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Practice budget calculator

Plan your practice budget: visits, costs and what is left for you.

Try your visit schedule, your prices and your costs side by side. See what is left for you each month, and how many visits a week it takes to reach the take-home you want. It runs in your browser and saves your numbers on this device.

Try your numbers.

Work down the five parts, or jump to the one you are curious about. Your results update on the right as you type.

The starting numbers are round examples, not averages for any practice. Replace them with yours.

1 · Visits
Subtract holidays, vacation and CE.
No-shows and late cancellations you do not charge for.

20 booked a week, about 19 paid.

2 · What a visit brings in

List each kind of visit, its price, and how many of every ten (or any unit) are that kind. The average is weighted for you.

Average per visit: $110.00.

3 · Costs that grow with visits

Needles: $0.10 each, $1.20 a visit.

Swabs, table paper, cups, moxa, gloves, laundry.
Check your processor's current rate.

Each paid visit costs about $5.50 to deliver.

4 · Costs you pay either way
Include utilities if they are separate.
Journal access, reference subscriptions, a mentor or case consult, AI tools.
5 · Paying yourself
What you want to be able to spend after taxes.
A placeholder to plan with. Ask a tax professional what yours should be.
Help me pick a percentage

A rough 2026 estimate for a single filer who runs the practice as a sole proprietor or single-member LLC, using the profit from your numbers. It is a starting point, not tax advice.

On $80,293 of profit a year
Federal income tax$5,3707%
Self-employment tax$11,34514%
State income tax—
Estimated total$16,71521%

That is about $4,179 per quarterly payment. Rounded up, set aside 21%.

How the percentage grows with profit (no state tax counted)
Profit a yearSet aside
$50,00020%
$75,000closest to yours21%
$100,00023%
$125,00024%
$150,00026%
  • Federal and self-employment tax are most of it. State income tax adds anywhere from nothing (AK, FL, NV, NH, SD, TN, TX, WA, WY) to about eight points.
  • The estimate leaves out state deductions (so state tax reads a little high), city or county taxes, other household income, a spouse, credits, and retirement or health-insurance deductions.
  • The qualified business income deduction is included and phases out at higher profit for health practices. An S corporation pays tax differently: ask your accountant.
  • Estimated payments are generally due April 15, June 15, September 15 and January 15. Paying at least 90% of this year’s tax, or 100% of last year’s (110% at higher income), generally avoids an underpayment penalty.
  • The percentage you keep in the field above is the one the numbers use.

How to get something useful out of it.

A budget is a set of questions you can ask quickly. These are the ones worth trying.

  1. Start with the schedule you can really keep

    Enter the days and visits per day you would be glad to work in a normal week, then take off the weeks for holidays, vacation and continuing education. A schedule you can sustain tells you more than a full one you cannot.

  2. Use the mix when your visits differ in price

    A first visit is often longer and priced differently from a follow-up. Add each visit type and how often it happens, and the average is weighted for you. Add herbs or a package as its own line if you sell them.

  3. Price your supplies from a real box

    Enter the box price and the count, and the tool works out the cost per needle. Then add what else a visit uses, so each visit carries its own cost.

  4. Separate costs you pay either way

    Rent, software, insurance and reference resources do not change with a busy week. Seeing them apart from per-visit costs shows how many visits it takes just to cover the doors.

  5. Change one number at a time

    Raise a price by ten dollars, take a day off, or move to a cheaper room. The result on the right shows what each change does to the visits you need.

Paying yourself, and where to read about the tax side.

How you are paid depends on how your practice is set up, and it is worth a short conversation with a tax professional.

What “left for you” means here
It is revenue minus every cost on the page, before income tax and before any salary or owner’s draw. For a practice you run on your own, that figure is generally the profit you are taxed on, not a paycheck that already had tax taken out.
Why there is a tax set-aside
Self-employed people generally pay income tax and self-employment tax, often through estimated payments during the year rather than withholding. The set-aside percentage reminds you to move money for that. It is a number you pick for planning. The helper under the field estimates one from your profit and state, and a tax professional or the IRS resources below can confirm it.
Different setups pay you differently
A sole proprietorship, a single-member LLC and a corporation taxed as an S corporation can each handle owner pay in a different way. This tool treats everything left over as yours. If your setup pays you a salary, cost that salary and the employer taxes on it as a line under “Add a cost”, and treat the remainder as profit.
Not covered here
Retirement contributions, health insurance, the qualified business income deduction, state taxes and depreciation can all change what you keep. A CPA who works with small health practices can walk through them with your real numbers.

Sources: IRS: Self-employed individuals tax center, IRS: Self-employment tax (Social Security and Medicare), IRS: Estimated taxes, IRS Publication 334: Tax guide for small business.

Where to go next.

Pricing the numbers is one part of opening. The setup checklist covers the rest in order, the CPT codes reference helps with what insurance-billed visits bring in, and the superbill template prints what patients submit for reimbursement. When you are ready to track the real thing, see billing in Goji.

Frequently asked

Budget questions, answered.

Is anything I enter sent to you?

No. The calculator runs in your browser and saves your numbers on this device so they are there next time. We never receive them. Clearing site data, or opening the page on another computer, starts you from the example numbers.

Where do the starting numbers come from?

They are round examples chosen to show how the pieces fit together. They are not averages for acupuncture practices, and nothing on this page claims what a typical practice earns or spends. Use your own prices and your own quotes.

What counts as a “paid” visit?

A visit you are paid for. If you do not charge for a late cancellation or a no-show, those booked visits bring in nothing, so enter the share you lose and the calculator counts only the rest for revenue and supplies.

Why does the result say “before income tax”?

Revenue minus costs is your profit. For a practice you run on your own, that profit is generally what you are taxed on, whether or not you move it to a personal account. The tax set-aside is a percentage you choose. The “Help me pick a percentage” section gives a rough estimate from your profit and state, but it is not a calculation of what you owe.

Does this include the cost of getting started?

No. It plans a typical month once you are open. One-time costs such as equipment, build-out, licensing fees and the first months of marketing belong in a separate startup budget. The setup checklist walks through what to price first.

Ready to swap the guesses for real numbers?

Once you are seeing patients, Goji's calendar and invoices hold your actual visit counts and what each visit brought in. Start free and see how it fits.

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