What are the top physical therapy schools in the United States?
As a private practice therapist, chances are, your one-on-one work with clients is your main source of income. But it doesn’t have to be your only source of income. As a therapist, there are other opportunities that can diversify your revenue stream and ensure your income stays stable, even if your caseload drops. And one of those opportunities? Offering corporate wellness services.
Partnering with businesses to support their workplace mental health programs can be a great way for private practice therapists to earn additional income, offer new services and work with new populations, and flex their muscles outside of the therapy room—and this kind of support (and the therapists that offer corporate wellness services) have never been more in demand.
But if you’ve never offered corporate wellness services, where to start can feel like one big question mark. Let’s take a look at everything you need to know about offering corporate wellness services as a private practice therapist, including how to build out your workplace mental health offerings (and how to approach companies about them), special considerations for working with corporate clients (vs. individual therapy patients), and how to measure and grow this part of your therapeutic business:
How to structure corporate wellness services
Before you try to break into the corporate wellness world as a therapist, you first need to get clear on what, exactly, you’re going to offer—and how you’re going to structure and present that offer to corporate clients.
What services to offer corporate clients?
The first thing to determine is what services you’re going to offer in your corporate wellness services.
As a therapist, therapy sessions (whether those sessions are with individuals, groups, or families) are likely at the core of your private practice. But that doesn’t mean that you should necessarily build your corporate wellness services around those same kinds of sessions.
“The biggest mistake…that many therapists make is pitching ‘mental health support’ as opposed to defining a specific, quantifiable business issue for which they propose using psychology,” says Riky Hanaumi, Clinical Director at Colorado-based Quadrant Health Group, where she oversees program development.
In other words, when determining which services to pitch to workplace mental health programs, it’s important to think outside the traditional therapy box—and to present services that address and provide solutions to the issues that matter to the business.
For example, rather than pitching therapy services, “employers may derive greater benefit from services such as manager consultation, psychologically safe leadership workshops, burnout prevention strategies, group communication skills development, and team-based resiliency building activities that promote healthy team dynamics prior to requiring clinicians to intervene,” says Hanaumi.
Not only do these kinds of corporate wellness services speak more directly to corporate clients, but “these types of services are easily scaled up while maintaining ethical boundaries,” says Hanaumi.
It’s also crucial to remember that corporate wellness services—such as workshops, lunch-and-learns, or executive consultations—are educational and consultative services, not formal clinical therapy. Clearly defining this scope of practice in your contracts ensures employees understand that participation does not establish a therapist-client relationship.
When choosing what services to offer corporate clients, think about how you can translate your therapeutic experience and approach into offerings that make sense in the workplace. For example, do you often incorporate mindfulness techniques into your individual sessions? If so, you might consider putting together a workshop on how managers can use mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) techniques to recover from burnout. Or maybe you specialize in art therapy. In that case, you might put together a series of lunch-and-learns on how executives or managers can use simple art therapy exercises to inspire more creativity and innovation on their teams.
How to price services for corporate clients?
Once you’ve determined what services to offer, it’s time to figure out how to price those services. And if you’re used to working in private practice—where typically, you charge by the hour or session—this step might require you to step outside your typical pricing model.
In therapy sessions, most of the work required is contained to the time spent in session—which is why it makes sense to charge by the hour or session. But corporate wellness services are different—and often require a significant amount of work outside of the actual time spent delivering the service.
“Therapists frequently undervalue their services when delivering them in a corporate environment by charging based upon the amount of time it takes to deliver each service as if they were seeing an individual client,” says Hanaumi.
For example, let’s say you’re hired to give a wellness workshop for a corporate client. In that scenario, there’s a ton of work you’ll need to do both before the workshop takes place (like researching the topic, designing the presentation slides, and writing and printing the workshop materials) and after it wraps (like compiling a report that outlines the workshop’s results and meeting with the executive team to discuss). And if you’re only charging for the actual time you spent giving the workshop, you’re going to leave a ton of money on the table—and essentially do a solid portion of your work for free.
Knowing how to price services effectively means accounting for your preparation and follow-up time. As such, “pricing for corporate services should reflect the level of preparation involved, customizing each service to meet the needs of the client organization, developing reports that document outcomes for the employer, providing follow-up resources, and measuring the overall impact of your services on the client organization—not merely the amount of time it took to provide the service,” says Hanaumi.
So, what does that structure look like? While you could technically set an hourly rate—and just bill the client for the total number of hours your services entail, including before, during, and after you deliver that service—that kind of pricing structure typically doesn’t align with how corporations do business.
“Corporate clients do not think about session fees; they think about budgeted programs,” says Dr. Eleni Nicolaou, a clinical psychologist, art therapist, and creative wellness coach with experience building corporate-facing wellness programs. “If you provide a rate for your service based on how much time you spent with a client [or on the project], then you have communicated to them that you don't know how corporations work.”
Instead of charging by the hour or session, come up with a package fee:
Determine your ideal hourly rate: Make sure to take into account your experience and the overall impact you believe you can have on the client’s business operations.
Estimate the service’s total required hours: Estimate how many hours offering the service will require—including the time spent preparing, the time delivering the service, and any time you’ll need to spend working with the team once the service is over. (Keep in mind that things often take longer than you think they will—so make sure to pad your estimate with additional hours in case anything unexpected comes up.)
Rate x total = package price: Take your desired hourly rate and multiply it by your estimated hours (again, with extra hours padded in)—which will give you your package price.
Package fees are a win-win for both you and the client. Not only does this pricing structure allow corporate clients to easily evaluate your total cost and how it fits into their budget, but it will also help you avoid quantifying and/or justifying your hours—and potentially facing scrutiny from the client about how much time you’re spending on each service and/or how much you’re charging for an hour of your time.
How to measure ROI on corporate programs?
When it comes to workplace mental health programs, what services you have to offer—and how much those services cost—tend to matter less to corporate clients than the results and return on investment (ROI) those services can offer the business.
As such, before you start pitching workplace mental health programs, it’s important to understand how to measure ROI of your services—and how to show your corporate clients that your corporate wellness services have a real, measurable impact on their team, operations, and business as a whole.
Here are some tips on how to measure the ROI of your corporate wellness services—and present them in a way that proves your impact to the client:
Use metrics that the company cares about: When it comes to corporate wellness metrics, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. In order to show ROI in a way that will speak to the client, you need to tie your services to the metrics the company actually cares about. For example, if “the company… [tracks] absenteeism, productivity, and frequency of sick days…your corporate program should connect directly with one or more of those measurements,” says Nicolaou.
Track from day one: You can’t show the impact of your corporate wellness offerings if it’s not clear where you started from. As such, “prior to starting your program, establish a baseline for [all relevant metrics],” says Nicolaou. “Then at the end of your program, use the same measurements to determine any change [in those markers].”
Give firm numbers: While there is a time and place for qualitative data (for example, feedback from program participants or your observations on the company’s employees), when it comes to proving your value, “the way to quantify ROI to your corporate clients is with numbers—not story-telling,” says Nicolaou. When you present your results to the client, make sure that all of your metrics are rooted in real data and numbers.
When collecting and presenting data to show program impact, ensure all metrics are fully anonymized and aggregated. Corporate clients should only receive high-level group data (such as overall stress reduction percentages or attendance rates) to ensure individual employee health information remains completely confidential and compliant with HIPAA and state privacy laws.
How to approach companies for corporate wellness?
Are you thinking about diversifying your income as a private practice therapist by breaking into corporate wellness services? Here are a few tips on how to approach companies—and how to increase your chances of getting hired for workplace mental health programs:
Speak their language: The therapy world has its own language and jargon. But remember, corporations don’t speak therapy—and if you want them to hire you for their corporate wellness program, you need to speak a language they understand. “Therapists tend to speak about clinical methods, specific cases, and sessions of healing of any kind,” says Tetiana Hnatiuk, Chief Operations Officer and ex-Chief Human Resources Officer of Skylum, an operational and HR professional that has overseen and assembled corporate wellness programs throughout her career. “But from the perspective of an HR professional and executive, I think in the language of business metrics—such as employee turnover, engagement, or burnout prevention…[As such], when doing a pitch, don’t talk about how you treat your clients clinically. Talk about how your workshops will [improve my business—for example], reduce absenteeism or increase psychological safety of teams.”
Pitch the right person: When it comes to landing corporate clients, who you pitch can be just as important as what your pitch actually contains. “Don’t waste your time pitching and sending information to generic HR or info email addresses,” says Hnatiuk. “Find someone who holds positions like Head of Total Rewards, Chief People Officer, or Wellness Program Manager—people whose KPIs depend on employees’ well-being.”
Keep it brief: You might have a lot to say about your corporate wellness services. But the more information you include when pitching corporate clients, the easier it will be for the important information to get lost in translation—and the less likely that client will be to hire you. “HR managers won’t read a three-page proposal from a potential partner,” says Hnatiuk. “Stick to a pitch that is shorter than 200 words, where you only address one issue that HR faces as a team—for example, digital fatigue or cross-team communication problems.”
Suggest a pilot: Some corporate clients may be wary of hiring you for a long-term engagement from the get-go. But if you can get your foot in the door on a smaller project—and blow them away with the results—it can dramatically increase the likelihood that they’ll engage you on a larger scale moving forward. So, if you’re struggling to close corporate clients, consider starting small—and pitching a smaller pilot program to start. For example, “instead of asking for a year-long cooperation right away, offer an interactive 45-minute workshop for one particular department,” says Hnatiuk. This “allows HR to evaluate your work style, get internal feedback, and obtain funding for a full-scale program.”
Sources
Hanaumi, R. (2026). Personal interview.
Hnatiuk, T. (2026). Personal interview.
Nicolaou, E. (2026). Personal interview.
How SimplePractice streamlines running your practice
SimplePractice is HIPAA-compliant practice management software with everything you need to run your practice built into the platform—from booking and scheduling to insurance and client billing.
If you’ve been considering switching to an EHR system, SimplePractice empowers you to run a fully paperless practice—so you get more time for the things that matter most to you.
Try SimplePractice free for 30 days. No credit card required.
