Compare the full monthly cost of running your own therapy office, from rent and utilities to furniture and soundproofing, with renting a furnished, soundproofed office by the hour or day. See your cost per session and the caseload at which a lease starts to pay off.
By the Olida team · Updated October 2026
Olida saves you about $487 a month ($5,843 a year).
A lease only pays off at 20+ client hours a week, every week.
| Rent | $930 |
| Utilities | $100 |
| Internet and phone | $90 |
| Cleaning | $80 |
| Office insurance | $40 |
| Waiting room supplies | $40 |
| Furniture and decor | $139 |
| Soundproofing and sound masking | $28 |
| Total | $1,447 |
| Per session | $31 |
| Full Day plan | $500 |
| 15 extra hours at $30 | $460 |
| Furniture, utilities, cleaning | Included |
| Total | $960 |
| Per session | $21 |
Local lease rates, Olida prices and what a typical office budget looks like in each market.
Your own office starts with 250 sq ft of leased space (a 100–140 sq ft therapy room plus a small waiting area and the building’s load factor) at published asking rents for the market you pick, then adds monthly running costs and spreads furniture ($5,000) and soundproofing ($1,000) across a 36-month lease. This cost is fixed: you pay it whether you see 4 clients a week or 30.
Olida uses the live prices for the location you pick. The calculator tries every mix of Full Day plans and hourly bookings and shows the cheapest one for your schedule. Furniture, soundproofing, utilities, Wi-Fi, cleaning and the client waiting area are included in every booking.
Sessions per month are your weekly client hours × working weeks per year ÷ 12. Every assumption can be changed under “Adjust the assumptions”.
Add monthly rent (square feet × annual rate per square foot ÷ 12) to utilities, internet and phone, cleaning, office insurance and waiting room supplies, then spread one-time costs such as furniture and soundproofing across the months of your lease. Divide the total by the sessions you actually hold each month to get your office cost per session.
With typical rents and Olida prices in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, the DMV and Chicago, a solo clinician’s own lease only becomes cheaper at roughly 20 to 29 client hours every week, all year. The exact break-even depends on your rent and the prices near you, which is what this calculator works out.
Hourly bookings use the $80 monthly membership, which includes $50 of booking credit, plus the hourly rate for the location. A Full Day plan reserves the same room on the same weekday every week for a flat monthly price with no membership fee, and Full Day members book any extra hours at the hourly rate. The calculator counts each Full Day as up to 8 client hours and picks the cheapest mix of Full Days and hourly bookings for your schedule.
Clinicians take vacations, observe holidays and lose sessions to cancellations, but rent is due every month. The calculator defaults to 46 working weeks a year so the per-session cost reflects the sessions you actually hold.
