Browser-only practice economics · no account
What does an associate cost, and at how many sessions do they pay?
The hiring page prices one associate on one salary. This page carries the same 2026 employer lines and the Board’s supervision arithmetic, and lets you set the salary or the split, the fee, the weeks, your own hourly rate and the collection rate. It reproduces that page’s figures before it is allowed to ship.
Your numbers →Your numbers
Salary or split, and the week.
An associate is a W-2 employee or a volunteer; the Board’s supervision agreement has you attest to it, and the ABC test reaches the same place. The supervision hours are the Board’s: one a week at up to ten direct-service hours, two above that. Collection rate is the share of fees that actually arrive after cancelations and write-offs.
At other caseloads
The same associate, thinner and fuller.
| Sessions a week | Collected | Associate’s pay | Your supervision time | You keep |
|---|
At your fee, weeks, rate, collection rate and pay model. The supervision line steps from one hour to two above ten sessions a week.
The lines
Where each 2026 figure comes from.
Employer shares of 6.2% to the $184,500 wage base and 1.45% with no cap (Social Security Administration, contribution and benefit base, 2026).
FUTA at 2.1%, the projected California rate with the credit reduction, marked projected until November 2026; California UI at the 3.4% new-employer rate; ETT at 0.1%; all on the first $7,000 of each employee’s wages (EDD, DE 202). SDI is withheld from the employee at no cost to you.
The statewide advisory pure premium rate of $1.65 per $100 of payroll from 1 September 2026 (Department of Insurance, release 024-2026) is a ceiling; an office-based practice classifies below it, and the field is editable for a real quote.
CPH publishes rates under $100 a year for a post-master’s MFT associate under supervision.
One hour of supervision a week at up to ten hours of direct service, two above that, priced at your own hourly rate; the Board’s supervision agreement is where the attestation that the associate is a W-2 employee or volunteer lives.
The 2026 state minimum wage of $16.90 (DIR notice MW-2026); twice it on 2,080 hours is the $70,304 exempt salary floor, below which no contract makes an employee exempt.
Then what
The hire, the classification, the practice.
The worked model and everything around it
Hiring your first associate in California
Registration with the EDD, CalSavers, the wage order, the supervision agreement.
Why not a 1099
1099 or W-2: the ABC test
The three prongs as the Labor Commissioner states them, and the Board’s own rule.
The associate’s side of the supervision hour
The supervision-cost calculator
Units, weeks and the price of the 3,000 hours.
The whole group
The group-practice P&L
Panel, pay, overhead and owner time in one operating statement.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The 2026 figures
- Social Security Administration, contribution and benefit base: $184,500
- EDD, DE 202: 2026 UI, ETT, SDI and FUTA rates and bases
- EDD, am I required to register as an employer?
- California Department of Insurance, release 024-2026: the $1.65 advisory rate
- CPH & Associates, post-master’s MFT associate under supervision
- DIR, official notice MW-2026: the $16.90 minimum wage
- BBS, supervision agreement form
The worked model
Nothing typed leaves the browser. The engine is the hiring page’s arithmetic with the numbers editable; whether a particular associate is exempt, and what a real workers’ compensation quote comes to, are questions it does not answer.
