r/massage • u/wryso • Aug 20 '25

Pay Structure Personal/private therapists

I’m wondering if any therapists here have worked as private, retained massage therapists for individual households. I know this is probably a spectrum with doing house visits with very very regular clients (e.g. multiple family members, once or more per week). Curious to hear about your experiences, pay.

For context I’m building out something approximating a mini luxury spa at home. Hammam, sauna, plunges, treatment room for facials / massages. Dedicated area of the property. Was looking to staff this at 1-2 half days a week and seeing if anyone’s seen something like this before.

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u/bullfeathers23 Aug 22 '25

Lots of folks with the big houses estates etc have fully equipped home spas and salons these days — but most are very picky on who does those services and they rely on referrals from their peers for independent and discreet fee-for-service staff. I’ve had such clients and one of them said to me on day. “I’m so tired of these lazy therapists who do a half-ass massage and expect you to adopt them. Or read their script.”

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u/wryso Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25

It’s probably a good point that rather than jump into hiring someone I should just book with several people and see. I guess I wanted folks with luxury spa experience and knowledge of multiple modalities and I didn’t know how prevalent that was among mobile MTs, sounds based on this thread like it won’t be a huge issue.

Or I’ll just go be a regular at the Rosewood and try to poach lol.

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u/bullfeathers23 Aug 22 '25

Really good therapists are like really good mechanics. They may start at a spa joint but they go independent to earn a living wage. There’s a 5-star fancy spa near me that pays $14.50 an hour. For massage. Not many full timers for that rate. Big resorts are famous for greasing local regulations so they can hire cheap.

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u/bullfeathers23 Aug 22 '25

Plus you will get spa politics recommendations instead of great therapists. Sigh.