How Much Should a Practice Spend on Marketing in 2026?

How much should a medical or dental practice spend on marketing?

Most established practices should plan to spend roughly 3% to 5% of collections on marketing to hold their position, and 5% to 10% if they want to grow quickly. New practices, which have no revenue base yet, should set a fixed monthly budget funded from working capital for at least six to twelve months.

Those ranges are the planning guidelines we have used for years with dental and medical practices, not a law of nature. The right number depends on your goals, your local competition, how many new patients you need each month, and how well your front desk turns calls into appointments. A practice in a crowded metro market competing for implant cases needs more than a rural family practice with a waiting list.

One principle holds almost everywhere: as a practice grows, its marketing dollars usually go up while its marketing percentage goes down. Reviews, rankings and referrals compound, so a mature practice needs less paid help per new patient than it did in year one.

Setting a practice marketing budget

1. 1Total 12-month collections
2. 2Pick your stage
3. 3Set goal per month
4. 4Track cost per patient

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What do the marketing budget benchmarks actually say?

Across all industries, companies spend about 7.8% of revenue on marketing, according to Gartner’s 2026 survey. But broad surveys skew toward large companies and vary widely, so practices should treat them as a sanity check rather than a target. Healthcare-specific budget benchmarks with solid, published methodology are scarce.

Here is what the most-cited sources report:

• Gartner: Marketing budgets averaged 7.8% of company revenue in 2026, up slightly from 7.7% in 2025, based on 401 marketing leaders surveyed January through March 2026 (Gartner CMO Spend Survey, 2026). Gartner also found 56% of CMOs say they lack the budget to deliver their strategy.
• Paid media share: In the prior year’s survey, paid media made up 30.6% of marketing budgets, or 2.4% of company revenue (Gartner CMO Spend Survey, 2025). Most respondents were companies with more than $1 billion in revenue.
• The CMO Survey: U.S. companies reported spending a mean of 9.35% of revenue on marketing, but the median was only 3% (The CMO Survey, 2025). That gap tells you a few big spenders pull the average up.

Our read: a healthcare practice spending 3% to 10% of collections sits squarely inside what U.S. businesses actually spend. If you are below 2% and wondering why new patient numbers are flat, the budget is a likely suspect. If you are above 10% and not growing, the problem is usually where the money goes or what happens when the phone rings.

By the numbers7.8%average marketing budget as a share of company revenue in 2026Gartner, 2026Doctorsinternet

How should your budget change by practice stage?

Budget by stage: startups spend a fixed amount to build visibility from zero, growth practices spend a higher share of collections to add new patients fast, and mature practices spend a lower share focused on retention, reviews and their most profitable services.

Practice stage	Typical budget	Example at $1M collections	Where the money should go first
Startup or new location	Fixed monthly amount from working capital	Not based on revenue	Website, Google Business Profile, listings, review system, then Google Ads to fill the schedule
Growth practice	5%–10% of collections	$50,000–$100,000 a year (about $4,167–$8,333 a month)	Paid search for high-value services, local SEO, service pages, reviews
Mature practice	3%–5% of collections	$30,000–$50,000 a year (about $2,500–$4,167 a month)	Reviews, SEO upkeep, recall and reactivation, targeted ads for profit services
Multi-location group	Set per location, then pool for brand work	Varies by market	Location-level Maps and ads, shared brand content and analytics

“Collections” means what you actually collect, not gross production. Use the last 12 months so a single strong or weak month does not distort the plan.

When to sit above the range

Spend more when you open a new location, add a new service such as implants or aligners, bring on a new associate who needs a full schedule, or face a new competitor nearby. These are temporary pushes; set an end date and a target before you start.

When to sit below the range

Spend less when your schedule is already booked weeks out, or when your phones are going unanswered. Marketing cannot fix capacity or front-desk problems, and buying more leads into either one wastes money.

How should you split a practice marketing budget across channels?

Fund the foundations first: a fast website, an optimized Google Business Profile, accurate listings, a steady review system and call tracking. Then split the rest between long-term visibility (SEO and content) and short-term demand (paid ads), weighted toward ads only when you need patients quickly.

A practical order of operations:

1. Measurement: Call tracking and conversion tracking come first, because every later decision depends on them.
2. Conversion: A practice website that loads fast on phones and makes booking easy. Sending ad traffic to a weak site is the most expensive mistake we see.
3. Local visibility: Google Business Profile, listings and reviews. These shape both Maps rankings and how patients compare you.
4. Organic growth: Local SEO and service content that keeps working after you publish it.
5. Paid demand: Google Ads for searches with clear intent, then social ads for elective and cosmetic services.

Ad spend and management are separate line items. When you compare options, ask how much of your monthly budget actually reaches the ad platform and how much goes to management, creative and software.

What does it cost to get a new patient from online ads?

Search ad leads cost about $73 for dentists and about $40 for physicians and surgeons on average, according to LocalIQ’s 2026 benchmarks. Your true cost per new patient is higher, because not every call or form becomes a booked appointment.

The LocalIQ search advertising benchmarks, 2026 report the following averages:

Category	Average cost per click	Conversion rate	Average cost per lead
Dentists and dental services	$8.00	10.67%	$72.97
Physicians and surgeons	$4.76	12.43%	$40.04
All industries	$5.42	8.18%	$66.69

To turn cost per lead into cost per new patient, divide by your booking rate. For example, if a dental practice pays $72.97 per lead and books half of those leads, each new patient costs about $146 in ad spend. Implant, orthodontic and emergency keywords usually cost far more than the average, and so do dense metro markets.

Compare that cost against what a new patient is worth over time, not just their first visit. A patient who stays for years of hygiene, restorative work and referrals can justify a much higher acquisition cost than a single appointment suggests.

How do you know if your marketing budget is working?

Your budget is working when you can show, each month, how many new patients each channel produced and what they cost. If you can only report clicks, impressions or rankings, you cannot judge whether the spend is paying off. Tie every dollar to booked appointments and, ideally, collected revenue.

The numbers worth reviewing every month:

• New patients by source, from your practice management system
• Calls and forms by channel, plus how many became appointments
• Cost per new patient by channel
• Production or collections from new patients over 6 and 12 months
• Missed and unanswered calls during business hours

In our work with 3,200+ practices, unanswered and poorly handled calls are one of the most common reasons a healthy budget looks like it is failing. Listening to a sample of recorded calls each month is one of the cheapest ways to raise your return. Our guide to medical marketing for healthcare practices covers the full measurement setup.

Which budget mistakes waste the most money?

The costliest mistakes are spending before tracking is in place, sending ads to a weak website, spreading a small budget across too many channels, and ignoring what happens when the phone rings. Each one makes a reasonable budget look like it failed when the real problem sits elsewhere.

The patterns we see most often when we review a practice’s marketing:

• Too many channels, too little in each. A modest budget split across search ads, social ads, print and sponsorships rarely reaches the threshold where any one channel works. Concentrate first, then expand.
• Paying for broad keywords. General terms such as “dentist” or “doctor” attract searchers who are not ready to book or want services you do not offer. Specific service and location terms usually convert better.
• No negative feedback loop. If nobody reviews search terms, call recordings and booked appointments each month, budget drifts toward whatever generates clicks.
• Neglecting existing patients. Recall, reactivation and review requests to current patients cost little and often produce more appointments than new-patient ads.
• Judging SEO like ads. Cutting organic work after 60 days throws away the months it takes to compound.

None of these require a bigger budget to fix. They require a clear goal per channel and someone who looks at the results every month.

What should you do this month to set your budget?

Pull last year’s collections, pick your stage, set a percentage, and decide what the money must produce in new patients. Then make sure tracking is in place before you spend more, so next quarter’s decisions are based on results instead of guesses.

1. Add up the last 12 months of collections and everything you spent on marketing, including software and agency fees.
2. Calculate your current marketing percentage and compare it with the 3%–5% and 5%–10% ranges.
3. Set a monthly new-patient goal and the services you want more of.
4. Confirm call tracking and conversion tracking are live on every channel.
5. Check that your website, Google Business Profile and reviews are ready before adding ad spend.
6. Review cost per new patient by channel after 90 days and move money toward what works.