How to calculate dental patient acquisition cost for implants

In short

Dental patient acquisition cost for implants is everything you spent to bring in patients in a period, divided by the number of first implant consultations that took place in that period. Count the ad budget, the agency's fee, and your team's time as spend. Count consultations that took place, because a lead and a booked appointment don't tell you yet whether the patient came in. The table below shows three numbers that are easy to mix up.

Who this is for

This is for you if you run a practice that places implants, you spend money on ads, and you have open chair time for implant consultations. It's useful for the practice owner, the dentist who places the implants, and the office manager.

It answers two questions. How many patients have to come in from ads for the spend to pay off? And how do you check that before the budget is gone? You can do the math in this article yourself, on your own numbers.

If your schedule is full for months, this calculation won't change much, because you have nowhere to put new consultations.

We wrote this at Helpify. Helpify brings patients to dental practices and follows up so they make it to the chair. You can read more on the About Helpify page.

Three numbers that are easy to mix up

You can divide the same spend by three different counts of people. Each time you get a different cost.

The spend is the same, and each row has fewer people than the one above it. That's why cost per lead comes out lowest and cost per kept consultation comes out highest. When someone quotes you a "cost per patient," ask which of the three counts they divided the spend by.

If a report says CPL, it means cost per lead. CAC stands for customer acquisition cost. Ask who the report counts as a customer: the person behind a lead, the person with a booked appointment, or the patient who came in. In this article we use the plain names from the table.

The lead, the appointment, and the consultation are three of the five stages we describe in how to get more dental patients when your ads already work.

What to count as spend

Count everything your practice spent in the period so that a new patient would come in for a consultation:

• the ad budget, which is what you pay the ad platform, for example Google or Meta,
• the agency's fee, or the cost of the team member who runs the ads,
• your team's time on calls to people from ads and on consultation reminders.

Here is how to count your team's time. For one week, write down how many hours your front desk spends on people from ads. Multiply that by the number of weeks in the month and by the hourly cost of that work. If you don't have this number yet, calculate with the first two items for now and note next to the result that it's too low.

Leave out the dentist's time in the consultation and the cost of treatment. Those are costs of treating the patient, and here you're counting what it cost for the patient to come in.

Set the list of items once and calculate the same way every month. That lets you compare one month with the next.

What period to use

Use a calendar month: that month's spend and the consultations that took place in it. A person who left a number late in the month may come in for the consultation the next month. So next to the monthly result, run the same calculation for the quarter.

Five things to check in the calculation

1. The spend and the consultations come from the same period.
2. You count patients from ads and no one else. A referral patient came in without any ad spend, so adding them makes the cost look lower than it is.
3. You count consultations that took place and keep booked appointments separate.
4. The spend includes the agency's fee along with the ad budget.
5. A person who filled out the form and then called is counted once.

An example, step by step

Illustrative example, fictional data. The numbers are made up and round, so you can check the math in your head. These are not Helpify's results, our fees, or typical numbers for a practice.

In one month, a practice spent $6,000: $3,500 on the ad budget, $2,000 on the agency's fee, and $500 on front desk time. That month, 60 people left a number or called, 30 booked an appointment, and 15 consultations took place.

The same month and the same spend give three numbers: $100, $200, and $400. A report that shows $100 and a report that shows $400 describe the same ads.

In your own calculation, use your own numbers: spend from invoices, last month's leads and booked appointments, and consultations from your schedule.

A consultation isn't treatment yet

Cost per kept consultation tells you what it cost for the patient to come in. It doesn't tell you yet whether the spend pays off, because your practice makes money when the patient starts treatment.

For that you need two numbers that you alone have:

• how many patients from ads started treatment after the consultation,
• how much your practice makes on one such treatment.

Take the first number from your schedule and your treatment plans. You may know it as case acceptance. We don't give a ready percentage here, because the one that counts is your practice's.

Calculate the second number carefully. The fee for the treatment isn't what your practice makes. Subtract the costs of the treatment itself, for example materials, lab work, and the dentist's time.

The calculation is the same as before. Divide the period's spend by the number of patients from ads who started treatment. The result is the cost of acquiring one patient who is in treatment. Compare it with what your practice makes on one treatment. If the cost is higher, the ads in that period cost more than your practice made on the patients they brought.

A patient may start treatment in a different month than the consultation. So calculate this part for a quarter or a longer period.

Who records that the consultation took place, and where the data comes from

You can check whether the spend pays off if every first implant consultation has two notes in the schedule.

The first note is the patient's source. At booking, your front desk asks how the patient heard about the practice and enters the answer in the schedule.

The second note is the outcome of the visit. One person, ideally at the front desk, marks the same day whether the consultation took place, the patient didn't show up, or the visit was rescheduled. When one person does it the same day, the end-of-month number doesn't depend on anyone's memory.

If your agency gives you the number of kept consultations, ask where it gets it and compare it with your schedule.

How to compare offers

Marketing offers are priced in different ways. One offer is a flat monthly fee. Another is a monthly fee plus a fee for each patient who comes in for a consultation. At Helpify, you pay once for the campaign build. After that, you pay a flat monthly fee for campaign management, and it doesn't start until the day your ads go live.

To compare two offers, calculate the same thing for each: everything your practice spends in a month divided by the number of kept consultations. You don't know that number before the start, so run two scenarios. In the first, few consultations took place. In the second, many did. With a flat monthly fee, the fee is the same in both scenarios. With a monthly fee plus a fee for each patient who came in, the monthly fee stays put and the second part grows with the number of consultations. So run each offer through both scenarios before you compare the results.

Ask every company the same questions:

1. What exactly is included in the flat fee?
2. If part of the fee depends on a result, which one: a lead, a booked appointment, or a consultation that took place?
3. Who records that the consultation took place, and where can I check it?
4. Does the fee depend on the size of my ad budget?
5. Will the report show leads, booked appointments, and kept consultations separately?

If an offer says you pay based on results, use question 2 to find out what the offer counts as a result. If a company shows you other practices' numbers, ask which of the three numbers it's showing and what it counted as spend.

How we do it

Helpify brings patients to dental practices and follows up so they make it to the chair. We run Facebook and Instagram ads with videos filmed at the practice, and we build a service page with a form. After every lead, the patient gets a confirmation and the front desk gets reminders to call and book. We remind patients about appointments, and after a no-show we help the front desk reschedule. The dashboard shows leads, booked appointments, patients who showed up, and ad spend.

You pay once for the campaign build: the service page, the ad videos, and front desk training. After that, you pay a flat monthly fee for campaign management, and it doesn't start until the day your ads go live. You pay your ad budget separately, straight to Meta. I'll show you the numbers along with a plan for your practice.

Helpify's fee doesn't depend on the size of the practice's ad budget.

You don't have to drop your current agency. Read more on the Helpify System page and on the page about the implant campaign.

Helpify is based in Poland. We work remotely and take on dental practices in Poland and the United States.

To talk, book a free 30-minute call. It's online, with Maciej Odrobina, the founder of Helpify. Book a call.

Questions and answers

How do you calculate patient acquisition cost?

Add up the spend from one period: the ad budget, the agency's fee, and your team's time. Divide the total by the number of first consultations that took place in that period. It's the dental version of the customer acquisition cost that companies in other industries calculate.

What's the difference between cost per lead and cost per patient?

Cost per lead counts the people who left a number or called. Cost per patient counts the people who came in for a consultation. The spend is the same and fewer people came in, so cost per patient is higher.

Is a booked appointment already a patient?

No. A booked appointment means someone has a time on the schedule. A patient from an ad is a person who came in for the consultation, so base the cost on consultations that took place.

What if the patient didn't show up for the consultation?

You don't count them in that period's calculation. The spend stays the same, so the cost per kept consultation goes up. Offer the patient a new time. If they come in later, you count them in the period when the consultation took place. A sample message offering a new time is in implant leads not showing up.

Should I count referral patients?

Leave them out of this calculation. A referral patient came in without any ad spend, so count them separately. Note the source at every first implant consultation. At the end of the month you then have two numbers: consultations from ads and consultations from referrals.

How much does it cost to advertise a dental practice?

The cost has three parts: the ad budget, the fee for the agency or the person who runs the ads, and your team's time. We don't give amounts, because they depend on your agreement and on the budget you set yourself. To judge whether it's a lot, divide the total by the number of consultations that took place and compare the result with what your practice makes on treatment.