How Much to Charge for Consultation in India (2026)

To work out how much to charge for a consultation in India, add the monthly income you want to your monthly business costs, divide by the number of sessions you can realistically fill, then add about 2.4% for payment gateway fees. Check the result against public ₹ rates for your profession and round it to a clean number.

Most advice on consultation charges in India comes from Instagram comments and Reddit threads. This page gives you a formula you can run in five minutes, worked examples for coaches, consultants and therapists, and a small set of public price benchmarks with their sources and dates.

The consultation fee formula

Your fee per session has to cover three things: what you take home, what the business spends, and what the payment rails keep. Write it as one line.

Base fee = (target monthly income + monthly costs) ÷ billable sessions per month Final fee = Base fee ÷ (1 − total fee %)

Consultation fee formula

• Target monthly income: what you want to earn before income tax.
• Monthly costs: internet, phone, video tool, software, CA fees, courses, rent if you have a room.
• Billable sessions: sessions you can fill and deliver, not the hours you are awake. Prep, notes, marketing and admin are unpaid time.
• Total fee %: the gateway fee plus any platform commission you pay on each booking.

On fees: Razorpay's pricing page lists a 2% standard platform fee on domestic UPI, cards and netbanking, with 18% GST charged on that fee. That makes about 2.36% of each payment. If your booking platform also takes a commission, add it to the same percentage.

How to calculate your fee: step by step

1. 01Write down the monthly income you need before tax. Be honest about rent, EMIs and savings.
2. 02List every monthly business cost and add them up. Annual costs go in as one-twelfth.
3. 03Estimate billable sessions. Count working days, multiply by sessions per day you can deliver well, then cut 20% for gaps, festivals and no-shows.
4. 04Divide income plus costs by billable sessions to get your base fee.
5. 05Divide the base fee by (1 minus your total fee %) so you still net the base after fees.
6. 06Round to a clean number such as ₹999, ₹1,500 or ₹2,500 and publish it.

Worked examples: consultation charges by profession

These are examples to show the maths. They are not market data. Swap in your own numbers.

Add platform commission if you pay one. If Ananya also paid a 5% commission per booking, her total fee would be 7.36%, and ₹1,650 ÷ 0.9264 gives about ₹1,781. She would publish ₹1,800. At around ₹8,000 a month in bookings, a flat monthly plan usually costs less than a 5% commission, so check which plan fits your volume.

Consultation fee kitna lena chahiye? Public ₹ benchmarks

Once you have a number from the formula, sanity-check it against what clients see elsewhere. The figures below are listing estimates or published ranges we opened in October 2026. They are a reference point, not a rule. Book A Sloth will publish its own aggregated numbers once its booking volume is large enough to be meaningful.

Sources: UrbanPro's career counselling fee page gives the national and city estimates. TherapyRoute's 2026 India therapy cost guide says private sessions “commonly run from around ₹800” and flags that most published ranges come from blogs rather than official data. The dermatologist range is from the Practo Bengaluru dermatologist listing excluding sponsored clinics. For trainers, see our personal trainer rate card.

How much to charge per hour as a consultant in India

Business, marketing, finance and tech consultants usually charge by the hour or by the project. Hourly pricing is easier to start with. Use the same formula, but count billable hours instead of sessions. Many independent consultants bill far fewer hours than they work, because sales calls, proposals and travel eat the week. If you work 160 hours a month, planning for 60 to 80 billable hours is a cautious starting point.

Once clients come back, move repeat work to a fixed project fee or a monthly retainer. You can use the hourly rate to price it: estimate the hours, multiply, and add a margin for revisions. Our guide on how to price coaching services covers packages and retainers in more detail.

Online consultation fees vs in-person fees

Online sessions save you travel time and room rent, so you can fit more of them in a day. Some practitioners price online sessions the same as in-person ones, because the expertise is the same. Others charge a little less online to widen the client base. Home visits are the opposite: add the travel time to the session length before you price them, or add a fixed travel charge by area.

Signs your consultation fee is too low

• Your calendar is full three weeks out and you still feel short of money.
• Nobody ever questions the price.
• You dread sessions with clients who pushed for a discount.
• You cannot afford a course, a tool or a week off.
• Your fee has not changed in two years while your costs have.

If two or more apply, raise the price for new clients by 15% to 25% and keep existing clients on the old rate for a month. Publish the new number on your booking page so the change is not a negotiation.

Where Book A Sloth fits

Once you have a fee, publish it. On Book A Sloth each service has a fixed price on your booking page, and clients pay upfront by UPI, card or netbanking through Razorpay before the slot is confirmed. The free Sloth plan charges 5% only on paid bookings. Sloth Active is ₹399 a month with 0% commission. Razorpay's gateway fee of about 2.4% applies on both. Compare the plans on the pricing page or estimate your take-home with the earnings calculator.

Consultation fees FAQs