A good contract is not long, it is decided. It should name what you do not provide, when your on-call period starts, what happens if the pregnancy ends in loss, whether you will attend a birth that has not been paid for, and what happens when two clients labor at once. Answer those five in writing, while they are still theoretical.
I will be honest about how I used to treat contracts: as paperwork. Something to copy, sign, and file where I would never look at it again. I was wrong, and the reason matters, because it is not the reason people usually give.
The risk was never that a client would sue me. My clients are not out to get me, and yours are not either. The risk is quieter than that. Eight months is a long time, and two people remember the same conversation differently by the end of it. Not because anyone is lying. That is simply how memory works. Birth is also emotional, which is a hard time to find out the two of you assumed different things. The contract is not there because I expect the relationship to go wrong. It is there so that if a hard day comes, the answer already exists and neither of us has to invent it in the moment.
So here is how I think about it now. A good contract is not long. It is decided. Four plain sentences that answer a hard question are worth more than four pages that dance around it. It is not protection from your client. It is the record of what the two of you already agreed, written down while you still like each other.
Everything below is a clause I want you to think through before you need it. When you are ready, you can build your own in a few minutes with our free doula contract generator. One thing first, and I mean it plainly: contract law varies by state, I am a doula and not a lawyer, none of this is legal advice, and you should have someone local look at your contract before you lean on it.
Do you need one at all?
Yes. Even when your client is a friend, and especially then. Not because you distrust her. Because I have watched warm, easy arrangements between people who genuinely liked each other go tense at the very end, when memories had drifted apart and nobody had written anything down. A contract does not make the relationship colder. It takes the one conversation that could sour things and settles it early, so the friendship never has to carry it.
The parties, and the one most templates get wrong
Get the names right, because two mistakes hide here. First, your practice name is not your legal name, so make sure the document reflects how your business is set up. Second, and this is the one that catches people: an agreement is between the people who sign it. If your client has a partner who will be at the birth, involved in the decisions, maybe even the one paying, and that partner never puts a name on the page, your agreement does not include them. Most templates quietly assume one signer. Decide, on purpose, who your agreement is really with.
What you are providing
Say what you do, in plain and specific terms. How many prenatal visits. What continuous support means to you, from the moment you join her in active labor to a set point after the birth. Which add-ons are included and which cost more. This is the part I find easiest to write, because it is the part I love, the description of the actual work. Write it specifically anyway. "Support during labor and birth" is a feeling. "Two prenatal visits, continuous support once labor is active, and a postpartum visit within two weeks" is a scope, and a scope is what protects both of you.
What you are not providing
Here is the section almost no template includes, and it is where nearly every hard conversation I have seen actually began. Trouble rarely starts over what you promised. It starts over what she assumed you promised and you never did. So write down what you do not do: you are not the birth photographer, you do not perform clinical or medical tasks, you do not watch older siblings or pets, you do not stay overnight unless she has paid for that, and lactation help runs to a set point rather than forever. This is not cold. Written down, it is the kindest thing on the page, because it replaces a slow build of unspoken expectations with a clear picture you both agreed to.
On-call, and the two dates whose order matters
This is the clause I would fight to keep if I could only keep one.
Say when you go on call and when that period ends. Spell out what on call means in real life: your phone stays on, you stay within a certain distance, and there are things you will not commit to because you might have to leave at any moment. Name your backup, the doula who comes if you cannot, so your client meets that possibility in writing instead of in a panic. And decide what happens if she labors outside the window you set.
Then the piece I care about most, and the reason order matters: put your balance due date before your on-call date. I do not think you should be on call for a birth you have not been paid for, and I will say that plainly. If the balance is due at 36 weeks and you go on call at 38, an unpaid balance shows up while there are still two weeks to sort it out, before you have handed your calendar to her birth. Flip those two dates and you can end up holding a window open, turning other women away, for someone who has not paid. Balance first, on call second. In our contract generator those are the defaults, 36 then 38, and we show them as a tradeoff you can move rather than a rule I am handing down.
One more thing about the window, because it is easy to forget when you are excited to book: every client you are on call for is weeks you cannot fully give anyone else. That is why the number of births you can hold is smaller than it looks. If you are trying to work out your own number, we cover the math in how many births a doula can take, and the capacity calculator will run it with you.
Money
Keep the money short and specific. State the deposit and whether it is refundable. State the balance and what it is tied to: a week of pregnancy, a set number of days after you send the invoice, the final prenatal visit, or the day she delivers. State how you take payment. State what happens to hours beyond the package, so a long birth or an extra visit is never an awkward conversation after the fact.
Two things from experience. Payments through DoulaFlow go to your own processor. We do not take a cut and we do not hold your money, and you can see how that works on the get paid page. And what happens when a client does not pay is a whole subject of its own, with its own hard question, so I am not going to re-argue it here. We put it in what to do when a client does not pay, which covers how reminders work, the birth question, and what to change afterward.
Cancellation, and the distinction that costs money
Here is a distinction that has cost doulas real money: canceling and being unable to get there are not the same event, and a contract that treats them the same will refund one as if it were the other.
A client who cancels ahead of time has ended the agreement. A birth you were never called to, because she did not call, or called too late, or the baby came faster than anyone could get there, is not a cancellation. You held the window. You stayed ready. You did the on-call work, all of it. If your contract only has a line for cancellation, it has no words for the birth you were prepared for and never called to, and you can end up refunding as though you were the one who backed out. Separate the two on the page: what counts as a cancellation, when a refund applies, and what happens when you were available and simply never called.
Miscarriage or loss
Almost no template has this, and every one should. If a pregnancy ends in loss, what happens to the money, and to the relationship? Decide it now, gently, so that if that day comes, neither of you is negotiating through grief. There is no single right answer, and I want to be clear about that. Some doulas refund the balance in full. Some keep a portion for the prenatal work already done. Some hold the fee and carry it to a future pregnancy, whenever the family is ready. Any of those is a kind answer. The only unkind answer is silence, which leaves a grieving family guessing and leaves you writing a policy in the worst hour to write one. Say what you will do, in plain and gentle words, before you ever need to.
Scope, and the clause that protects you both
Put your role in plain words: you are a non-clinical support person, you are not a medical provider, and you do not diagnose, treat, or make medical decisions. This is not fine print to me. It protects the family, because it makes the boundary clear, and it protects you, because it sets expectations you can meet. While you are writing it, add permission for the two things that always come up later: whether you may take or use photos, and whether you may use her words as a testimonial. Ask on the page, before the birth, not in her inbox three weeks after.
Signing it
Nothing is agreed until it is signed. Decide how you will do it, a wet signature on paper or an electronic one, and keep two copies, one each, so there is never a question about whose version is current. In DoulaFlow, e-signature is built in, with fifty sends a year per seat, and there is a short walkthrough on the send a document for signature page. The free contract generator does not send for signature. It gives you a clean document you can print and sign by hand. Either way, the rule is the same: unsigned, it is a draft, not an agreement.
The five questions
If you remember nothing else, take these five questions to your own contract and make sure it answers every one, in writing:
- What is not included in your service?
- When does your on-call period begin, and is the balance due before it?
- What happens to the money if the pregnancy ends in loss?
- Will you attend the birth of a client who has not paid?
- What happens when two clients go into labor at once?
If your contract answers all five, it is doing its job, and you can stop turning it over in your head. If it goes quiet on any of them, that is the next clause to write. When you want to build one that covers all five, the free doula contract generator will walk you through it. I made the argument here. The tool just helps you get it on paper.