How much does med spa marketing cost? 2026 prices, line by line

Med spa marketing usually costs between a few hundred dollars and about $5,000 a month, before ad spend. Doing it yourself costs a few hundred dollars a month in software plus your time; specialist agencies that publish a price mostly start between $1,000 and $3,000 a month, and Google Ads spend is billed on top (Webtonic, October 2026). What you should spend depends less on a percentage and more on what you pay for each booked consultation.

We read every price below on the publisher's own page on 10 November 2026. Prices change, some are limited-time offers, and agency figures are starting prices, not quotes. Gigabit sells med spa marketing, so we are not neutral; our own prices are at the end, next to everyone else's.

Ad spend is extra in every row. So is the management fee for running the ads, unless a plan says it is included. Keep those two numbers apart when you compare quotes.

The figure most often quoted comes from the American Med Spa Association. A May 2025 article on AmSpa's site says that, on average, a med spa invests about 7% of its revenue in marketing, with a range of 2% to 15%, citing AmSpa's 2024 State of the Industry report (AmSpa). The article was written by the CEO of Growth99, a firm that sells marketing to med spas, so read it as a vendor's summary of the survey.

A January 2026 article on AmSpa's site, from Growth99's own 2026 report, says 52% of med spa practices invest less than $2,500 a month in marketing, and only 25% spend $5,000 or more (AmSpa). It does not give a sample size.

Use percentages as a sense check, not a target. A clinic that rebooks most of its clients can spend less on winning new ones. A new clinic with no reviews and no list may need to spend more for a while.

Most clinics buy marketing in pieces, even when one agency sells the bundle. Here is what each piece costs on its own.

Website

A do-it-yourself site is cheap to run. Squarespace's plans cost $12 to $25 a month billed yearly, or $19 to $36 billed monthly (Squarespace). The real cost is the time to write a page per treatment, keep prices current and connect booking.

Agency builds cost far more up front. Redefine Web, a med spa agency, prices web design sprints from $2,500 and SEO setup at $1,500 to $5,500 one-time, depending on how much of the site needs rebuilding (Redefine Web, May 2026). Webtonic's roundup lists several healthcare agencies whose website projects start at $10,000 to $15,000, separate from their monthly fees (Webtonic). Ask who owns the site and the domain before you pay for one. Our med spa websites page explains how we build ours.

Google Business Profile and local SEO

The profile itself is free: Google says creating a Business Profile and listing your business is free (Google). What costs money is the work of keeping it complete, posting, adding photos and replying to reviews, plus the pages on your site that help you rank for treatment and city searches.

Bought on its own, med spa SEO is usually a monthly retainer. Redefine Web publishes tiers of $999, $1,499, $2,499 and from $4,500 a month, with its entry tier covering technical checks, Google Business Profile management and one or two content pieces (Redefine Web). WebFX, a general agency, says SEO retainers average $1,000 to $5,000 a month, and its own packages start at $2,900 with a six-month commitment (WebFX).

Paid search: ad spend and management are two bills

Ad spend goes to Google or Meta, and you set it. For a sense of click prices, LocaliQ's 2026 benchmarks put the average cost per click in Beauty & Personal Care at $4.62 and the average cost per lead at $39.25 (LocaliQ, updated June 2026). Those are averages across LocaliQ's own customers, not med spa figures, and a lead is not a booked consultation. Treatment searches in a busy city can cost more.

Management is the fee for building and running the campaigns. WebFX publishes $750 a month flat for accounts spending up to $5,000, then $975 or 15% of spend, whichever is higher. It also charges a one-time setup ("initial optimization") fee, $1,200 at the smallest level, and says fees typically run 10% to 20% of ad spend, or about $1,000 to $3,000 a month (WebFX). A small clinic spending $1,500 a month on ads can easily pay half that again to have someone run them.

Health ads carry platform rules, and some injectable treatments are prescription drugs that ads cannot name freely. Our compliance guide covers what to check before an ad goes live.

Reviews

Review tools send a request by text or email after each visit. NiceJob publishes $95 a month for its Starter plan and $135 for Pro (NiceJob). Podium does not publish prices and asks you to talk to sales (Podium). Some booking software sends review requests too, so check before you pay twice. Whichever you use, ask every client the same way and never reward a review; the pillar guide sets out Google's and the FTC's rules.

Email and text

Email is cheap. Mailchimp's Essentials and Standard plans showed $13 and $20 a month on 10 November 2026, at 50% off for the first 12 months, and the price rises with the size of your list (Mailchimp). Texting costs more per message. SimpleTexting's smallest plan is an estimated $39 a month, billed yearly, for 500 credits and a local number, with carrier fees on top (SimpleTexting). Mangomint sells a marketing add-on from $30 a month for its own users (Mangomint).

Texts need written consent, and patient details need care. Our email and SMS guide covers both.

Booking and practice software

Your booking software is not marketing, but marketing runs through it: online booking, reminders, the source of each booking. For one location and five staff, Mangomint's published price comes to $170 a month ($120 a location plus $10 a user), and Aesthetic Record's to $75 or $95 a month ($15 or $19 a user) plus $399 to start (Mangomint; Aesthetic Record). Our med spa software comparison covers six platforms, add-ons, card fees and HIPAA terms.

Answering the phone

A missed call can be a lost consultation. If the front desk cannot cover the phone, a virtual receptionist is one fix. Ruby publishes $250 a month for 50 minutes, $395 for 100 and $720 for 200 (Ruby). A text sent back automatically after a missed call is a cheaper first step, and some marketing plans include it.

Discount deal sites

Deal sites look free, because there is no monthly fee. Groupon says there is no universal commission percentage: the rate is agreed before launch and charged on each redeemed voucher, with no listing or setup fees (Groupon). The cost is the discount plus the commission, taken from a treatment you still have to deliver. Our guide to full-price bookings vs discount deals has a calculator for the return rate a deal needs to break even.

Here is one example clinic buying each piece separately, using the published prices above. The clinic, its spend and its bookings are examples, not benchmarks; swap in your own quotes and booking records.

Two things stand out. First, the software and review tools are the small part; the retainers and the ad spend are most of the bill. Second, the number that matters is the last line. A $3,544 month that books 30 consultations costs less per booking than a $2,000 month that books 10.

We sell Gigabit for Med Spas. Every plan is a flat monthly fee for one US location, month to month, with no commission on bookings. Ad spend on the Full engine plan is billed by the ad platforms, not by us.

The entry point is the Growth Package at $100 a month: your website built or rebuilt on our template, your Google Business Profile, two social profiles, listings and a monthly report. The first 300 businesses keep $100 a month for as long as they stay. The published price after that is $149 a month or $1,490 a year. It does not include ad spend or ads management.

Above it sit three plans, from $499 to $1,499 a month:

Essentials ($499) covers the website, Google profile, review requests and replies, and a monthly report. Scale ($999) adds rebooking and membership reminders by email and SMS, same-day consultation follow-up, local search pages and consent-based before-and-after galleries. Full engine ($1,499) adds Google and Meta campaigns for full-price offers, missed-call text-back and visibility in AI answers.

In the worked example, the Full engine plan covers the work bought there as the review tool, the SEO retainer and the ads management fee. The clinic would still pay for its booking software and its ad spend, and any other tools it keeps: $1,499 + $170 + $1,500 = $3,169 a month. That is a price comparison, not a promise of the same bookings. Full details are on the plans and pricing page.

Judge marketing by what it costs to book a client, not by clicks, followers or impressions. Four numbers do most of the work:

1. Cost per booked consultation. Everything you spent on marketing in a month, ad spend and fees included, divided by consultations booked that month.
2. Show rate. The share of booked consultations that turn up. A low show rate points to slow replies or weak reminders, not to a need for more ads.
3. Cost per new client. Spend divided by consultations that became paying clients.
4. Rebooking rate. The share of clients who book again within the interval their provider recommended. It decides how much a new client is worth to you.

Track the source of every booking in your booking software, so you can split those numbers by channel. Then compare cost per new client with what a client spends with you over the time they stay; the pillar guide works through that lifetime value arithmetic. If deals bring in a large share of your bookings, run them through the deal calculator as well.

Ask any agency, including us, to report bookings by source every month. A report that shows only clicks cannot tell you what you are paying for.

• Get the management fee and the ad spend as separate lines.
• Ask about setup fees, minimum terms and notice periods in writing.
• Make sure the website, domain, Google profile and ad accounts are in your clinic's name.
• Ask who approves treatment claims and photos. It should be your medical director.
• Ask how patient data is handled, and whether the firm will sign a business associate agreement where HIPAA applies. Our compliance guide explains when that matters.
• Be wary of guaranteed rankings, patient numbers or revenue. No one controls those.