Which Appointments Do People Pay For? What $4.2M of Paid Bookings Shows

People pay most readily for appointments about their inner life, their health, their pets and their legal or tax problems, and least readily for business advice. In $4.2M of paid bookings on the scheduling app TidyCal, spiritual direction was paid for 1 in 3 times and business consulting 1 in 114 times, so spiritual direction made almost four times as much money from far fewer bookings. Keepp gives any practitioner a page that makes the first session an easy one to pay for: who you are, what happens in the session and what it costs, with booking and payment in one step and the money going to your own Stripe account.

The figures below come from a thread TidyCal’s founder, Noah Kagan, posted on X on 23 October 2026 (source). They describe bookings made through one scheduling app, not the whole market, and they are quoted as published.

Key takeaways

Mind and soul (therapy, spiritual direction, meditation, life coaching): 31% of the money from 14% of the bookings.
Grow my business: 35% of all bookings, the most booked bucket, but 15% of the money. Only 1.6% of those calls are paid, and paid calls average $124.
Business consulting on its own: 8% of the bookings and 2% of the money. 1 in 114 business consulting bookings is paid.
Spiritual direction: 1 in 3 bookings is paid, and it made $336K on its own.
Body and health (physical therapy, nutrition, training): 14% of the money from 15% of the bookings.
Pets: 9% of the money from 2% of the bookings.
Legal, tax and money: 9% of the money from 6% of the bookings, at $126 a call.

Which appointment types make the most money?

Mind and soul appointments made the most: 31% of the money from only 14% of the bookings. That bucket covers therapy, spiritual direction, meditation and life coaching, and spiritual direction alone brought in $336K.

The reason is not that there are more spiritual directors than consultants. In the thread’s own words: “Spiritual direction: 1 in 3 are paid. Business consulting: 1 in 114. Price isn’t the problem.”

Body and health came next at 14% of the money from 15% of the bookings, followed by pets and by legal, tax and money at 9% of the money each.

Why do business consultants earn so little from bookings?

Because most of them do not charge for the call. “Grow my business” is the most booked bucket by far, with 35% of all bookings, but only 1.6% of those calls are paid. When a business call is paid, it averages $124, which is about what a lawyer or an accountant charges ($126 a call). The thread’s conclusion: “Business calls aren’t cheap. They’re free.”

Legal, tax and money practitioners charge about the same per call, and they “just charge 3x more often”. The gap between the two groups is the habit of giving the first call away, not the price.

Do people pay for discovery calls?

Yes, when the call is presented as a paid session. A third of spiritual direction bookings are paid, and pet, legal and tax appointments earn far more than their share of bookings. The thread ends on the same advice: “Charge for the first call.”

What makes the difference is what the client sees before they book. Someone deciding whether to pay for a first session wants to know who you are, what happens in the hour, and what it costs, all before they pick a time. A bare calendar link answers only the last question about when. For how to price that first session, and when a short free call still makes sense, see should you charge for the first call?

What do the numbers mean for your practice?

If you work in one of the buckets that earn, the data says the market already expects to pay you. If you give business advice, the data says your free calls are the problem, not your rate.

Either way, the first session is the one to get right:

Show the price before the booking. People who have seen it and still book are the ones who turn up.
Take payment when they book. A paid booking is a held hour, not a maybe.
Explain the session. A line on what happens in the first hour, and who it is for, does more than a long biography.
Answer questions on the page. The person deciding whether to pay usually has one question first.

How Keepp turns a booking link into a page people pay from

A scheduling link books a time. A Keepp page is a whole website at keepp.link/yourname, or your own domain, with the booking on it, so a stranger has the reasons to pay in the same place as the button.

Bookings that take payment. Each session has its own length, price and open times. The client pays as they book, the money goes straight to your own Stripe account, and with Zoom or Google Meet connected each booking gets its own video link.
The page around it. Your photo and a line on who you help, how you work, what each service costs, and anything that builds trust, all on one page in your own style.
A shop for between sessions. Sell recordings, meal plans, checklists or guides as downloads, and group them in a collection that opens as a page of its own.
Forms. Intake questions before the first session, or enquiries for retreats and bigger jobs, landing in your dashboard and your inbox.
Chat. An AI answers visitors’ questions from your page, like “do I need to be religious?” or “do you do state returns?”, and hands anything personal to you.

See it on example pages for a spiritual director, a registered dietitian and a tax preparer, each with a priced first session.

Websites for the practitioners who get paid

Each of these covers what a page in that field needs and how to get the first session paid:

Or start from the pages for therapists, coaches and healers and for lawyers, accountants and advisors. More booking data, from no-shows to deposits, is in online booking statistics for small businesses.

About the data

All figures come from one thread by TidyCal’s founder, posted on X on 23 October 2026, describing $4.2M that people paid to book time through TidyCal. They are quoted as published, without rounding or recalculation, and they describe one scheduling app’s users rather than every practitioner. The thread grouped bookings into its own buckets; “business consulting” is part of the larger “grow my business” bucket.

Common questions

Which appointments do people pay for most? Mind and soul appointments (therapy, spiritual direction, meditation and life coaching) made 31% of the money from 14% of the bookings in $4.2M of TidyCal bookings.

How often are business consulting calls paid? 1 in 114 business consulting bookings was paid, against 1 in 3 for spiritual direction. Across the “grow my business” bucket, 1.6% of calls were paid.

How much does a paid consultation cost? Paid business calls averaged $124 and legal, tax and money calls $126 in the same data.

Do pet services earn well from bookings? Yes. Pets made 9% of the money from 2% of the bookings. In the thread’s words: “People pay for their dog faster than for their business.”

Should I charge for the first call? The data says yes: the practitioners who charge for it earn far more from fewer bookings. Should you charge for the first call? covers pricing it and making it an easy yes.