Packaging Your Doula Services

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Do you wear other hats? Are you a childbirth educator, a postpartum doula, a photographer, a massage therapist, or any hold any other title in addition to being a birth doula? You should package your services.

How Many Packages Should I Offer?

Three is the magic number. You won't overwhelm a potential client with too many choices, and yet it will feel like there is a variety to choose from. You can have:

A Basic Package
An Upgraded Package
Your High-End Bells and Whistles Package

I'll offer my own packages as an example:

A Basic Package: My basic birth doula package is pretty standard, offering what most other birth doulas offer in terms of prenatal and postpartum visits, attendance at the birth, and so on.
An Upgraded Package: I am a Reiki practitioner, so I offer an upgraded package that includes some Reiki sessions in addition to everything that is in the basic package.
My High-End Package: I am also a life coach, so my high-end package adds a birth/parenting/life coach package to the Upgraded package. So, clients will receive doula services, Reiki and coaching.

You are not only limited to adding services. If you make and sell products, you could add some of your products to your upgraded packages. Use your imagination to build packages that no other doulas around you offer and give them creative names. This will automatically set you apart from your competition.

For example, say you are a birth and postpartum doula and also a placenta encapsulator. Your basic package can be the doula package. Your upgraded package might include doula services and placenta encapsulation, and your high-end package could tack on a certain number of postpartum hours.

Maybe you're a birth doula and don't have any other roles. You could offer an additional prenatal visit and a birth timeline. Are you an awesome cook? Include a meal. Crafty? Create a personalized memento. Another idea is that you could team up with someone who offers complementary services, say a massage therapist, or postpartum doula or birth photographer. Work out a special rate that you would pay to that partner, maybe one that includes a slight referral fee to you.

How Should I Price My Packages?

In a previous blog post, I offered some questions that you can ask yourself when setting your prices. Refer to it if you need help determining the price for your Basic Package. For pricing your Upgraded and High-End Packages, a good rule of thumb is to increase your price 10-30%. For example, the rate for your Basic Package is $795. Your mid-range package could be about 10% higher, at $875. Your premium package could be $1050, a difference of about 20% over your mid-range package. However, if you offer services like massage therapy or childbirth classes, you may want to structure your package price to include a 10-20% discount off the cost of the services you're adding. Set your prices so your client will see value in it, but don't shortchange yourself and offer too steep of a discount.

How did you end up structuring your packages? Come and start a conversation about it on the Inspired Birth Pros Facebook group.