Here is what nobody tells you when you finish your myofunctional therapy training: the income question is not really about what the market will pay. It is about what you decide to charge, and whether you have built a business structure that can actually hold that number.

I have been asked about myofunctional therapist income more times than I can count. And I get it — if you are sitting in a hygiene chair wondering whether this is worth the leap, or if you finished your training and the clients still are not showing up the way you imagined, the money question is the one that keeps you up at night.

So let me answer it honestly. Not with a promise, not with someone else’s highlight reel. With my own numbers, my own mistakes, and the framework that actually determines how much you can make in this field.

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This article is based on The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ podcast, Episode 84: How Much Can You Actually Make as a Myofunctional Therapist? A Real-World Breakdown. You can listen to the podcast here.

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What I Actually Made: Year One Through the Peak

I started my myofunctional therapy business in May of 2017. My first year, I made somewhere around $28,000 to $30,000 — and I did not have my first paying client until May, so that was less than eight months of actual revenue. That is the real number. Not a polished story, just what happened.

My second year was over $100,000. I was working hard, showing up every day with what I now call desperate energy — I had no safety net, no fallback, and I was not going back to hygiene. That desperation was actually a driver.

From there, it grew. 2023 was my peak year: $313,705, solo, associate at that point. I am telling you that not to be boastful but because that is the proof that myofunctional therapist income is not capped by the market. It is shaped by the decisions you make.

And then the year after my peak, I dropped by more than $200,000. That was entirely on me. I got comfortable. My daughter was going through cancer treatment. I had a cushion and I leaned into it instead of continuing to grow. I hit what the book The Big Leap calls an upper limit — the highest income I had ever had — and I let myself fall back from it. That was a lesson I am still sitting with.

I have not had a year under $100,000 since 2018. And I want you to hear that as possibility, not pressure. Because the number is not the point. The structure is the point.

There Is No Mayor of Myo Town

One of the biggest things holding trained myofunctional therapists back from charging what they are worth is the belief that the market sets the price. It does not. You do.

When I do Get Unstuck Calls, and someone tells me they already checked their area and the going rate is whatever, I say: great, because we are not charging hourly, and we are not letting someone else’s limiting beliefs become your ceiling.

Think about the chiropractors in your town. Does someone tell them what they can charge? Some chiropractors own multiple practices and earn more than a million a year. They did not get there by asking permission. They got there by building a structure and pricing for transformation.

When someone tells you that you cannot charge a certain price, you are not receiving wisdom. You are absorbing their money mindset drama. Who are they to tell you what your clients will pay? The answer is: nobody. There is no mayor of Myo Town.

Your Price Needs to Be Livable — and That Number Is Yours

Everyone has a different number they need to make this work full time, if that is what they are after. Someone who needs $3,000 a month to pay their bills has a different pricing equation than someone who needs $15,000 a month — and both of those are legitimate.

My current nut is around $11,000 a month. That covers my personal expenses, my SEP retirement contributions, my health savings account, insurance, taxes, and overhead. That number is higher than it used to be because my standards for my business have grown. My business coaching program runs $1,500 a month. My most recent AI training course was $9,000. I want to get into rooms with people who are more successful than I am. That costs money — and my monthly expenses reflect it.

The point is not to match my number. The point is to know yours. You cannot price your way to a sustainable business if you do not know what sustainable actually costs for your life and your business combined.

The Hourly Rate Trap — and Why It Keeps You Broke

When I was trained, I was taught to price based on an hourly rate. Take your hygiene wage, adjust for prep and documentation time, and land somewhere in that range. It is a reasonable place to start. It is a terrible place to stay.

Hourly rate thinking ties your income to your time, and your time is finite. The moment you think about pricing that way, you are in a race you cannot win. You are trading minutes for dollars and calling it a business.

When I used to see random clients in person — I would meet them at the local Starbucks. My sessions were 30 minutes, but I had to block 30 minutes before to get there, pray for a table, buy a coffee so I wasn’t just taking up their space, do the session, then block 30 minutes to drive home. That client was getting 90 minutes of my production time for a 30-minute session. I wouldn’t do it again.

The shift I teach inside The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ is this: you are not selling a session. You are selling a transformation. And when you start pricing for transformation, the math gets a lot more interesting.

Why One $5,000 Client Beats Five $1,000 Clients

I will die on this hill every single time: I would rather work with one $5,000 comprehensive client than five $1,000 clients.

The revenue is the same. But the experience is completely different.

One client at a premium price means you show up with full energy, full attention, and full capacity to deliver results. Five clients at a lower price means you are managing five sets of expectations, five sets of paperwork, five sets of scheduling challenges, and five opportunities for something to fall through. And when one cancels, your income drops.

A premium price also changes the energy in the room. When someone invests $5,000 in a comprehensive program, they show up differently. They do the exercises. They follow through. They get results — and those results become the testimonials and referrals that build your practice.

One of my students, Brooke Wilkins, came to me stuck, full of self-doubt, and undercharging. We raised her prices, and she went on to have a $12,000 month. That is one student’s result, not a guarantee — your results depend on your market, your effort, your offer, your consistency, and your follow-through. But the pattern is real: raising prices tends to increase both confidence and commitment, from you and from your clients.

Think Like a CEO

Here is the mindset shift that changes everything: stop thinking about your income as a therapist and start thinking about it as a CEO.

A CEO knows her numbers. She knows what it costs to run the business, what she needs to pay herself, what she needs to set aside for taxes and retirement, and what her offers have to be priced at to make those numbers work. She does not pull a price out of thin air because it sounds reasonable. She builds backward from what she needs.

And a CEO does not fill her calendar as a goal. A full calendar is a warning sign, not a win. It usually means prices are too low. The goal is consistent clients at a premium price, with enough white space in your week to actually live the life you built this business for.

The Income Question Has a Two-Part Answer

So how much can you make as a myofunctional therapist? The honest answer is: it depends entirely on how you structure it.

If you price for time, you cap your income at your hours. If you price for transformation, and you build a business structure that can hold that price, the ceiling goes away. I have seen it in my own numbers. I have seen it in my students’ numbers. The market does not decide. You do.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the average income for a myofunctional therapist?

There is no official industry average for myofunctional therapist income. What exists is a wide range, shaped primarily by offer structure and pricing decisions rather than market rates. Therapists who price by the session tend to earn significantly less than those who sell comprehensive programs. The structure of the offer matters more than the number of clients.

Can I replace my dental hygiene income with myofunctional therapy?

I replaced my hygiene income within her first full year in business and has not worked in hygiene since August 2018. That is one person’s result and not a guarantee. Whether you can replace your income depends on your pricing, your offer, your consistency, and the time you invest in building the business side, not just the clinical side.

How do I know what to charge for myofunctional therapy?

Start with your number — what you actually need to bring home each month to cover your personal expenses, business overhead, taxes, and retirement contributions. Then work backward to determine how many clients at what price point gets you there. If your math requires ten clients at a low price, that is a signal to raise the price, not find more clients.

Is it better to charge by the session or by the program?

Program pricing almost always outperforms session pricing for myofunctional therapists. Programs allow you to charge for the full transformation rather than individual appointments, which means higher revenue per client, better client outcomes, and more predictable income. Session pricing ties your income to your schedule in a way that makes your revenue fragile.

Do I need a lot of clients to make good money as a myofunctional therapist?

No. One client at $5,000 generates the same revenue as five clients at $1,000 — with significantly less time, less administrative work, and more capacity to deliver exceptional results. The goal is not volume. It is the right price for the right offer delivered to the right person.

What does the business side of myofunctional therapy actually involve?

Clinical training programs teach the therapy (Learn Myofunctional Therapy in 60 Days is our training program). They rarely teach the business: how to set your price, structure your offer, find your ideal client, market your services, or run the operational side of a practice. That gap is what The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ is built to close — the structure, the systems, the pricing, the marketing, and the CEO skills that turn training into a functioning business.

Keep Listening: Related Episodes

• EP78: She Was Trained, Stuck, and Full of Self-Doubt — Then This Happened — Hear directly from a student who raised her prices, rebuilt her confidence, and had her biggest revenue month yet.
• EP27: Ditch Discount Guilt and Find Your Happy Price — The episode that gives you permission to charge what actually makes sense for your life.
• EP42: The Profitable Pricing Formula: How to Set Myofunctional Therapy Prices That Will Actually Pay Your Bills — A practical breakdown of how to build your pricing from your real numbers up.

Your Income Is a Structure Problem — and Structure Is Fixable

If you listened to this episode and felt the sting of recognizing yourself in it — the undercharging, the hourly rate trap, the full calendar that still does not feel like enough — I want you to know something. This is not a talent problem or a market problem. It is a structure problem. And structure is the most fixable thing there is.

The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ is the program that builds the structure. Twelve weeks, everything in order: your offer, your pricing, your marketing, your client pathway, your CEO systems. The business side they never taught you in your clinical training.

If you are trained and stuck on the income question, the first step is a Get Unstuck Call. We figure out what your business actually needs, whether PMT is the right fit, and what comes next. Go to theprofitablemyofunctionaltherapist.com/contact and book yours before the fall cohort opens.

Xo,

💙 Carmen

P.S. If you’re reading this in real time. I am teaching a free workshop on August 28th at 12:30 pm Central Time. You can register for it here.

About Carmen Ball

Carmen Ball (formerly Carmen Woodland) is a renowned, global myofunctional therapist, business coach, and host of The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ podcast. Over the past decade, she has helped thousands of people in her private myofunctional therapy practice (Impact Myofunctional Therapy – formerly Integrative Myofunctional Therapy) and coached hundreds of trained therapists to build profitable online businesses of their own. She is the creator of The Profitable Myofunctional Therapist™ program and Learn Myofunctional Therapy in 60 Days or Less (LMT60), a clinical training program for dental and health professionals. Carmen’s approach is simple: you already have the skills and the license. Now let’s build the business around them. She works with therapists around the world who are ready to stop spinning their wheels and start building a business they are genuinely bonkers about.