Subdividing a part of the high-end: 750 vs. 1000

#1
I recently had a nice session with a visiting indy provider who comes to NYC every few months. I’ve seen her a few times, and after we were done with the main event, I asked her she was and what was knew. She told me about her upcoming venture in a pay-porn site, and how she was doing lots of picture and video shoots in order to have sufficient content when the pay-site launched.

She mentioned that she was doing a photo shoot with another woman who is 32 and has been in the business since she was 16, but who, until a few months ago, has always worked for one or another of a long string of agencies. Up to very recently, she was one of the "many thousand-dollar girls" here in NYC, but has now gone independent herself. My friend had agreed to mentor her by explaining how to screen, how to market, what to charge, etc.

This new provider was apparently upset because she couldn’t seem to assemble a large enough stock of regulars to keep busy. Her main complaint is that her clients don’t repeat, even though they are apparently very happy with her performance, attitude, and looks.

My friend diagnosed the problem as having two main causes in this particular case. First, the new indy has too few reviews (hardly any) to reassure potential clients that she is legit. Second, my friend told her that at the $1000 an hour price point, most customers are perennial variety-seekers, and will rarely repeat. This advice was well-received by the new indy, who recalled that she rarely saw anyone more than once at her agencies, and that the same customers seemed to always ask for "new faces" every time they called.

My friend told her that if she was in another city, she would be recommending a price point of $400-$600 an hour, but that in NYC a higher level would be right – about $750 an hour. At that price she could be confident of finding customers who ended up liking her for whom she is, and would therefore repeat their visits on a regular basis.

Since my friend seems quite successful and quite busy, I suspect she knows a little about what she talks about. Yet, I’m surprised about the large differences she says there is between the $750 and $1000 price points.
 
#2
When I see an independent, I assume that there is no middle man involved. Since the middle man (or woman) usually takes a 50% cut, I would expect a true indie to be more in the 300 - 500 range in this price class. My personal pain threshold is 750. I will not spend more than that, variety or not. But if I did, I could go either way, always variety or increasingly monogamous.
 
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