$225/Hour College Admissions Essay Consultant

Carter Osborne is a “college admissions essay consultant” who charges $225/hour and earns $100k+ per year 💰

Per a recent interview, the business had humble beginnings…

In Carter’s first year, he landed 3 clients and earned a few thousand dollars.

The next year, he tripled his client load to 14 students and broke 5 figures in sales. And from then on, Carter has reached the $100K+ mark working with around 25 to 30 students.

That was more than his income from his full-time corporate PR job—the tipping point that led Carter to quit and go all-in on his college essay consulting business.

📅 Looks like he started in 2017 (when his domain was registered).

Carter started out tutoring different subjects as a side gig in grad school, from SAT/ACT prep to history and even pre-calculus.

But he enjoyed the actual writing and language arts side of things the most, especially helping students craft their college admissions essays….

So he niched down to essay writing consulting, and found there was little competition in his area (Seattle) 🗺️

Pricing…

When he launched his essay coaching services, he undercharged at $75 per hour…

But Carter soon realized prospective clients might be skeptical of such a low price point for a specialized service. He raised his rates to a more appropriate $225 per hour eventually.

Carter has no social media presence 🤯 and this combined with his high hourly rate may actually contribute to his success…

This industry is so odd in that people view it almost like a luxury good. It’s this sort of premier consultant, a premier tutor sort of thing. This is a special person. This is someone who’s almost hard to find because they’re so good and they don’t need to advertise themselves.

His revenue is seasonal, with most of it coming within a few months…

His year follows a pattern—periods of intense work followed by months of much-needed downtime.

But come late summer and early fall, it’s the complete opposite story. Carter has to put his head down and grind.

🤝 Carter also teamed up with people who could’ve been his competitors…

He reached out to established, successful college admissions consultants and counselors in his local area. His pitch was simple: “Could I help you out? If you have some overflow clients who you can’t get to, maybe pass them my way.”

And it was a win-win partnership. If you think about it, these consultants were already fully booked anyway, and writing essays often wasn’t how they wanted to spend their time.

From there, the word-of-mouth referral engine started spinning.

📈 His plans to expand the business…

I’m now working with students on professional coaching and consulting, folks who want to become tutors or even college essay specialists. I’m working with them to kind of talk about how to do it.

How about becoming a tutor yourself?

Is there a subject you know well enough to try it out? 🤔

As Carter’s story demonstrates, over time you can earn a substantial income this way.

Get 10 more business ideas in your inbox each week