Simon Suraci

To your point, every provider is different. Some prefer same day only because clients are less likely to flake. I don’t find this to be true.
Booking same day is a gamble. When he’s with a client, he can’t respond promptly, and maybe he can’t take a second or third client that same day anyway.
A few days notice should be fine for most. It gives time for the provider to finish with a client or whatever they are doing and get back to you same day or usually within 24 hrs. We have to plan our days to be realistic. Maybe two appointments per day spread out between morning and evening. It depends on what you need and how your guy works.
 

There’s no reason a masseur or escort needs your face or body photos. It’s a red flag that they’re probably cherry picking clients based on whatever preferences they have. I suggest clients pass and move on to the professionals with no hangups about how their clients look.

I chalk it up to paranoia. Hosts aren’t interested in guest activities unless the guests damage the property or violate the house rules. If something is damaged, the hosts don’t need it on video inside, just confirmation that a particular guest was in the unit to prove that the damage happened on the guest’s watch.
Lots of AirBnBs have cameras outside, near entries but not inside. One host in Houston noticed I had visitors coming and going and called it in. Since having visitors does not violate the rules, he couldn’t do anything. Only if I had unauthorized overnight guests would I have violated the rules. So the host made up a story about having a family emergency and asked me to leave, and refunded the balance of my stay. Sucks I had to cancel several days full of appointments and high tail it back to Dallas.
You can filter for AirBnBs that do not have any cameras. I do that now whenever possible. I also explicitly ask the hosts before booking if it’s ok to have visitors. I explain that it would not be for parties or loud gatherings, just 1-2 people for a couple hours or so. No problems since I started doing that. I rely on AirBnb, VRBO, and similar services to book my accommodations because it’s the only way I can get everything I need at the right price.
Most hotels do not have guest laundry facilities. Keep that in mind the next time you visit a masseur in a hotel and ask consider how many massages have taken place on the sheets you’re laying on. AirBnBs give me access to the amenities I need to provide a good client experience, like parking, nice neighborhood, an uncramped space to set up a table, and laundry. It’s usually less than hotel prices too, which make it worthwhile for me to do the trip.
Hotels are not immune from peeping toms either. Anyone see that Netflix true crime doc about the hotel owner who watched his guests for years in the attic vents? Consider your level of risk tolerance and proceed accordingly. The vast majority of accommodations will not have cameras spying on guests inside the unit. You’re more likely to be filmed without your knowledge by a masseur, escort, or psychopath hookup in any location than an AirBnB.
Netflix's intensely creepy documentary Voyeur will scare you away from motels forever
WWW.RADIOTIMES.COM Journalist Gay Talese uncovers the nefarious tale of a crafty peeping tom  

My personal sex life is a casualty of being in this biz. It’s one of the tough costs of doing this work that clients fortunately don’t have to think about. The question for me is not how, but if I do it at all.
Oftentimes I lack desire for sexual intimacy outside work for a number of reasons:
1) At any given time, I’m emotionally and sexually spent, and can’t do any more if I wanted to. I would have to do double duty work of advocating for my own needs in addition to (yet again) focusing on others’ needs in order attract their interest and commitment to meet. I don’t hire, but I see the appeal. I’d rather have someone focus on my needs and not their own for a change.
2) Opportunity costs. I’m concerned that wasting my mojo on something unpaid may affect my ability to provide a stellar experience for the next client. That next client may only be willing to request a same day appointment. I have to be ready, or prepared to miss out on that income I need to make my life work.
3) there’s the psychological mind fuck dynamic of: “I could be getting paid $XXX for this right now and I’m giving it away for free.”  Almost like volunteering your professional skills and time for an uncharitable cause. My personal fulfillment in the experience has to exceed that psychological barrier by so much that I can let it go and actually enjoy myself. That’s a tall order, at least for me.
4) I have no time, patience, or energy for it. I could spend weeks on apps and never get anywhere. Lots of frogs out there. I know because I use apps for work and man, it’s pretty bleak. What little time left I have outside work is better spent on other things.
5) Clients are all over the apps. It would be a nightmare trying to manage who’s blocked, who’s a client, who’s a potential client that I just don’t know yet. People know what I do and want to hire me or talk about work on the app, or spend chat time comparing hiring with hookups as if they are exactly the same thing. Boring. Then there’s worrying about presenting yourself the wrong way and losing clients because of it…it’s all just too much to manage. 
6) STIs. The fewer encounters I have, the less likely I will be to contract or transmit an STI. I constantly consider my clients and want them to feel comfortable that I’m not being unnecessarily reckless. I have way less sex compared to many of my non-provider peers, even though this is my job. My clients, on average, aren’t having that much multiple partner sex either, but it varies. When I’m out of commission due to recovery time from clearing an STI, that’s lost income. So yeah, it’s a cost to consider, and one I want to minimize.
7) Few people are worth my time.
😎 I have a partner. His needs come first after work obligations. Recreational activity is necessarily limited to the periods we decide we’re open. So…the preceding points notwithstanding, it ain’t gonna happen when we’re not open anyway!
9) Considering all the above, the planets will sooner align before I get some off the clock.
So my answer is: I just don’t. The deck is stacked, at least for me. Then again I’m sure other providers don’t put as much thought into all this as I do, and they’re probably better for it. 

Your experience is common. Escort service is by the hour (or portion thereof). Masseurs charge by half hour because it’s intense, skilled, focused physical work versus a conversation and cuddle lasting 15 mins longer or shorter. That’s not to say I think an escort appointment going over by 5 mins merits charging a full extra hour, but we work to the client’s satisfaction. I take cues from the client. When he’s satisfied and ready to leave, all good. If he wants the full time, it’s also perfectly good. When things start to drift much beyond the scheduled time, I gently signal that it’s either time to wrap up, or offer to extend the session if I have availability to extend.

Like @Jamie21 I’m one of the few more organized and detail oriented of the bunch. Data is my friend. Doesn’t sound at all like an architect, does it?
My appointment system is also a CRM tool and it keeps track of what a client booked, when, how much they paid including tip, and how it changes over time. I can track trends in time of day, week, month, and year. I also keep a spreadsheet of client and appointment data to check against my system and visa-versa. That tracks which payment method they used and what the transaction fees were, if any. That’s particularly helpful for taxes and reconciling my books.
I keep detailed records of client interactions, preferences, conversation topics, and the like to remember things that will help me serve them better and continue conversations even after months have passed. You name it, I collect and maintain data to support my decisions and improve my business.
February and August are my slowest months. February it’s definitely weather plus holiday season credit card bills coming due. Also it’s a slightly shorter month to begin with. August it’s mainly people traveling, but also weather (hot). Some of those travelers are coming to me from elsewhere but the volume is less than the dip in clients who would normally see me that month and are elsewhere.
Friday nights tend to be slower, on average, while Friday afternoons tend to stay booked, especially with same day requests. Weekdays during the day are popular. Sundays and especially Sunday nights are quite popular. Saturday mornings are popular too. Saturday nights are variable, it tends to be more of a certain type of client - typically older single men, often for longer appointments. It’s all variable and there’s no hard rule, just some trends that have emerged over time.

For non-sexual companionship services, I charge something more than my massage rates but less than my full service rates. Not by much, but a bit less. I do so because it takes effort and focused attention, but in a different way. Arguably it’s much more engaging and challenging than the small talk I have with a typical client at the beginning of a massage. The client wants my intellect and wants me to look good, perhaps touch me, and for me to engage them in every way but sex. That takes a high level of effort and personal connection. 
The companionship client typically wants more than an hour of my time, so it makes sense to do it. For full service, I charge $300/hr or $500/two hours. I charge $225/hr for à la carte companionship services. If the client wants two hours of companionship, that’s $450. Not much less than if they hired me for full service for two hours ($500). The companionship client may be less common than the full service client, but they are not paying that much differently.
More commonly clients are interested in an escort session and/or boyfriend experience, depending on the terms you prefer. These typically include time in the bedroom, and time outside the bedroom. See recent thread on “BFE”. I charge $1000 for up to (5) hours of escort service. The sexual part is typically up to couple hours and the rest is up to the client to decide what non-sexual activities they most enjoy while spending time with me. My long escort sessions work out to $200/hr, which is a pretty good deal for clients interested in both the sex AND the rest of the experience…which could look very much like the non-sexual companionship service I normally charge $225 for.
I suppose it all depends on the client’s sensibilities, budget, and priorities, but the longer the session, the easier it is for me to justify a lower rate. Example: I can do (1) five hr session for $1k, or (3) one hour full service sessions for $900. Realistically I probably can’t deliver on three clients a day for the latter, so the former makes a lot more business sense, even though the per-hour pay rate is lower.
Another consideration is that the typical client who books a five hour escort session is far more likely to cancel, and more often than not in less than 24 hrs of their start time. That’s frustrating. On paper it makes business sense, but in reality it’s all a total crapshoot.
My approach is I’m getting paid decently no matter what service I’m providing, so it matters a lot less exactly what I’m doing. Even some massage clients regularly spend $300 or more. The difference there is that I’m spending more time with the massage clients for the same money as I would make providing the other services over a shorter time. It’s easier for me to take multiple massage clients a day. It’s much more difficult for me to have multiple escort and/or sex work clients per day.
 

This happens to me too. A client texted me today to schedule a shorter, lower cost session right in the middle of a big block of availability where I could otherwise schedule two longer, higher value sessions. 
I honored the shorter session because he booked first. I give priority to those who book ahead, or whoever books first. I keep my word after I book them. In this case I had to turn down two higher session value clients because the resulting two blocks of time were each too short to fulfill either of the higher fee session requests.
Then….the low value client no shows. No cancellation message, nothing, just ghosts. So now I’m out of the lower value fee AND the two higher value fees. Frustrating. Sometimes this happens, especially with new clients, and I accept that. I don’t let it bother me anymore.
If I had canceled on the low value client to accommodate the two higher value clients, the two higher value clients may have canceled or no-showed as well. You never know with new clients what they are going to do. You can’t win, and there’s no way to game the system. Some clients are real jerks sometimes and there’s no escaping that. I honor my first booked, first priority policy because it’s the only objective, low stress way to handle these matters. It also rewards and encourages clients booking ahead, which I prefer anyway.
This is the reason a lot of providers behave the way they do. I’m not saying it’s right, but our schedules are constantly changing. It feels like we’re reacting to a dozen things out of our control and trying to make the best of all the moving parts each hour of the day as it changes. And we’re trying to make good money and use our time most effectively.
The occasional unusual circumstance outside of my control pops up requiring me to cancel or reschedule on a client, but I never cancel because I got a “better offer”. Unusual circumstances are things like my whole building fire alarm is sounding.

For providers, I disagree, the metrics do exist. Not on a stock exchange ticker, but it’s knowable with even a cursory amount of research.
Experienced clients have a good sense for what providers in their area are charging. Asking half a dozen to a dozen providers will give you a good sense of going rates. If you’ve hired occasionally in a certain city/region for a year or more, you will most certainly have this knowledge. Also, you can quickly gauge on the websites that list rates (not on RentMen, we beat that dead horse) and compare those numbers to the providers you contact.
Here on COM is a good place to ask around too. The baseline for rates is pretty easy to gauge, even if you’re starting from scratch with no experience hiring. I have to imagine with all the texts I get asking for rates that the knowledge goes somewhere in potential clients’ minds to compare with others they are texting. 
I discuss rates with provider friends and collaborators, so I have a good idea of what they are quoting their clients. For instance, in the Dallas/Ft Worth metro area, for one hour of full service, it runs $250 on the lower end to $300 average, and $400+++ on the high end for outliers, well known porn stars, the delusional, the fewer client strategy types, and such. You can find lower and higher numbers than these of course, but they are the minority. The baseline in my area is $300.
I can’t imagine this baseline is going to be wildly different in other cities and regions because many providers frequently tour across the country, but I know it varies from place to place and over time. I recognize many factors affect pricing and don’t mean to oversimplify, but a baseline ballpark is not that crazy or difficult to identify.
Someone who can afford $250 can afford $350. It’s just a matter of who is the right provider for you within the baseline range, and do you feel like an experience with them offers a good value for you in light of the price. That’s what baffles me sometimes when a client is obsessed with pricing. The more important issue is if you’re going to drop a few hundred dollars on an experience with anyone remotely close to the baseline, it should be with the right provider, not the cheapest, or the one you like who happens to be $25 or $50 less than the other one you like. It’s basically the same at that point. Tipping decisions alone make those a trivial pricing comparison.
Tying back to the OP question…the baseline is known (or easily knowable with the smallest bit of research) and that’s why it’s annoying when clients ask our rates and say it’s too expensive…because we know what our peers charge and it’s not that different from our own prices. It’s like the client is saying “escorts” are too expensive for me (which is their problem), and instead framing it as “you” are too expensive for me (implying it’s the provider’s problem).
To your point, the overall economy certainly plays a role. I will leave the impending recession discussion for the finances section. Not all agree that.
In recessions, luxury goods and services remain in demand because people with money are less affected. They still want their spa treatments, vacations, and they’re still horny AF. If anything, recessions are exactly the time one most wants to escape reality, if only temporarily, even when you can’t really afford it. More so for those that still can.
Regarding my analogy to the construction industry, those metrics do exist and are known to both parties. Construction project costs are well documented by project type, location, and year started/completed. These are the baseline for pricing proposed projects and submitting bids. Prices of course vary from the baseline when considering all manner of factors, but the baseline for a comparable project is known.
One might consider the concept is like comparable properties or “comps” in the real estate industry, at least for establishing a baseline. If only “offers over asking” were a thing in this industry 😂 That, and financing 🤣 
 

Get creative. For example, add a Valentine’s Day couples special, a referral discount, finals week special for students, spring break special, free add on services with a massage like hot stone or body scrub, two for one when you book x days ahead, cash discount, discount if you book online, $XX off before noon, specify “x” discount for NEW clients, $30 of for 30 somethings, emergency worker discount, teacher appreciation, other professions, etc. Creativity is key.
You don’t need to add a special every single week of the year, and it need not be broadly applicable to everyone every single week like 20% off (for every Tom Dick and Harry). If you have half the weeks of the year covered or more, you’re doing pretty good. I would have to raise prices if I consistently offered 20% off to every client over the whole year. Weekly specials are one of many ranking boost items to consider. If you have specials at all, and they are different over the course of a year, that’s what matters to the algorithm.
Be strategic. You wouldn’t want to offer a special when you know you have limited availability, or going on a trip, or whatever. If traveling to a different city, clients will book you regardless. I like to save my specials for when I can attract the most new clients that I otherwise wouldn’t, and have the availability to actually fulfill lots of new appointment requests.
It doesn’t really matter. One or two masseurs stay at the top for six months or so at a time by changing their photos every five seconds, maintaining every single new weekly special, re-writing their ad every month, logging in and flagging availability constantly, and so on. It’s exhausting. I don’t have time for all that, at least not for every single action every single week of the year. I’m busy working, so I’m not that the very top. Even when I actively try to get better rankings for a stretch of time, it only bumps me slightly.
I still get plenty of business. I find that the guys doing all the things to stay on the very top of the list don’t last long. They generally aren’t very good in my experience. That’s why they stay that the top for six months or so and then drop off completely. You have to be good to be successful, no matter your ad placement.
If you can update your ad and photos every six months or less, schedule a few creative weekly specials from time to time, and log in whenever possible, you’ll be fine. You won’t be at the very top, but you don’t have to be to get business. Most clients scroll and click your ad based on your looks, If they like your ad content, they reach out.
New and good photos are the #1 way to boost your ranking. Spread them out over a period to fit the algorithm preference for fresh photos. They can even be from the same photo session if they fit the strict criteria. Professional photos are expensive. It can cost $500-$1k every time I hire my photographer for a session and pay for shots I like and will use. I aim to do this every six months. Worth every penny because we thrive on good, current photos.