Where each number comes from
- Price charged: the amount you collect for this treatment, after the discount the patient gets, from your record system.
- Direct materials: the supply invoice, line by line, for everything used once. An IV is the bag, the tubing set, the needle or catheter, gloves and prep, disposal and the additive by the dose drawn, not the additive alone. Tox is the units drawn plus the share of the vial that is discarded. Filler is the syringe, the cannula and the numbing. Laser is the consumable plus the service contract spread across the sessions it covers. Confirm units and dosing with your medical director.
- Provider minutes: the time the provider spends on this treatment from prep to charting, timed over a week rather than read off the booked slot.
- Provider cost per hour: their pay plus payroll taxes, benefits and insurance, divided by the hours they work, from payroll.
- Room minutes: how long the room is unavailable for anyone else, including turnover.
- Room cost per hour: rent, utilities and equipment payments for that room, divided by the hours it can be booked, from your lease and your equipment statements.
- Card and booking fees: your processor statement and your booking software's per-booking charge, as a share of the price.
What the number means
Contribution margin is what one treatment leaves after everything that was spent to deliver it. It is not profit: marketing, the front desk and the rest of the rent still come out of it, since the room line charged only the hours this treatment used. It is the number every other decision rests on. A treatment with a thin margin per provider hour is taking chair time from one with a fat one. A discount, a membership tier or a party built on a thin margin has nothing under it. Run this once per treatment on your menu and keep the sheet; it is the one the rest of the menu depends on.
The full method is in the unit economics guide, also linked below: timing the provider, handling vial waste, and reading the whole menu side by side.