Free tool · For new and aspiring agency owners
Doula Agency Startup Planner
Pick your start date, the services you will offer and how many doulas you plan to bring on. The planner dates a first-90-days checklist across setup, contracts, your team and your first clients, marks every step where you need an attorney, accountant, insurer or state office, and lists the BBU doula trainings and perinatal professional courses for your team and your referrals.
- Free
- No signup or email
- Works right on this page
- Nothing you enter is sent anywhere; saving is your choice
Business planning, not legal or tax advice. Registration, contracts, worker classification, tax and insurance rules differ by state. The planner tells you which steps need a professional and stops there.
The first 30, 60 and 90 days
The checklist runs in three phases. Days 1–30 set the business up: services, name, registration, a bank account, insurance, how your doulas will work with you, contracts and pricing. Days 31–60 build the team: role descriptions, interviews, checking training and references, onboarding, and an on-call and backup rotation (or shift scheduling for postpartum-only agencies). Days 61–90 bring in first clients: your client process from inquiry to follow-up, community and referral partners, prenatal visit materials, consistent communication across the team, and a 90-day review.
Every step has a date counted from your start date, and the list adapts: overnight postpartum work adds shift guidelines, and if you still take client shifts yourself, it adds backup coverage for them.
Contracts and registrations: get help
Six steps are marked “get professional help”: checking your business name, registration and local licenses, insurance, whether your doulas are contractors or employees, your client contract and your doula agreement. These are exactly the places where rules differ by state and mistakes are expensive, so the planner names the step, reminds you which state’s rules to check, and leaves the answer to a qualified professional. It never states a legal requirement.
Onboarding doulas
After interviews and reference checks comes onboarding: what every new doula learns before their first client. BBU’s Doula Agency Owner Mentorship works on recruiting, onboarding and keeping doulas, consistency across the team and processes that reduce owner dependency.
Training your team and referring others
The checklist includes a step for choosing the BBU training each new doula needs, matched to the services you offer: the Certified Birth Doula Training, the Certified Postpartum Doula Training, or both, which BBU also sells as a bundle. A doula who is already trained or certified can take a cross certification instead. The plan ends with the published trainings and perinatal professional courses, each linked to its page with the price shown there, and a link to the Affiliate & Educator Program, which includes all of them, with the Affiliate Earnings Calculator to model it from your own numbers.
What the Agency Owner Package includes
The package page lists: 16 Birth & Baby University doula trainings you can resell to your team; 2 fully customizable onboarding trainings, each 3 hours long and editable in Canva; the 5-week Doula Agency Owner Mentorship Program; 2 personalized 1:1 sessions with Anna Rodney, each lasting 90 minutes; and 10 prenatal workbooks for your birth doulas to use during prenatal visits. The planner prints this list at the end of your plan.
Questions people ask
Does this give legal advice?
No. The planner flags the steps that need a professional, such as contracts, registration, worker classification, tax and insurance, and stops there.
How many doulas should I start with?
Enter what you plan and the checklist scales the hiring steps. The business case is yours to decide.
Does the planner include doula trainings?
Yes. It adds a step for choosing each new doula’s training, lists the BBU doula trainings and perinatal professional courses with the prices published on their pages, and links to the Affiliate & Educator Program, which includes all of them.
What is in the Agency Owner Package?
The page lists 16 BBU doula trainings, 2 editable onboarding trainings, the 5-week agency owner mentorship, 2 private 90-minute sessions with Anna Rodney and 10 prenatal workbooks.
Is my plan saved?
Only if you choose. Nothing is sent anywhere. It stays on this page until you print or close it, unless you press “Save on this device,” which keeps a copy in your own browser. You can also download a copy.
Sources
- Birth & Baby University. The Agency Owner Package information page (linked above). Checked October 9, 2026.
- Birth & Baby University. Agency Owner Package page (contents). Checked October 9, 2026.
- Birth & Baby University. Doula Agency Owner Mentorship page (topics). Checked October 9, 2026.