The unpaid time put into each session

xandriarainxandriarain
edited August 2021 in Pro Cuddling

This is an example of the amount of time I put into a session that I host in my office and with your typical first-time client (Some clients may require more or less than one hour of correspondence and a video call, this is the average)

Correspondance and a video call ..................................................................1 hour
Actively doing bedding laundry ......................................................................10 minutes
Showering and getting ready..........................................................................1 hour
Driving to my office and back.........................................................................40 minutes
Making the bed and getting the space ready...............................................15 minutes

Total time............................................................................................................ 3 hours and 5 minutes

Why am I sharing this?
I don't mind putting this time and effort into my sessions. I want to do things right and make each session the best experience possible for my client so all of this time and effort is 100% worth it. But this is why I charge so much "just for hugs".
This is also why I charge more per hour for shorter sessions and encourage longer sessions with steep discounts because I do put in this time and effort regardless of how long a session is. This does not fully encompass all of my unpaid hours, I also spend time following up and corresponding with past clients and people who never end up booking. I put a lot of time, money, and effort into making my office beautiful and making sure it is stocked with drinks and snacks. Recently, I started paying a mentor to improve my craft and business as a whole and spend an hour doing that every week. I have also spent many hours doing training, networking with other cuddle professionals, and generally trying to stay a part of this community. I know many of you are aware of the effort professional cuddling takes but recently I have gotten some new people asking me how I can charge this much and even referring to my work as a "scam" or a "hustle". So for those of you who don't know this is all the work that goes on behind the scenes.

Comments

  • xandriarainxandriarain

    For those of you viewing this from your phone I apologize. I wrote this out on my laptop and it looked much better.

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod
    edited August 2021

    Yeah, @xandriarain that's all very well, but your calculations are for the 'perfect client' who isn't any trouble, doesn't ask seventeen stupid questions plus four perfectly sensible ones which are answered in your profile or the FAQ, turns up on time, and hasn't postponed the session twice.

    In other words three hours is the absolute minimum, not the overall average.

  • cuddlerforu24cuddlerforu24
    edited August 2021

    May I enter the discussion please?
    Thank you .

    These are debatable ...
    Video call . That is a valid expense.

    Laundry . That is a valid expense. We all know that wash cycles and drying take longer but feeding the appliance with the laundry are the clocked minutes . The actual wash and dry cycles are simultaneously done during other preparations .

    Showering and getting ready . Assume one client per day . This is a debatable charge . Both parties are required by website rules . So they cancel out one another . Also , compare to a day job most of us have ... don’t we take showers before going to work ?! How many pro cuddlers in their previous occupations said”boss I had to take a shower for my desk job “ there fore , you have to pay me for that . “

    Driving to office and back . This is also debatable . We all have to drive to work and back . Again , who says to their boss I have to drive in and drive home . I have to clock in for those times .(except : longer distances to a clients location)

    Getting bed ready .. that is a valid charge

    If I were an IRS tax examiner and I reviewed a Pro cuddlers P and L statements and saw job expenses for showering and driving to the office I would send the tax schedules back to the tax filer for corrections . I might make an exception for any local Board of health regulations on the showering but I would want to have the local code furnished in notes and explanations .

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod

    @cuddlerforu24 you are quite right that many of these things would not be chargeable, or an allowable tax expense in mnay jurisdictions. However, that was not the object of the OP, which was merely to catalogue the amount of time that a session takes.

    In the case of showering and travelling to work, in a salaried job you would get paid for, say, eight hours per shower and commute. In a cuddling session, you only get paid for the length of the session, which may be only one hour.

    Under UK tax rules one standard journey (i.e. commute equivalent) per day is not deductable. However, extra journeys (e.g. from one cuddle venue to another) would be.

    I'm a freelance tutor, which is pretty much exactly the same as a cuddler except when you arrive at the client's they are a kid and you don't cuddle them (well, very rarely you do), you teach them. Also the whole safety thing.

    I've never plucked up the courage to do the calculations but a first session definitely takes at least three hours work, not counting the session itself and any academic preparation.

  • cuddlerforu24cuddlerforu24
    edited August 2021

    @CuddleDuncan I responded because what caught my eye was the title of the discussion “ unpaid time” ( which is invested , and not compensated for , by almost everyone earning a living)
    Time is spent at the clothing store for , job specific items be it business suits for those in sales or work jeans for the plumber . We al have unpaid expenses and I can’t think of any right now but there could be some occupations that have zero hours paid in a given day ( think commissioned sales person). Oh here’s one : a real estate agent makes zero money showing houses still has to havea Late model car four door , business clothes, zero compensation some ( lots) days showing houses to prospective purchasers and until they pull the trigger on a home buy there’s no income to the agent .

  • MelancholyMelancholy

    Its strange that pro cuddlers charge $120 or $150 per hour now.
    Just 3 years ago pro cuddlers were charging $80 per hour, and some were $70 per hour.
    is there any other job that nearly double their salaries or income like that ? Even if you account for inflation of 8% since 2018, that would be $86 per hour...but the rates went up nearly 88%

  • CuddleWhoCuddleWho

    Thanks for enumerating this; I have indeed seen some occasional comments from people who seem oblivious to the idea that a cuddle of N hours takes more time for the pro than just those N hours.

    That said, this seems like a worst case scenario to me. For instance, a common situation I've been in before is that I'm seeing a pro I've seen many times before, and she just comes over on her way home from work. I really think her time investment outside the actual cuddle session is pretty minimal.

    I would be interested from a sociological or economic perspective to understand the price increases that @Melancholy mentions. A couple years ago it was rare to see prices over $100/hr; now in some areas it's pretty common. Maybe the pandemic has had an effect somehow?

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod

    @cuddlerforu24 all true, but real estate agents don't routinely get told that they are a hustler or a scammer. The point is that there is a small but significant cohort of idiots who think that 1 hour of cuddling means 1 hour of work for the professional. We now have a detailed post to help educate them.

    @Melancholy, well yes, that's obviously the kind of thing you would expect in a new industry.

  • RezzRezz

    @Melancholy and @CuddleWho

    I suspect the housing crisis has effected the cost of living everywhere. The risk of dealing with bad clients + covid are also possible culprits for rising rates.

    It just takes one person signing up in an area with high rates, a new pro signs up believes this is the norm and adjust her rates to match. Rinse repeat.

    Not that anyone here needs to justify their rates to anyone but this is my speculation.

  • cuddlerforu24cuddlerforu24
    edited August 2021

    , @CuddleDuncan oh ? Well , they are hiding behind a disclaimer in their standard purchase agreements “ buyer to do due diligence , agent makes no warranties of contract property .

    And if a thief wants a late model Mercedes , all he needs to do is pretend to be a buyer , call an agent ,schedule a showing of some vacant house , and explain they only can visit at 8 pm in the evening .

  • xandriarainxandriarain
    edited August 2021

    Well said @CuddleDuncan real estate agents get paid well when the house does sell and no one criticizes them for taking a percentage of the sale.
    Here is my story of how my prices evolved to where they are now. Hopefully, this will give some insight:

    • I started cuddling two years (2019) ago at $80 an hour flat with no multi-hour discounts, I also did not host. I started at $80 because it seemed like the standard entry-level rate.
    • After about a month or so I raised my rate to $100 an hour at the suggestion of friends and several clients because I had a crazy amount of demand and was spread too thin. Charging $100 per hour allowed me to work less and make roughly the same money. Many cuddlers back in 2019 were charging $100 an hour so this was not such a big price increase that it scared away many clients.
    • A few months in I figured out a clearer price structure for longer sessions and decided to do a whole price list for every possible session length. I decided to charge $100 per hour for the first two hours and $50 per hour for the third hour and beyond.
    • About six months into my cuddling career I realized how much I was spending on gas and tolls so I started calculating my travel costs and charging extra for that on top of my hourly rate. So at this point, a typical client was paying for a hotel room and about $20 on average for gas and tolls on top of my hourly rate and no one was complaining about my rates, but some complained about having to get a hotel.
    • Then came the pandemic and I had to stop cuddling for a while. When I came back I decided I wanted to cuddle as few people as possible while still making a livable income so I decided to require two hours minimum; that way I could keep myself and my clients safer by being exposed to fewer people on any given week.
    • In December of 2020, I finally was able to get an office to host sessions in. I took on a lot of additional expenses between the office rent, paint, furniture, and decorations. I spoke to several clients on how to address this increased cost of hosting and decided it was better to have a simple flat rate rather than having extra fees which would discourage people from coming to my office so I raised my rates from $100 to $120 and I kept the two-hour minimum so I was making an extra $40 per session to offset my office expenses. To make this fair to outcall clients I decided to stop charging for gas and tolls
    • In early 2021 I was receiving a lot of pushback for my two-hour minimum so I decided to bring back one hour sessions but I wanted to be compensated for the office overhead and all the prep that goes into a session so I decided to make my one hour rate $150 and later I added a 90-minute option for $200. This has been a great option for first-time clients who weren't sure if they would like cuddling and didn't want to overcommit themselves. Since I have started offering one-hour sessions every single client who booked an hour has extended so effectively no one has paid $150 per hour to see me.

    In summary, I raised my rates from $80-$150 because I was very in demand when I started, the cost of tolls in PA and NJ are high, the pandemic made me think more in terms of how much I wanted to make per exposure to a person rather than per hour, and my office increased my overhead while eliminating the need for a hotel for the majority of clients. Overall I am still making less net profit than I did before the pandemic so my rates have not gone up due to simply wanting more money but more as a way to offset expenses and still have enough to survive.

    I also want to add that I have gotten a lot more professional and better at being a cuddler since I started. I am now cuddlist trained with two years of experience under my belt.

    Whenever I run a sale or promotion I do not see an increase in demand which indicates to me that lowering my rates will not increase overall demand.

    Lastly, my personal expenses have gone up. My apartment complex has increased the rent substantially, fuel has gone up by nearly a dollar and groceries have gone up. We are going through a period of inflation so rather than lowering my rates I am going to try and keep them where they are at for several years and hope that at some point they seem reasonable to more people.

  • timetocuddle07timetocuddle07

    At end of day anything without w2s or 1099 and not reported to irs we already know what it is. I don't fault it. We all have to make money to eat and live

  • timetocuddle07timetocuddle07

    More power to folks who pay these 150 and over cuddles. Sometimes I rather have a massage

  • xandriarainxandriarain

    @timetocuddle07 I don’t like what you are trying to imply here. While I do not get a W-2 or 1099 I do have to report my earnings and expenses and file my own taxes and it’s actually a lot more work. All business owners and freelancers have to do this.

  • mtpmtp
    edited August 2021

    Would it help if pros could choose to set a minimum duration longer than an hour, instead of an abnormally high 1-hour rate with multi-hour discounts? (Edit: Or is this already an option, and I just haven't noticed people taking advantage of it?)

    It would allow pros to advertise a lower hourly rate without reducing what they already charge, as well as improving the ratio of paid time to unpaid time. For instance, suppose someone charged $150 for 1 hour and $300 for 3 hours, with the intent to make as many sessions as possible 3 hours long. Wouldn't it be better to be able to say "$100/hour (minimum 3 hours)"?

    Alternatively, maybe the search filter could be changed from a single "Max Price" box to two inputs: max rate for a given number of hours. Then the filter could take into account the multi-hour discounts.

  • [Deleted User]CharlesThePoet (deleted user)
    edited August 2021

    My experience with trying to "justify" prices in both performance and craft gigs is to not bother.

    In performance based gigs, and it certainly seems that professional cuddling is performance based (in that if your client doesn't have a good experience you aren't likely to get good reviews, repeat gigs, or referrals from them...) a new professional starts at a low base-line for fees, and then builds clientele and reputation, increasing their fees accordingly.

    Any sort of marketing or sales that they can bring to the table can increase their initial asking price, but the end-all-be-all is: Did they deliver a pleasurable, memorable experience?

    Once you get the experience, and the hard-won confidence, you learn to ask what you are worth, and those who whine, complain, and wag fingers over "how unreasonable" those rates are were never a client you wanted to begin with.

    Paying an confident, seasoned, specific skilled professional what they are worth is always going to be the best thing you can do, if you are looking for a great experience.

    Asking $150.00 per hour is entirely reasonable.

    Anyone who argues about your rates should be politely encouraged to buy a teddy bear, and then ignored.

  • CuddleWhoCuddleWho

    @CharlesThePoet

    new professional starts at a low base-line for fees, and then builds clientele and reputation, increasing their fees accordingly

    This is certainly not the way it works in general for cuddling, @xandriarain 's experience notwithstanding. Many of the most expensive cuddlers are new with no karma, and IME most established and reliable cuddlers charge in the $80-$100 range.

    Paying an confident, seasoned, specific skilled professional what they are worth is always going to be the best thing you can do, if you are looking for a great experience

    I've paid as low as $70/hr for cuddling and as high as $160/hr. I perceive absolutely no correlation in quality or skill with price. I've had both great and mediocre cuddles at both ends of the price spectrum. Thus I see no reason to pay high fees in general, and will continue to mostly see cuddlers with more modest fees, only occasionally paying a higher fee for some variety.

  • [Deleted User]CharlesThePoet (deleted user)

    @CuddleWho

    No shame in preferring what you prefer, but why gripe about those who charge higher prices if you are happy with those who charge less?

    Do you picket in front of Red Robin because McDonald's sells burgers and fries for half as much?

    Again, in my experience, those who complain about pricing are the worst clients to have as a skilled artisanal or performing professional, and they are essentially warning you not to bother with them.

  • timetocuddle07timetocuddle07

    Yea I can of agree no correlation. But I guess if anything I really noticed if someone feels they are more on the attractive side the rates are higher. I guess like what I been seeing in general in dating culture with rise in clout chasing . Surgeries and bbls. That the more investment in one's self or better looks than average then the more has to be spent. At end of day someone will eventually pay it or bad mouth another for not really wanting to pay it.

  • CuddleWhoCuddleWho
    edited August 2021

    @CharlesThePoet

    Who's griping?

    those who complain about pricing are the worst clients to have as a skilled artisanal or performing professional

    Have you seen pro cuddlers before? If not, I invite you to cuddle a few $150 pros, and then see how you feel about characterizing them as "skilled artisanal or performing professionals."

    I'm not intending to denigrate pro cuddlers, I've had lots of great cuddles that I really appreciate, but... with very rare exceptions they don't have any special skill or experience, they didn't put in time mastering a craft, or studying, or anything like that. They're just women who like to cuddle.

  • OhioMikeOhioMike

    @timetocuddle07 ...what? I truly do not understand what you just said? And please for millionth time don't compare in any way or comment, this site to dating sites, please and thank you :)

  • MelancholyMelancholy

    @CharlesThePoet I don't see anyone here complaining.

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod

    Part of @timetocuddle07's point in his last post is that loose correlation between prices and how a professional cuddler perceives themself: professionals who believe they are attractive tend to charge more.

    The correlation is not strong, but I would agree with that. I also agree that there is a loose, negative correlation between price and quality. Note that there are many exceptions to both of these points, @xandriarain being an obvious one.

    @CuddleWho and I disagree quite a lot. However, his perspective is frequently valuable because he is more representative of the average client than most folk on the forum.

    @timetocuddle07 Cuddle Comfort is a social networking site, not an employer. It acts a supplier to professional cuddlers, like the electricity company does to a shop. It has no more to do with a professional's tax affairs that the electricity company does with a florists.

    @xandriarain I think the summary of your long post is that when you started your rate was an exploratory one, allowing you to dip your toe in the industry. Once you figured everything out, you discovered that that rate was not commercially viable. The viable rate for you is around $120, but for essentially technical reasons this comes out as a headline of $150, which nobody actually pays.

    @mtp I have had thoughts along similar lines. Put it in the Suggestions and Ways thread.

    When discussing prices we all need to be careful both in choosing our language when writing, and also when reading. Talking about prices is fine, but complaining about them is not. Anyway, this thread is not about prices, it's about time.

  • cuddlerforu24cuddlerforu24

    @xandriarain and et al ... there are standard percentages , and these ARE negotiable, especially when an agent discovers they are sitting on a dog listing that’s not selling , they are spending too much unpaid time on it , and push the owner to offer extra percentage to any agent bringing an offer to buy

  • MelancholyMelancholy
    edited August 2021

    @CuddleDuncan I beg to differ, it IS as much about prices as it is time. The line in her post "why I charge more per hour" means her time is why her price is set to what it is. So a bit confused why you think it isn't about price.

    @CuddleWho I have seen both kinds the $120 and the $40 per hour pro...and what mattered more than the dollars I was spending on the session was how well we got along, and how nice she was. It doesn't matter if I pay $150 per hour, if someone doesn't like you its hard to fake it...especially if you're intuitive and can tell if someone enjoys cuddling with you or not.

  • ubergigglefritzubergigglefritz

    Like @xandriarain , I have also not seen pretty much ANY increase in demand when I run a sale or promotion. Yet I continue to offer them. 😆 I guess I also care way too much about people and/or I'm not successful enough, because I just can't go over $100/hr. I actually just reduced my rates (less so for CC, since I finally decided to implement CC fees into my CC rates). But that has also correlated with more scheduling and payment automation on my website so I can spend less time scheduling and invoicing (related to the original subject of this forum post). I've also switched back to stationary, so people will be coming to me instead of me traveling to them, so again, less time is put on me. I thought it only fair to reassess my rates. I spend a LOT of unpaid time with potential and current clients via texting, and I do not schedule more than one session per day (I essentially never have a request for a session shorter than 2-3 hours). I spend (and rather enjoy, ha) a lot of time working on my website when I have an update to make. So there is a massive amount of time I still spend on this business that is not paid. I am constantly assessing my rates based on my needs / availability (ex - do I want more overnights, more long daytime sessions, multi-day visits?), my clients' needs / availability (ex - are they asking for cuddles + social time, overnights, short visits?), and essentially what I want to encourage and what I want to discourage (ex - I have reintroduced cheaper rates M-Th because my life has switched back to valuing weekends more for personal activities). There is a rhyme and a reason for everything I do, but seeing as my prior life was a pricing analyst (and before than an actuary), it's only natural that it won't be simple, lol. But I can guarantee that any time you pick a higher priced deal, it's a better deal in absolutely every statistically analytical possible way. 🤣 I enjoy it all though, lol. My favorite part of being a solopreneur is being able to wear all the hats, try all my ideas, and play around with all this stuff. I'm just so fortunate that the paid work portion of it all is so amazingly in sync with my heart. Best job ever. 😇 I don't know if any of that contributed to the conversation, but I felt like responding. It's also late here on the east coast... Lol.

  • RezzRezz

    @ubergigglefritz I just want to say I adore you. Always have. You have such a heart for this and it shows. I can tell by just reading your posts that you love what you do and I admire it. I wish you nothing but the best. You're a kind soul.

  • ubergigglefritzubergigglefritz

    @Envie 💜 Love all the love. And I really need it right now. 2021 is definitely trying to beat me. 😔 If you're ever making a detour through central Virginia, let me know...

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