Do Paranormal Investigators Get Paid?

How much paranormal researchers make depend on whether they hunt ghosts as an amateur pursuit or as a professional business, and even as a pro it's unusual for someone's main source of income to come from paranormal investigations.

Most paranormal researchers seek out spooks as nothing more than a hobby, often as part of a local paranormal group or with friends. This will often be at organised ghost hunting events, historic locations, businesses, or private homes. These sort of ghost hunts are a great way of gaining experience, making contacts within the paranormal community, and potentially experiencing some paranormal activity for yourself.

When starting out in the field of paranormal research, the question isn't so much "how much will I get paid?" but more "how much will this cost me?" Ghost hunting can be an expensive hobby, there's going to be plenty of kit you're going to want to get your hands on, including EMF meters, cameras and audio recorders for capturing EVPs.

Ghost hunting events can also be fairly expensive to attend, it's anything from £20 to £80 per person for an evening in a haunted location with a paranormal events company. There's the option to hire a location privately but this will set you back several hundred pounds.

Once you've got past this initial outlay, there are a few ways you can make a little bit of cash as a paranormal investigator. But, unfortunately none of them are going to be easy and there's likely to be a lot of competition.

Charge clients for private investigations. The tricky thing here is that you can't really give any guarantee that you'll be able to catch a ghost like the boys in grey, or declare "this house is clean" like Tangina in 'Poltergeist'. However, you might be able to help your clients come to terms with their haunting and find out a little more about the spirits who haunt their home.

But how much should you charge? Well, this is where it gets tricky as most paranormal research groups don't charge for an investigation. Some groups may as for a donation, or ask for a contribution to travel costs in order to visit the location. With free options around, it may be near impossible for you to charge, unless you can go above and beyond and offer a service the others don't, or if you become well known in your field.

You could also offer remote services such as telephone consultations and analysis of photographic or video evidence. You could charge by the hour to examine this evidence and provide your client with a detailed report of your findings.

Another way to make money in the paranormal field is to train those just setting out in paranormal investigation, this could be classroom-based training or practical training on location. But again, you'll encounter the problem of competing with free services as the easiest way for a beginner to learn about ghost hunting is to join a paranormal group or attend events.

In recent years ghost hunting events have been on the rise, and more and more venues have opened their doors to ghost hunters. Once you are a confident paranormal investigator, you could host your own events. This can be lucrative, but it's not as easy as just showing up in a haunted location.

You'll obviously need to pay the venue in order to host your event there, for health and safety reason you'll probably need someone else to help you too so you might need to be them, you'll also need to think about public liability insurance. You'll also need to provide plenty of equipment, which will have a large upfront cost. Most people attending your events will be amateurs and won't have their own equipment.