Are you starting a Professional Organizing business and aren’t quite sure how to charge or price your time? This post is all about how to come up with professional organizer rates that are fair, competitive, and will help you make a comfortable living.
As a professional home organizer with more than 20+ years of experience, I’m an expert on how to charge fairly for my time, and I want to help you do the same. I will explain how new professional organizers can charge for their services and I’ll teach you how to research national pricing for home organizing services.
I will also examine the two factors when determining your starting rate and how you can charge a client for your services that are either by the hour, by the project, or by the session.
If you prefer to watch my YouTube video on professional organizer rates, click the video below. Otherwise, keep scrolling to read on!
Factors in Determining Professional Organizing Rates
Factor 1: Location
There are two major factors in determining your professional organizer rates when starting your own home organizing business.
Those two factors are location and experience.
A Professional Organizer working in London, New York City, or Los Angeles, it is unlikely to charge the same as an organizer in a very small town. You will need to research the market where you plan to work to see what folks charge for home services in that specific area. To do this, I recommend that you research other organizers in your area, poll your potential customer base, and/or check lead-generating services for average pricing.
In 2015 Angie’s List reported that professional home organizers typically charge between $30 and $80 per hour. For more up to date and specific data, you can check average rates from other referral sites below:
- Home Advisor True Cost Guide | Storage & Organization > Hire a Professional Organizer
- What Home Organizers on Thumbtack Costs
Once you figure out the average professional rates in your desired location, you’ll then need to consider your operating expenses and business start-up costs. However, the sites listed above will give you much-needed insight into rates typical of your market.
Factor 2: Experience
It’s unlikely that you will charge the same rates to your very first client that you would charge to a client after you’ve worked many years in the organizing business. As your experience grows, so will your rates.
In the beginning, organizers may initially provide discounts or even work pro bono to get job experience.
Also, since you can’t currently get a college degree in professional organizing (although that would be awesome), you can obtain certification, which will help with your experience and how you set your professional organizer rates.
Becoming a Certified Professional Organizer often involves paying for training, books, exams, membership fees, and working in the field to gain experience. An experienced, trained, or certified home organizer would naturally charge a higher rate based on these factors.
As your experience grows, you may also become more in demand as your existing clients will want to work with you again or refer your services to friends and family.
3 Options for How to Charge Clients
- Charge by the Hour
- By the Session
- By the Project
If you’ve trained with me or spent time on my YouTube channel, you may know that I recommend that new organizers charge by the session. Here is why:
When I first started organizing, I charged by the hour. I quickly found a flaw in that system and realized how much it could hurt my bottom line. I would show up to a client’s home expecting to complete a project and they would ask if I could finish up in an hour to save them money. Or, clients would purposely cut our time short because they forgot an appointment or had something else they needed to do.
That was a huge loss for me because I had gathered up my tools, drove 20 minutes to their house, and I knew I would not be able to book another client to fill that time.
Working by the project has its flaws too. I believe it puts too much pressure on the organizer to create a timeline when organizing. The reason why this is so stressful is because a home has too many varying factors such as:
- how quickly your client makes decisions
- the amount of product will you need to purchase (then return)
- how long sorting will take of detailed items like paper & photos
- how much clutter is packed away in boxes that you can not even see
Over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at estimating the time it takes to sort, walk my clients through a decision-making process, and then putting items away. I know when we uncover something that will slow the project down I can make adjustments on the fly.
Professional Organizer Rates Recommendation
What works best for me is working in 3-hour minimum time blocks or “sessions”. This gives me the time and the focus needed to process the clutter, organize the space, and help my clients achieve their goals.
So, once you figure out the average rate for your desired location, I highly recommend setting your professional organizer rates in 3-hour minimum time blocks to get the most out of your time and to give the most value to your clients.
So many of you found my video 5 Steps to become a Professional Organizer helpful and inspiring that I wanted to expand on a lot of those ideas. I’ve also created a YouTube playlist called The Business of Professional Organizing. You can view that at https://bit.ly/2WlKrUQ I’ll be adding new videos about working in the organizing field.
ARE YOU INTERESTED IN BECOMING A PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZER?
If you’re someone who LOVES organizing, consider starting your own organizing business.
Get a copy of my free guide “Professional Organizer’s Launch Guide” HERE.
There are many things to consider when starting an organizing business including:
- When will I name my business?
- Where will I find clients?
- How do I become an organizer?
- Do I need to be certified to get started?
- How will I structure my business?
You have come to the right place!
When you are ready to start your own professional organizing business, check out all my courses on working as a home organizer. My course bundle has the best prices on courses so that you can create and market your organizing business and design a system of organization that will work with all your clients no matter how small or large their volume of clutter is! Check out the course bundle here: Online Boot-Camp for Organizing Bosses
You can also check out my other blogs on how to start a home organizing business:
- How to Start a Professional Organizing Business in 2021
- The Ultimate Reading List for (wannabe) Certified Professional Organizers
- How to Create a Name for your Organizing Business
- 7 Ways to Get Clients for your Professional Organizing Business
Happy Organizing!
About me…
I left corporate America in 2002 and launched my career as a Professional Organizer. My colleagues thought I was crazy, that this was just a fad. Some of my family members still do not understand what I do for a living. Well since then the Professional Organizing field has exploded with multiple tv shows, millions of books sold, and the minimalist movement. I’ve helped hundreds of clients sort and remove thousands of pounds of clutter from their homes. Over the years I’ve also mentored and trained other organizers who have gone on to run successful businesses. I want you to have that same training and support!
