Massage prices in Daly City, published in full

Thirty minutes starts at $45, ninety minutes starts at $100, and the longest single massage on the menu is two hours of deep tissue at $150. Both ends of the menu are thinner than the middle, because not every treatment is offered at every length.

Add-ons run $20 for 15 minutes and attach to any booking — foot, scalp or abdominal. They are the cheapest way to lengthen an appointment that is otherwise the right shape.

Deep tissue is the only treatment offered at all four lengths, from 30 minutes up to 120. Everything else on the massage list sits at 60 and 90, with a few exceptions worth knowing: the foot hour is 60 only, Brazilian lymphatic drainage runs 75, lymphatic drainage adds a 75 minute option between its 60 and its 90, and the drainage-and-facial combination runs 100.

Head spa runs $85 to $288 and the facials run $108 to $228, so the scalp and skin half of the list covers a wider band than the massage half does. Both are priced by length in the same way the massages are, and both are set out treatment by treatment on the menu page.

The head spa rituals are the least familiar part of the list. The shortest is 45 minutes of scalp purifying at $85; the longest is a 150 minute ritual at $288 that adds a facial and a full-body massage after the scalp work, and the ones in between add neck and shoulder time or a botanical scalp treatment. Relaxation scratching therapy sits on its own at $120 for 60 minutes and $150 for 90, a professional wellness service with no intimate areas included.

Add-ons attach to these bookings as well, so 15 minutes of scalp work goes on the end of a facial the same way a foot add-on goes on the end of a massage.

Hot stones, cupping and a hot compress are included at no extra charge on the massages that carry them — deep tissue, Swedish, four hands, couples, the neck, shoulder and head hour, and the combo. Where those are billed as separate extras elsewhere, the number on this menu is the number you pay.

They are left off prenatal, lymphatic drainage work and the Himalayan salt stone hour on purpose. Heat and suction work against what each of those is doing, so those bookings sit outside the offer rather than having it quietly dropped at the table.

NCCIH notes that cupping commonly leaves round marks on the skin that can last several days, which is worth knowing if there is a wedding or a beach weekend coming. Decline the cups and nothing about the price changes.

Two further things carry no line on the menu because they were never optional: every treatment room has a Levoit air purifier running in it, which matters if oils, dust or pollen give you trouble, and linens and towels are changed for every guest.

Gratuity is not included in any price on this page, and it is optional. Payment runs through Square, the same system that takes the booking, and Square gift cards can be spent against anything on the menu.

A gift card is the usual answer to buying an hour for somebody else, because it carries a value rather than a treatment and a date. Whoever receives it picks the treatment, the length and the evening.

Walk-ins are welcome and pay the same as a booked appointment, so booking ahead buys the slot rather than a better price: evenings, weekend afternoons and anything needing two tables fill first.

Nothing on the list is priced by the day or by the therapist, so a Tuesday morning hour costs what a Saturday evening hour costs. The treatment, the length and whether you put 15 minutes on the end of it are the only things that move a total.

Because most studios do not publish them. Massage prices in Daly City are usually given either as a range that applies only to non-members, behind a membership sign-up, or not at all until you call and ask. Neither form lets you weigh one hour against another before choosing.

A published menu also answers the second question, which is what the price contains. A $70 Swedish hour that includes hot stones and a hot compress is a different purchase from a $70 hour that bills both at the desk, and only an itemised list shows you which one you are buying.

Comparing across the county line adds a second variable, because a studio a few blocks north is paying San Francisco rent on the same hour. Set one hour against another with the inclusions written down beside each, and at least the two numbers mean the same thing.

NCCIH advises asking about a practitioner's training and credentials before booking. Ask us, and ask the studio down the street the same question.

Sweet & Smile Massage is at 6175 Mission St, Daly City, CA 94014, open 10 AM to 9 PM daily, on (415) 916-3282. It stands in the Top of the Hill district, on the Mission Street corridor a few blocks south of the San Francisco line — Daly City rather than San Francisco, though the Excelsior is only a mile and a half or so up the same street.

The address sits on an older, continuous storefront strip rather than in a plaza or a shopping centre, so the door opens onto the street and the nearest spaces are the ones at the kerb. The Top of the Hill crossroads at John Daly Boulevard is a short walk uphill from the door, and the district runs its own street festival there.

Parking is metered along Mission Street. Daly City's own parking page puts the meters at a dollar an hour, Monday to Saturday between 8 am and 6 pm, and says the hourly fee is not enforced on Sundays or legal holidays. Residential side streets a block off the corridor take the overflow. Check the posted signs, which have the last word.

Daly City BART is about half a mile west-southwest at 500 John Daly Blvd, usually a 10 to 15 minute walk, with roughly 2,000 park-and-ride spaces if you would rather leave the car there. The Muni 14 Mission runs along Mission Street outside the door and operates 24 hours, which makes a late finish easier than it sounds.

Colma sits about two miles south and Broadmoor about a mile and a half southwest. Serramonte Center is roughly two and a half miles south-southwest, South San Francisco five to six miles southeast, and Pacifica about six miles south-southwest over the hill on Highway 1. Coming up from the Peninsula, El Camino Real becomes Mission Street at the Colma border, so one street carries you most of the way. From the San Francisco side, the Excelsior is about two miles north along that same street.

Pick by the problem you want solved. The cheapest hour and the dearest hour on this menu are doing different jobs, and neither one is a lesser version of the other.

Two of the ten need no reason at all. The foot hour at $60 and the combo at $75 are the low-commitment end of the list, and they are what people book when there is an hour spare on the way home rather than a specific problem to hand to a therapist.