Tarot Reader Pricing Strategies To Serve Low Income Querents

Introduction

So you want to read tarot for the public good but you have costs that you can’t afford to compromise on? Perhaps you believe that some kind of exchange is necessary in spiritual work but you still want to be affordable to all sincere seekers? In this article we will discuss some pricing strategies that you can use to help people through the monetary barrier of entry that looms over a large number of tarot reading querents.

Please note that the motivation for such pricing strategies has nothing to do with social justice activism or left wing ideological views more broadly. Our reasoning is based in spiritual, not political ideas.

Also note that not all of these pricing strategies involve money. If money is a token of exchange, then price can be deemed to indicate what money is symbolizing (exchange) without reification.

Finally, the free strategies listed here are also great for those who wish to practise selfless service in a discerning way without feeling underappreciated or becoming burned out. Specifically, I found the ‘procedural freebie’ pricing strategy to be highly effective at getting serious querents. It is one of my top recommendations.

The Hybrid Price strategy

This is a combination of levy’d market rate prices and reduced prices. This strategy, like some of the others, involves the practise of pricing discrimination. This means that you will deliberately charge different customers disparate prices for the same service. In case you are wondering, this practise is not only legal but fairly common. Think student discounts, early bird tickets, member coupons and seasonal vs non-seasonal holiday bookings.

With the hybrid pricing strategy, the pro bono tarot reader does professional tarot readings (or some other business) with their pricing calculated to an additional fee. This allows the pro bono tarot reader to give free or cheap readings without having to worry about having enough money to continue their work (so long as their funding goals are met).

At the moment, I would recommend that those readers who are confident in their professional tarot reading skills charge at least £25 per question. Personally, I like to make a one question reading last up to 20 minutes, making this price £1.20 per minute. This might seem expensive but it is actually a competitive price when you adjust for inflation. These days, professional tarot readers with a few years of experience can expect to charge £2 per minute. Premium prices are more in the range of £350+ per hour. Again, this may have been £300 per hour only 4 years ago but I am adjusting for inflation (something which tarot readers really need to start doing).

The ‘Pay What You Want’ Pricing Strategy

People paying what they want is not the same as them paying what they can afford. For our purposes, this distinguishes the strategy from the “sliding scale” as the latter involves the tarot reader listing prices explicitly based on what they choose themselves to be worth (that is, in the context of pro bono work and hopefully based on expenses rather than commercialist marketing spiel about how value is subjective).

It is recommended that the phrase ‘for example, £5, £10 or £20’ is added if you are serving US or UK customers. Awareness of these numbers in everyday life will make influence pretty much all people to take these suggestions.

I have used this strategy myself with good success. In my experience, roughly 60% paid £5, 20% paid £10, 10% paid £20 and 5% paid less than £5, usually at between £1-2.

Psychologically, customers enjoy having a few (not too many) different options. With good demand (likely through marketing for high exposure) this can become a part-time job relatively easily – and all with a minimum price of just £1.

The Sliding Scale Price Strategy

Whilst this technically comes under sliding scale, this strategy involves stating prices explicitly over multiple options. Customers are then trusted to pay their personal due (since we, in this case, don’t look into their finances to verify. You could set this up but means testing is more for large organisations who can handle the logistics of this).

For example, a one hour tarot reading may be generally £80 for a professional level service. But, for affordability, alternative prices may be £45 and £120. This means wealthy consumers effectively redistribute their wealth according to voluntary social obligation. I say voluntary because these customers could shop elsewhere. It is involuntary in the sense that dishonesty in this process is fraudulent. I am unaware what the law is here regarding those dishonest people who choose to pay lower than what they can afford. I would assume however that if this is punishable (including enforceable) then it is probably also difficult to prove.

The Quid Strategy

For people who can’t afford to pay much at all, you can tell them to hand over a physical pound as a token of commitment. In practise, it doesn’t really need to be £1. It could be £20p depending on the scenario. But the point is that people respect your effort by an exchange of some kind. In this case it is some coins for the symbolic meaning which this holds.

The Procedural Freebie Strategy

Procedural freebie is a generic name I made up for giving people entirely free readings in accordance with a process set up by the reader. I have used this before to good success. The overall lesson of this pricing strategy is that people value far more than what they pay for. If you can set things up correctly, this method works brilliantly.

Maybe you offer free tarot readings to people who make an attempt to guess the symbolism in a logo (I have done this myself with good results). This task of a mere 5-10 minutes makes people think hard about something and this mental exertion ensures their understanding of and exchange in a way that is, for the purposes of qualifying querents, apparently equivalent to that of giving money. It is unclear whether this works on people of all socio-economic groups however. My hypothesis would be something like a negative correlation between higher class and this pro bono method. Then, that mental effort sets the tone by requiring people to appreciate that they are being offered something of value.

Additionally, make people book to your schedule with extra procedures (if you have the availability) for out of hours bookings. Also, emphasize that the reading is worth a professional price (e.g. 1 question worth £25). and ensure your marketing communicates that your offer as something to be appreciated and taken seriously despite it’s £0 price tag. In practise, this may involve; writing a policies page, explaining your ethics and being explicit about your unique offer, and receiving checkmark agreement to these things from the querent. Also as part of the procedure, they should fill in personal information like their legal name, date of birth and perhaps zodiac signs. Depending on which demographic you are serving, maybe they should also upload a photo of themselves with their name written on a piece of paper in the photo (so you know it’s not from Google). All this is simple and fairly quick yet it ensures that you maintain the frame of a professional tarot reader and that your querents enter into this frame. It also prevents free readers from being inundated with requests as most people will pass by freebies that require time and/or effort to earn. In my experience, it is in fact only a few percent of those who see the offer that take up the procedural freebie. Also in my experience, those earnest customers also tend to be very appreciative folks who are great to work with. When I did this method I had one person show up a little late to his appointment, for example, and he was sincerely apologetic as if at work.

The Scholarship Strategy

This strategy is more for tarot classes or courses than tarot reading, although you could use it for premium services if you wanted to.

The “scholarship” pricing strategy is of course named after student scholarships but in this context I am stretching the meaning. It involves charging ordinary prices but allowing those who cannot afford the expenses to apply for access based on a lengthy application process that requires the applicant to write a statement of financial need. For the purposes of this article, I am distinguishing this strategy from the procedural freebie based on the following two factors; access to scholarships is limited and the procedure is actually necessary (to receive the reading) rather than just being a formality.

Why The ‘Freemium’ Model Is Not On The List

It is common in tarot livestreams that occur on social media for professional readers to use the freemium business model, menaing they will give free readings (generally 1-3 cards) and serve everyone in a queue, with the possibility of paying for extra services such as jumping the queue and/or getting an in depth reading.

If you wonder why I am not including this on the list, it is because actions are judged from the sentiments from which they proceed, meaning the intention. Freemium business models are there to make money, free readings serving as exposure and the service of poor people as incidental. Moreover, tarot streamers often mislabel these payments as ‘donations’, presumably for tax evasion purposes.

When I streamed free readings, I never allowed people to gain any benefit based on donations. Everyone got a full length reading as needed and donors had to wait like everyone else. This fostered an environment of solemnity and appreciation because money became largely irrelevant. In most streams, the wealthy could throw money away at people like a businessman in a strip club, to get what they really wanted. But in my streams, everything was above board!

Conclusion

Ultimately, positive price discrimination can be used very effectively in myriad ways. There is not really any excuse for a tarot reader to fail to omit free services. Frankly, I think that pro bono services should be a de facto standard of professional tarot reading, just like how completely memorizing the card meanings before you charge has become so in recent decades. I see no reasonable excuses serve merely those with disposable income.

I strongly encourage you to – sincerely and with commitment- try out some of these strategies. Feel free to send me testimonials of your results and spread the word (share this article) after you discover how great they are in relation to the goal of giving pro bono tarot readings.