step 5: Calculate Your Minimum Session Rate
Divide your gross revenue target by your realistic annual session capacity. The result is your minimum session rate — the floor below which the numbers don't fly.
Worked example (illustrative — your numbers will differ):
| Variable | Example Figure |
|---|---|
| Net income target | €30,000/year |
| Annual business costs | €8,000 |
| Tax and contributions (estimated) | €16,000 |
| Gross revenue needed | €54,000 |
| Realistic billable sessions/year | 890 |
| Minimum session rate | €60.67 |
This is the floor, not the ceiling. It is the point below which the business is guaranteed to earn less than it needs to. What you charge above this floor is a commercial and positioning decision. The full step-by-step calculation guide is here.
Pricing for Different Service Types
The minimum rate calculation gives you a per-session floor. How you apply it depends on what you offer.
Individual sessions: the minimum rate applies directly. Your session price needs to sit above the floor, with room for the positioning decisions described below.
Packages: when clients buy a block of sessions upfront, the benefit to you is certainty of income and reduced admin. This can justify a modest discount — but the per-session rate within any package must still sit above your floor. Packages should not be used to lower your effective rate below minimum; they should be used to reward commitment while maintaining it.
Courses and group sessions: group delivery changes the calculation. If you're delivering to multiple clients simultaneously, your income per hour is higher and the per-person cost can be lower while still hitting your floor. Calculate what the group session generates in total, not per head, and check it against what that time costs you.
Specialist or niche services: if you hold a specialisation — a qualification, a methodology, a type of work that few others in your area can offer — your floor is the minimum, not the target. Specialist knowledge commands a premium above the base rate. The calculation tells you where pricing starts; positioning and market determine how far above that you can comfortably go.
Benchmarking Correctly — And Against Whom
Benchmarking isn't useless — it just needs to be done with the right comparisons.
The relevant comparison is other registered, insured, qualified professionals in your discipline and geography. Not the informal provider who doesn't have your cost base. Not the professional in a different country or context with different operating costs. Not what someone was charging three years ago.
What you're looking for is a sense of where professionally priced services in your category sit — not to copy the number, but to understand what the market supports above your floor. If your minimum is €60 and comparable professionals in your area charge €70–€90, that's useful information. It tells you there's room above your floor and gives you a range to position within.
If your minimum comes out higher than the local market rate, that's different information. It may mean the local market is underpriced. It may mean you need to look at your cost structure. It may mean your geography doesn't support the model you're running. All of those are worth understanding — none of them are solved by pricing below your floor.
Communicating Your Price
How you state your price matters. Not in the sense of needing careful wordsmithing — but in the sense that the way you name your rate signals something about how you feel about it.
State it directly. Not 'my sessions are usually around €65', not 'I normally charge about €65 depending on the situation' — both of these signal that the number is negotiable and that you're not fully comfortable with it. 'My session rate is €65' is a fact. It is stated as one. There is nothing to push back on.
If asked why you charge what you charge, a brief and direct answer is all that's needed: 'that's my professional rate, it reflects my qualifications and the full cost of delivering the service properly.' Not defensive, not elaborate. A sentence.
When and How to Review Your Prices
Pricing is not a one-time decision. It should be reviewed at minimum annually, and more frequently if your costs change significantly or your capacity shifts.
The trigger for a review is simple: do the calculation again with current numbers. If your costs have gone up — which they will, because costs always go up — and your rate hasn't moved, the gap between your floor and your rate is shrinking. At some point it closes entirely, and then every session you deliver is generating less than it needs to.
Annual reviews mean incremental adjustments rather than large jumps. A €3–€5 increase each year is far easier for clients to absorb than a €15 increase after five years of stagnation. Regular, modest, clearly communicated increases are the mechanism that keeps pricing current without drama.
For new clients, the current rate is simply the rate. The review conversation only happens with existing clients, and how to handle it is covered in detail here.
The Summary
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Set a specific net income target |
| 2 | Calculate realistic billable sessions (subtract leave, admin, dead time) |
| 3 | Add up all annual business costs honestly |
| 4 | Calculate gross revenue needed (net income + costs + tax) |
| 5 | Divide gross revenue by sessions — that's your floor |
| 6 | Position above the floor based on your market and specialism |
| 7 | Communicate your rate directly, without hedging |
| 8 | Review annually and adjust incrementally |
The method is not complicated. What it requires is the willingness to do it — to look at the actual numbers rather than the approximate feeling. Once you've done it once, the review is straightforward. And once you know your floor, pricing becomes a commercial decision rather than an emotional one.
If you'd rather have a tool that does the calculation for you, the Pricing Calculator takes your inputs and returns your minimum session rate. It takes a few minutes and removes the guesswork entirely.
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