Platform fees: transparency and context

Quite often at Talked we get asked why there’s a need to charge a platform fee (or what the platform fee actually covers).

So in the interest of transparency, we’d like to provide a little more context on what’s provided within the platform fee and how these funds are re-invested back into the Talked community and the creation of more therapist earning opportunities.

First up, let’s start by taking a look at the “back office essentials” which need to be paid on every therapy session before even considering what arrives at Talked. Below is a high-level breakdown of these approximate costs:

• Payment processing charges – up to 20% of the platform fee must be paid to a payment processing technology provider to cover merchant fees, credit card chargebacks, and fraud protection costs. 
• Video & SMS processing fees – each video session has a fee for our provider, which covers end-to-end encryption, real-time chat and high quality, low-latency video. We also use our provider to notify therapists and patients of upcoming bookings via SMS.
• Goods and services tax (GST) – Talked is required to pay the Australian government GST.

Where do the platform fees go?

1. Marketing and Promotion

To bring more clients onto the Talked platform, we reinvest platform fees into a range of marketing activities to ensure more earning opportunities are being created for the community. We have also been steadily building up a growing network of referrals from businesses, general practices and public health networks

We also continue to invest across a range of marketing channels including Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok advertising, and Search Engine Optimisation through our tailored blog posts. If you haven't already, we would appreciate a follow on our Instagram and TikTok accounts!

 2. Software and Technology

In order to maintain, improve and build new features for the platform we employ a number of staff in software engineering and design. We are growing this headcount to ensure that Talked is a safe and reliable platform so that we can deliver a constantly improving therapist and client experience.

We believe our investment and dedication in this area drive greater earning opportunities and an improved experience for our mental health community. 

 3. Privacy and security

In a world that is increasingly under cyber threat, we want to ensure that Talked therapists and clients continue to receive world class privacy and security protections. In order to ensure this, substantial and continual investment efforts are need to ensure that all data remains safe and encrypted.

 4. Support and Administration

We continue to bring on more dedicated support staff to be able to offer around the clock support for both therapists and clients. You will have seen this with the number of proactive administrative features in you dashboard.

Conclusion

Overall, our platform fee is purposefully designed to align Talked with the community – the more therapists succeed, the more we succeed. We’re also committed to re-investing earnings into building the Talked community and creating a sustainable, positive environment for therapists and their clients.