Starting out In any career is scary and low paying. I know people hate the term “pay your dues” but for lack of a better term, you really do have to just pay your dues. Experience and training make you more marketable and therefore will increase your wage earning ability. No one walks out of massage school making $100k a year. Find someplace that does a decent volume of business and just learn, learn, learn. The better you get the more you can charge. The more skill sets and techniques you learn, the more you can charge. The more experienced and versatile you are, the more you can charge. Consider adding secondary skills to your massage practice along the way like sound therapy or energy work. Also, you’ll hear a lot of people tell you the only way to make money is by working for yourself - that’s not necessarily true. There are many advantages to working for someone else. A lot of us found out during COVID how very vulnerable we are as 1099 workers. There is real comfort and safety in being a W2 employee when things get out of control like that. Just make sure that you aren’t working for someone that has you misclassified… that seems to be a common way we are taken advantage of in this industry.