It’s Not Greedy to Know Your Breakeven

There’s a curious silence that falls over many psychologists when asked to name their breakeven. Not their fee, not their average reimbursement—but the number beneath it all, the one that determines whether the practice they’ve built is sustainable or simply propped up by borrowed energy and denial. It is the number that doesn’t lie. And for many, it is the number they do everything to avoid.

Ask a psychologist what they charge and they’ll tell you—perhaps a bit sheepishly, perhaps with precision. Ask what they’re reimbursed by a particular panel and they’ll likely have a rough sense. Ask what they need to earn per session in order to cover their costs and keep the lights on, and you will often see hesitation. Not because they don’t care. But because the very act of calculating that figure feels dangerous.

To name your breakeven, after all, is to admit you have one.

And that is where the trouble begins.

The Psychology of the Breakeven

Psychologists are taught to work with precision, to honor nuance, to respect complexity. But when it comes to their own business models, many operate on gut, habit, and a kind of inherited cultural guilt. There is a persistent, half-formed belief that if you’re really good at what you do, the money will work itself out. That if your intentions are pure, your practice will thrive. That if you have to do this kind of math, maybe you’re not cut out for this kind of work.

Of course, none of this is true. But belief and knowledge are not the same.

Knowing your breakeven doesn’t mean you’ve become transactional. It doesn’t signal that you’ve commodified care. It means, quite simply, that you’ve stepped into the truth of what your work actually costs. That you’ve made visible the invisible scaffolding that allows your clinical presence to exist. That you’ve chosen, deliberately, to work within reality.

There is no shame in that.

And yet, for many, there is.

The Guilt of Being Precise

There is something almost indecent, in certain clinical circles, about knowing your numbers too well. To be financially organized is to risk being seen as calculating. Detached. Less authentic. Less committed. The mythology runs deep: the best clinicians don’t track their hours. The real healers offer sliding scale without a second thought. The truest therapists say yes first and figure it out later.

These are stories, not ethics. But they wear the clothes of ethics so convincingly that many psychologists internalize them as truth.

The result is a strange kind of professional schizophrenia: a practitioner who operates with extraordinary attunement inside the therapy room, but who dissociates when it’s time to reconcile the books. Someone who can help clients reframe the most complex cognitive distortions—but cannot apply the same insight to their own narrative about money.

There is no villain in this story. Only inheritance.

But like all inheritances, it is ours to accept—or not.

Why Knowing Isn’t Greedy

Greed implies excess. Hoarding. A willingness to take more than one’s share.

Knowing your breakeven is the opposite of greed. It is the refusal to pretend. It is the practice of enough.

To know your breakeven is to look directly at what it takes to do your job well, and to acknowledge that these inputs—time, energy, risk, skill, space, supervision, technology, presence—are not free. That they never were. That they never will be.

It is to understand that the space you hold for your clients must also be held for you—financially, practically, structurally. Not because you are fragile, or selfish, or demanding. But because you are human.

A practice that does not meet its breakeven is not a practice. It is a slow act of self-erasure.

And no amount of clinical virtue can cover that up for long.

The Cultural Pressure to “Just Make It Work”

Psychologists, particularly those in private practice, often carry the invisible weight of social idealism. They are told, implicitly and explicitly, that their work exists at the intersection of vocation and charity. That they are here to help. That wanting stability, let alone prosperity, somehow contaminates that mission.

This creates a pervasive pressure to “just make it work.” To accept contracts that don’t cover overhead. To avoid raising fees. To subsidize systemic dysfunction with personal depletion.

And when the numbers don’t add up? Many don’t revise the system. They revise their expectations. Fewer vacations. More clients. Longer hours. Deferred retirement.

They become, slowly and with great devotion, the kind of therapist who survives instead of thrives.

It does not have to be this way.

The Power of Naming

Naming your breakeven is not an act of finality. It is an act of orientation.

It allows you to say: This is the floor. This is what it takes to keep this practice alive, to keep this care ethical, to keep this work sustainable. It allows you to make decisions with clarity instead of confusion. It gives you a reference point—not for greed, but for integrity.

Because integrity is not just about doing the right thing by your clients. It is about doing the right thing by your practice. By your future. By the version of you who still wants to be doing this work in five or ten years, not because you’re stuck, but because you’re still inspired.

And that version of you? They need you to know your breakeven now.

Rewriting the Narrative

What if financial clarity wasn’t something to hide?

What if it was part of your professionalism?

What if knowing your breakeven was simply the psychological hygiene of practice ownership—the same way you wash your hands, update your license, or lock your filing cabinet?

What if, instead of whispering about money in the hallway after peer group, we spoke about it plainly, intelligently, as stewards of our own labor?

What if knowing what you need was not seen as self-indulgent, but as self-respecting?

The myth that money and meaning exist in opposition has done more to stunt the health of this field than most administrative burdens ever could. And nowhere is that more visible than in the way psychologists struggle to calculate, to say, and to accept what their work actually costs.

To know your breakeven is not to sell out. It is to opt back in—to your own viability, your own longevity, your own capacity to do the work not just now, but sustainably, with care, for years.

It is a quiet kind of professionalism. A small but necessary act of clinical stewardship. And in a field that has historically rewarded self-sacrifice over sustainability, it may just be the most radical thing you do.

About the Editor
Cody Thomas Rounds is a Clinical Psychologist-Master based in Burlington, Vermont, specializing in psychological assessment and collaborative care. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of PsycheAtWork Magazine, founder of the Learn.Do.Grow educational platform and the PsycheAtWork YouTube channel. In addition to publishing, he offers consultation and supervision for psychologists and creates practical therapist resources designed to support ethical, sustainable practice.