The System For A 75K USD Profit Online Therapy Business

21.02.26

In 2025, I’ve made $75K USD of profit with only 3500 newsletter subscribers.

I did that by emailing 1 article per week, posting one YT video per week, and running a few promos during the year.

I run the business by myself, working 4hrs per day with only 2 days of 1:1 client-work per week.

It took me 4 years to find a business model that finally gave me the freedom and income stability to stop chasing therapy and coaching clients.

In this article, I’ll break down the entire system for you.

Why 1:1 Client-Work Is A Broken System

As many therapists and coaches, I spent years dreaming about having a full practice working with clients every day.

I mentally crunched the numbers several times:

“If I had 10 weekly clients paying me 150 USD per session, I’d have an easy 6k months”.

“Imagine if it were 14 weekly clients, that’s already 100k per year!”.

Yet, this math rarely works.

You have to deal with cancellations, no shows, and early dropouts.

As you become seasoned, you tighten your cancellation policy, raise your fees, and attract better clients.

But there’s only so much you can do when your only source of income is trading all of your time for money.

Plus, you have to face the fact that your income ceiling is quite low, because once you reach your capacity, that’s it!

The harsh truth is that relying on 1:1 client work is a broken-system, because even when you have a full practice, everything always depends on your availability.

• But what happens when you get sick?
• When you have to care for someone in your family?
• Or when it’s holiday season and people stop for a whole month?

If you’re not present, everything falls apart.

One day off work can easily cost you 1000 USD less at the end of the month, while a holiday season can slash your income in half.

It’s brutal because even when things are running smoothly and clients keep coming, not having the option to step back makes you live on the edge of an emotional burnout.

And I did burn out.

After not having any vacations for 4 years straight, I couldn’t take it any longer, and having all of my income attached to 1:1 client-work started feeling like a prison.

Yes, I was making decent money, but it was costing me my health, my marriage, and a whole life I was missing outside of work.

That’s when I knew I had to do things differently and build an actual business, so I could finally have my time back.

My goal was to implement a business model that allowed me to make at least 100k per year, that gave me the freedom to step back from 1:1s when I wanted, and provided income stability by having multiple sources of income.

Now, I can take a day off on a random Thursday, take my wife for a fancy dinner on a quiet Monday night, and go to the gym at 2 pm when it’s almost empty.

Apart from having my time back, another thing I love about this model is that it allows me to satisfy my creative urge and fully develop my talents.

Because I didn’t only want to make money, I also wanted to make a meaningful impact.

Nowadays, people message me every week telling me how my book and courses changed their lives.

That’s absolutely priceless.

Ok, let’s talk about the business model now.

Firstly, I started from scratch, no network, no followers, and no big accounts promoting me.

I also didn’t spend any money on ads.

This means I found a way to make it work even with a small audience.

Secondly, the model had to be simple enough so I could run everything by myself part-time.

So these are the 3 keys that took me 4 years to figure out.

1 – My Biggest Regret ($75K With 3500 Followers)

The common advice for online therapists is to go all in on Instagram, and maybe you’re even getting some clients from this platform, but I’ll show you why relying on platforms is a dead-end.

My biggest business-related regret is not having started a newsletter sooner.

It took me years to realize that my email list is the most valuable asset in my entire business.

Because when you’re dependent on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube, you’re essentially building your business on somebody else’s land.

They can change your deliverability at any time, shadow-ban you for no reason, and even terminate your account.

Years of work can evaporate in a few moments.

Plus, you have to pay for your content to be delivered and deal with platform decline (Is anyone still on Facebook?).

In other words, having an email list is the only way to truly own your audience and protect yourself from the infamous algorithm and any changes in social media platforms.

People who choose to be on your email list are warmer, more responsive, and take time to read your content.

That’s why email consistently delivers a superior ROI than any other platform.

This means you don’t need 100k followers.

As I said, I’ve made $75k USD of profit with only 3500 newsletter subscribers.

Right now, I’m optimizing for 100k by creating new offers every month instead of every 2-3 months like I did last year, and I’ll get into that soon.

But that’s why having a newsletter-based business is the only way to start gaining your time back, as you can run evergreen email sequences to attract high-paying clients and make course sales.

This leads us to the next step, as behind every newsletter-based business lies a specific content strategy and one crucial skill.

2 – Why Being A Good Therapist Isn’t Enough (DON’T Niche Down)

When I started my online therapy business, I quickly realized that being a good therapist wasn’t enough, and I had to learn how to communicate well what I did.

Many therapists are great at their jobs, however, all of their knowledge is implicit. This means they get their clients results, but they can’t fully explain their methodology to others.

This isn’t a problem if you work in an office that runs its own marketing and gets you referrals.

But if you want to create an actual online business, you’ll have to make your knowledge and methodology explicit so you can communicate it to others.

That’s why the ONE skill you have to master to create content that sells your services and products is writing.

Now, the foundation of a good content strategy and therapy business is becoming world-class at solving one profitable problem.

The common advice is to niche down, but being ultra-specific can be limiting for many therapists.

After years of trial and error, I learned that people hire you based on a specific problem they want help with.

This means that instead of trying to have a well-defined avatar, such as a married anxious man aged 30-40, you simply have to show people you know how to solve their problems, and the niche will come to you.

Here’s an example.

In the past 2 years, 80% of my clients came from my series of videos and articles called Conquering The Puer and Puella Aeternus.

In it, I describe the effects and how to solve a negative mother and father complex. To my surprise, I worked with men and women in their early 20s all the way to their 60s.

It became clear to me that focusing on one profitable problem is far more important than simply niching down.

For some, it might make sense to be ultra-specific like focusing on first-time moms, but for the majority of professionals, it’s better to focus on problems rather than avatars.

I experimented with a few things before finding my profitable problem, but I advise you to focus on something you have direct experience with, and most importantly, you’ve already solved it.

Once you understand your profitable problem, such as anxiety, perfectionism, narcissism, CPTSD, or attachment, it’s time to start creating your library of high-quality content.

Forget About Short-Form Content

When I first started online, I dreamt about having 1000s of likes and views, but I quickly realized that this is THE most terrible business metric, because content that sells products and services doesn’t go viral.

What goes viral is generic, superficial, and frankly… cringe.

I don’t know about you… But I’m not going to film myself doing stupid dances or film myself eating a burger to “break the pattern” with a dumb question on the screen for the sake of engagement.

In fact, I advise you to forget about short-form content entirely, such as shorts or reels, and go all in on long-form content, such as high-quality articles and videos.

Long-form content is what generates trust and allows you to reveal your expertise, and THIS is what gets you clients, NOT posting stories on Instagram.

The final goal is to create an evergreen library of content that people can binge-watch and read several articles in a row, because this accelerates the process of people becoming clients and allows you to sell on autopilot.

I have many clients who join my mentorship within a few days of knowing my work because they binge-watched my playlist on YouTube. And I have many customers who buy my courses after 3 or 4 emails.

That’s the power of high-quality long-form content.

But the big picture about learning how to write content that sells is that this is THE skill that will allow you to free yourself from 1:1 client-work.

Once you can show you know your profitable problem inside-out and you can communicate your methodology, structuring courses, running live workshops, and creating landing pages that convert, becomes natural.

Also, creating good content allows you to test your ideas and discover what your clients want, and this feedback is crucial to creating your offers.

Because what few people understand is that creating good content is what actually gets you high-paying clients and sells your products and services.

Finally, you have to direct the people who are consuming your content to your newsletter and products.

The more aligned your content is with your offers, the greater the conversion.

How To Create A List of Buyers – Running A Profitable Newsletter

Now, the foundation to grow your newsletter is creating a good lead magnet.

This means that in every piece of content you create, you have to offer something interesting so people will give you their email.

But this “interesting thing” has to be aligned with your offers, because your lead magnet has the fundamental objective of promoting a mindset shift to prepare people to take the next step, whether that be a 1:1 mentorship or a product.

Here are 3 examples.

I have a series of articles and videos discussing the problem of the Puer Aeternus, in which I offer a free guide to help them solve it. In the end, I plug my course Conquering The Puer Aeternus.

I also have a series of articles and videos on the shadow integration process in which I offer a free introductory guide. In the end, I plug my course, Katabasis – The Shadow Integration Manual.

I’m also offering a free report breaking down my business structure for you watching this video right now. And if you want my 1:1 help, you can also check my business mentorship below.

Everything you send to your list and post on social media must be aligned with your offers, because getting this eco-system right is what will get you more clients and sales.

The best way to learn what to offer is to ask your clients directly why they decided to hire you, i.e., what’s the problem they want to solve.

Once they start getting results, ask them which tools made the most difference.

This is what has to be present in your content, lead magnet, landing pages, and course curriculum.

Now, let’s talk about raising prices and creating multiple income streams.

3 – Creating Multiple Sources of Income (Are Courses Dead?)

Speaking of courses, I must warn you about something.

Long were the days you could record a bulky course with 20 modules, put a price tag of $ 2000, and sell it on autopilot.

That’s why there’s a current narrative saying “courses are dead”.

But that’s untrue, what happened is that the market evolved and is asking for more specificity.

Instead of thinking about solving 15 problems at once and recording 25 hours of material, it’s better to break it down into small components.

This is especially important if you have a small audience, as you need a variety of offers to have repeat buyers, and in turn, also profit more.

Here’s what I mean.

In the beginning, I made the mistake of spending months recording my Demystifying Jungian Psychology Full Curriculum.

It’s a course that breaks down the entirety of Carl Jung’s body of work. On paper, it sounds great, but since it was my only offer, and it was expensive, I only sold a few units.

Also, because it’s not super specific, it’s also harder to sell.

I finally understood I had to break it down into smaller courses, and I tuned it into 6 different offers:

• Katabasis – The Shadow Integration Manual.
• Conquering The Puer Aeternus.
• Psychological Types Unraveled.
• Animus and Anima Decoded.
• Active Imagination Deciphered.
• The Art of Dream Interpretation.

Now, I can offer the whole bundle and play with different offers during the year. This variety and specificity make it easier to sell and attract more repeat buyers.

But it’s important to understand the role of evergreen offers and launches, as depending on the type of course, one will be better than the other.

Evergreen x Launches

In evergreen offers, your landing page is up all of the time, and people can decide to purchase whenever they want.

This works well with specific and small courses, and the typical price of an evergreen offer is $29, $49, or $99 (Sometimes $199).

But if you want to shoot for higher prices – $499 or $999, you have to prepare a launch and/ or use a live course style of 4 to 8 weeks of meetings.

But regardless of what you choose, the truth is that it’s best to implement both, as they feed into one another.

Here’s how I combine these different offers.

I have a $99 evergreen offer that always generates a few sales per month, and this offer prepares people for my 1:1 mentorship and for my more expensive courses.

The course is Katabasis – The Shadow Integration Manual, which is basically an introduction to Jungian Psychology.

The course makes people interested in knowing more, so when I launch a live cohort or my Demystifying Jungian Psychology Full Curriculum, people are more prone to buying.

Also, a lot of people want to see you in action before hiring you, and once they see you know your stuff, they come ready to be mentored. My best long-term 1:1 clients purchased something cheap from me first.

What’s interesting is that offering all of these resources to your clients also helps you raise your prices and select better clients. Nowadays, all of my mentees receive full access to my whole course catalog.

This also keeps them more engaged, committed, and constantly bringing new material, as they’re learning from the courses and my book.

A good way to start is by coming up with a new 60-90-minute live workshop every month, as this allows you to test your audience, see what ideas stick, and develop your teaching skills.

You can repeat the winners or turn them into something bigger.

As you can see, the different parts of this model feed into one another, and now is the time to decide how you want to structure your income.

4 – Making Money On Your Own Terms ($75k With One Email Per Week)

TLet’s recap.

I’ve made $75k by emailing one article per week and turning it into a YouTube video, with only 3500 newsletter subscribers, working part-time.

The first step to implement this model is to determine a fixed number of clients per week.

I don’t recommend having more than 3 days of 1:1s as you need time to develop other skills… and live your life!

Once you pick your number, such as 12 or 15, you must commit to it no matter what. This will allow you to control your demand, have a waitlist, and even raise your fees.

That’s how I went from charging $50 USD per session to $200 USD per session.

Once the basics are covered, you can start modulating your income.

I started by securing an extra 1000 USD every month from course sales, and as I increased it, I started diminishing my number of 1:1 clients – Today it’s 10.

As you develop these skills and grow your audience, you can limit your 1:1s even further.

That’s the power of a newsletter-based business, because it allows you to make money on your own terms without depending on 1:1 client-work:

• I have more freedom to choose when I want to step back from 1:1s.
• I have passive income from courses every month (4 – 6 different offers get you covered for the whole year).
• I can protect myself against cancellations and holiday seasons.
• And I can increase my profits by taking advantage of dates such as Black Friday or Christmas (These 2 alone generated an extra salary last year).

That’s why relying on 1:1 client-work is a broken system.

Apart from the emotional burnout and income instability, your income ceiling is also low, as you’re always trading all of your time for money.

If you want my personal help to implement this business model, you can check my business mentorship.

Rafael Krüger – Live an Audacious Life