Room Rent or Solo From Scratch? What to Weigh Up Before Building Your Private Practice

Dr Olivia Campbell

Sep 1

2 min read

If you're a psychologist thinking about stepping into private practice, one of the first decisions you'll face isn't clinical at all, it's structural. Do you find your own premises, sign a commercial lease, and build every system yourself? Or do you rent a room within an established practice and plug into infrastructure that already exists?

Both paths can lead to a thriving, values-led practice. But they come with very different costs, timelines, and trade-offs, and it's worth mapping these out before you commit to either.

The real cost of building from scratch

Setting up alone usually means a commercial lease (often with a multi-year term and a security deposit), a fit-out, furniture, internet and phone system, professional indemnity and business/contents insurance, a website, security, and some way of handling reception, invoicing, and cancellations. None of this is clinical work, it's business infrastructure, and it all needs to be in place before you see your first client.

There's also a time cost that's easy to underestimate. Every hour spent researching software, chasing invoices, or troubleshooting a wifi modem is an hour not spent building your caseload or doing the work you trained for.

What a coworking model solves

Renting a room in a practice like WellSpace shifts a lot of this off your plate from day one. Reception and admin support, a fitted-out therapy room, shared waiting areas, and a peer community are already there. Costs like reception staffing, cleaning, and common-area overheads are shared across the practice rather than carried by one person, which usually makes the early years of practice more financially predictable.

There's also a less tangible benefit: professional isolation is a genuine risk in solo practice, and being around other independent clinicians (even informally, over a coffee between sessions) helps with case discussion, referrals, and simply not feeling like you're building something alone.

Questions worth asking yourself

Before deciding, it's worth being honest about where you're at. How established is your referral base? Do you have the capital and appetite to manage a lease and fit-out, or would you rather that capital go toward marketing and professional development instead? Do you want full autonomy over every aspect of your space, or would you trade some of that for structure and support while you build your caseload?

Neither answer is right or wrong. It depends on your stage, your goals, and how much of your energy you want to spend on running a business versus practising as a clinician.

Where WellSpace fits in

At WellSpace, we work with independent psychologists and psychiatrists who want the autonomy of private practice without carrying every operational cost alone. Our Prahran and Fitzroy spaces are up and running, with a third site opening in Brunswick East later this year. If you're weighing up your options, we're always happy to have an informal chat about what coworking looks like day-to-day.