Full-price bookings vs discount deals

The short answer

A discount deal sells a treatment well below your price, and the deal site then keeps a share of what the client paid. After your cost to deliver the treatment, the visit often earns little or nothing. A deal pays only if enough of its buyers come back at full price, and the share needed is usually higher than clinics expect. Clients who find you on your own website and book at your price start the relationship where you want it to stay.

What one deal visit earns

Take a treatment you sell for $400 that costs you $120 to deliver. Sold through a deal at 50% off, the client pays $200. If the deal site keeps 40% of that, you receive $120: exactly your cost. The visit earns nothing; any profit has to come from the client returning. Booked directly at full price, the same visit earns $280.

Those figures are an example. Discounts, the site’s share and your costs vary, so put your own into the calculator below. The share a deal site keeps is set in your contract; read it before you count on a figure.

The return rate is the whole question

The calculator’s last figure is the break-even return rate: the share of deal buyers who must come back at full price within a year for the deal to earn what a full-price booking earns. When a deal visit only covers its cost, every dollar of profit rests on returns. Track it from your own booking records: tag every deal client, then count how many book again at full price in the next twelve months.

Three costs that do not show on the deal invoice

Your price gets anchored low. A client who first paid half price has learned what you will accept, and the next full-price booking feels like a price rise. Deal buyers shop deals. Someone who found you through a deal is likely to look for the next deal, from you or another clinic. Your regulars notice. Clients who pay full price and see your treatment advertised at half off may wait for the next promotion.

The quieter middleman: booking-platform marketplaces

Booking software is essential. The risk is narrower: some booking platforms also run a consumer marketplace, an app or directory where clients browse clinics. A client who finds you there may be counted as the platform’s, the platform may charge a fee for new clients it sends, and the same app shows them other clinics the next time they book. Keep the software; make sure your own website, Google profile and reminders are where clients find and rebook you, so the relationship stays in your records.

Questions to ask about your booking platform:

What to do instead of discounting

You still need a reason for a new client to choose you. It does not have to be a lower price.

• A free consultation, not a free treatment. It costs provider time, not product, and it starts with a conversation about what the client actually wants.
• Memberships and packages at full value. Spread the cost across visits instead of cutting it; the client commits to coming back.
• Rebooking reminders timed to each treatment. The cheapest new booking is the next one from a client you already have.
• Reviews and a complete Google profile. People choosing a clinic read reviews first; a steady flow of recent ones does the persuading a discount used to do.
• Treatment pages that answer the real questions. What it is, who performs it, what a consultation involves, how to book. Leave claims about results to your medical director.

That is the work Gigabit for Med Spas does for a flat monthly fee, with no cut of bookings. See the plans and pricing.