A Mentor Showed This Traveller They Were Underpaid by $600/Week

They Thought They Were Doing Fine

Two years in, they genuinely thought they were a savvy traveler. They'd figured out the tax home thing. They had their licensing process down. They liked their recruiter. Their agency had a good app. They were making what they thought was a solid acute-care package for an OT, and they had never gone through it line by line.

Then they got matched with Marcus through the mentorship program — not because they thought something was wrong, but because a friend had used the program and said it was worth doing even if you felt like you'd figured things out.

The Conversation That Changed Things

Marcus asked them to share their current offer breakdown — full details, not just the weekly total. They walked him through it. He was quiet for a second, then said: "Can I share mine?"

His package — same setting, similar geography, similar experience level — was worth noticeably more than theirs. They sat with that for a moment.

Understanding the Gap

Marcus helped them understand where the difference came from. It wasn't that their agency was dramatically underpaying them in bad faith. It was that they'd never negotiated. They'd accepted the first offer. They'd renewed twice at the same rate without asking. And their agency — like most agencies — wasn't going to volunteer a raise unprompted.

He also walked them through the difference in how their packages were structured. Their taxable base was higher relative to their stipends, which meant they were paying more in taxes on the same gross. His package was structured differently — same total, but a larger non-taxable stipend portion — which translated directly to more take-home without changing the gross at all.

What They Did Next

They went back to their current agency first and asked for a restructured package and a rate increase. They offered a small adjustment — about $150/week. Better than nothing, but not where they needed to be.

At Marcus's suggestion, they reached out to two other agencies. One of them — ProTherapy, which Marcus had worked with — gave them a transparent breakdown from the first call, line by line, and offered a better-structured package for an equivalent contract. They made the switch at the end of their current contract.

Two Contracts Later

They've now completed two contracts with the new agency, on a better-structured package than the one they started with. More importantly, they finally understand their own pay package in a way they never did for two years of traveling. That knowledge is worth more than the raise, honestly — because now they can use it every time they evaluate an offer.