Pricing (81)

www.mistresssusannah.co.uk
www.professionaldomination.co.uk

Perhaps the the ones who complain the most,are the ones who ring up PD's just to find out how much they charge. If a prospective client's first question is,'how much do you charge',I know they are mostly time wasters.

When I first started seeing PDs on a reglar basis around 9 years or so ago the going rate was around £70/80 per hour and the ceiling was £100. (Around Mcr/North West) Over the years due to rising economic conditions that ceiling was broken and I think once it was then it became easier to add an extra £10/£20 pound on. I would say that in the North West prices are between £90/150. These rates now and historic are comparable with a slight premium to what an escort would be paid. I am not saying that Escorts and PDomming are the same but in the buyers mind I think the rates are. So looking back at the original post thats where we are with rates. The OP asked why rates couldnt go up to £300/400 an hour and if one Domme did increase would others follow. I think there are certain Dommes who could charge £300/400 ph in the NW because of who they are and what they do. Would they be better off? In terms of cash probably not as the clients would probably halve their visits. In terms of free time they would. I suppose the question is why haven't they done so already? In NW if one domme increased her rates I dont think it would have much effect. There may be a slight increase in rates but you could find you get a crossover from the escorting world who think they can get a premium for wielding a whip and in the medium term may result in a loss of business for the pro-dommes. Now if all the ProDommes in the NW got together to increase rates as a collective that would be interesting! But again I think clients would reduce visits and you would get a flood of escort crossover and in the medium term PDs would break ranks and reduce prices. PDomming is just like any other business - subject to all the vagaries of market forces. London is a bubble just as it is for other businesses. For what its worth I have always thought that discounted rates for 2/3 hour sessions every 4 weeks or so are the way to go for both client and pro domme. I have been seeing the same PD for the last 10 months or so and pay less than £100 per hour. She meets all my needs - CP, needles, gas/poppers, strap on, climax and she has a guaranteed income from me. Occasionally I venture outside Mcr to a specialist and pay a higher rate but regard this as a sort of fine dining experience.

You are correct,it is open to market forces. I have also made the point-clients would reduce their visits,and you as a client of a PD agree. Also a high price may not always turn out to be a good sesseion-again you appear to be happy with your sessions. Also you point out-that you give your self a treat,and visit a specialist at a higher rate. This i find to be true,some will save up for a visit to a specialist.

But the problem is its unregulated so not subject to things like the weights and measures act like pubs are for example.

This cuts both ways for subs and PDs and the most transparent it gets is by recommendations or reveiws. These to are vulnerable to "malpractise".

It is very much an "experiance good"/buyer beware kind of market.

Take a PD here as an example, say Sussanah, I have met her and found her a very nice person but would have no idea if we would "click" unless I tried a session, and I'm guessing her view would be similar.

Its the nature of the beast(no pun intended).

I appreciate that it's an expensive thing "to try" if you're not sure on chemistry. But that's why I encourage submissives to properly do their research. Make sure that I'm someone they really want to submit to before contacting me.

Not knowing anything about your submissive or sexual feelings or fantasies, no, I wouldn't know if we'd click in session. But I'd have a pretty damn good idea after a couple of detailed email exchanges.

www.mistresssusannah.co.uk
www.professionaldomination.co.uk

I understand that some of the totally latex clad ladies also get very high session fees, and quite rightly, as those gorgeous outfits are hellishly expensive.

www.thedivinemissp.co.uk

I suppose the quickest way to get an accurate answer to your question rather than speculation would be to increase your prices to £300 - £400 per hour and monitor the results.

I'm not going through the full economics of supply and demand, but...

1) A person on income support will receive circa £60 a week (although will probably have most of their housing costs paid for). The increases suggested would take the PD's hourly charges from the amount it costs to keep somone on the basic life income for two to three weeks to the amount it would take to keep them for five to nearly seven weeks.

2) If we use rough mean figures for average income (and for a mean figure far more people earn less than the mean than earn more than it) pre tax earnings would be about £15 per hour, post tax earnings about £10 per hour. (I think my pre-tax may be somewhat high). So at £100 to £200 an hour a session with a PD would cost Mr Average (+) between ten and twenty work hours to purchase. £300 to £400 changes that to thirty to forty hours.

On average clients' disposable income is currently falling since inflation is now over three percent per annum, whilst most salaries are frozen or falling. A P.D. whose premises are within easy reach of Barclays Bank UK headquarters may have the reverse phenomenon.

There's also a trade off with pro Dommes versus escorts. Both may charge similar rates, although overall escorts cost more, and a Pro Domme is likely to be far better equipped in terms of kit at least than an escort. Against that escorts offer services that PD's often don't, and escorts tend to be more service orientated than some P.D.'s.

For me the difference would be - I might consider paying in the region of £120 for the services of a P.D. as an expensive treat, particularly when desire and available funds were high and alternative non commercial options low. But £400 for an hour would, for me, be an unjustifiable expense. It also starts to hit the level where sex tourism would become a financial alternative if not a moral one.

The exchange rates on the £ against the euro are currently a bit unfavourable but hey a Polish one might do it for 50 an hour

I've no real interest in changing my pricing dramatically as I'm doing fine with what I charge now, even if I could probably "get away with it" as there aren't many PDs in my area and most of my clients tend to tip very well for a good session which leads me to believe I could probably charge more if I really wanted to (in my experience the continental chaps are much more generous in that respect than the Brits).

However, I do think it could be an interesting experiment if a group of PDs in an area charged more to see what happens. I wonder how price elasticity (or lack of) affects PDs. But I suspect such speculation is limited to my imagination and discussions on boards like these.

Which also answers this question:

Why wouldn't a PD ask a question about pricing and the historic levels of fees charged etc?

I'm not asking a question to be flamed, what PDs charge is every lady's own business, it's healthy to have a discussion. Apart from the brief aside earlier, I have found all responses most interesting and debate has been mostly polite mature debate.

But thank you for being so concerned, I'm a big girl now though. Well actually I have been for some time but that is a different topic altogether...

*insert silly text or moneymaking link of choice here*