Setting up your doula business: the essentials
From choosing a business structure to contracts, insurance, and your first booking system — a step-by-step checklist for turning your doula training into a real practice.
Doula training teaches you how to support families — but rarely how to run a business. This checklist covers the essentials most new doulas wish they had sorted before their first client, in roughly the order to tackle them.
1. Choose a simple business structure
Most doulas start as a sole trader (UK/IE) or sole proprietor (US/CA) — it's quick to register and you can change later as you grow. Register with your tax authority, open a separate bank account for the business, and keep every receipt from day one. Future you, at tax time, will be grateful.
2. Get a contract before you need one
A clear service agreement protects both you and your clients. At a minimum it should cover:
What is (and isn't) included in your package — visits, on-call period, birth attendance, postpartum hours.
Fees, deposit, and your refund policy if the birth unfolds differently than planned.
Backup arrangements if you're ill or attending another birth.
A statement that you provide support, not medical care.
3. Sort insurance and the boring-but-vital admin
Professional liability (indemnity) insurance is inexpensive and many doula organisations offer member rates. While you're at it: check whether you need a background check for hospital access in your area, and register with the data-protection authority if your country requires it for holding client records.
4. Set your price like a business, not a hobby
Add up the real hours in a birth package — prenatal visits, the on-call window, the birth itself, postpartum follow-up, plus travel and admin. Divide your package price by those hours and you'll often find "cheap" packages pay less than minimum wage. Price so you can serve families well and still be here in five years.
5. Put your systems in one place
Scattered notes, texts, and invoices are where new practices lose hours and leads. From your very first inquiry, use one system to track clients, send contracts and invoices, and manage your calendar. It keeps you looking professional and frees your attention for the work that matters — supporting families.
