Aesthetic clinic benchmarks 2026

Across the clinics I've audited in major Australian metros, most pay $180–$320 per booked consultation. With deposits and the machine running, that drops to $50–$80. The gap is not about ad spend. It is about what happens between the ad and the consultation room. These benchmarks come from real clinics, not surveys.

Patient acquisition cost

This is the number that determines whether your marketing spend is working or disappearing. Not cost per lead. Not cost per click. Cost per person who pays a deposit and shows up.

What I see in major metros without the machine:$180–$320 per booked consultation. This range covers clinics running standard agency campaigns with standard landing pages and no deposit filtering. Most of the spend leaks out through enquiries that never respond, bookings that don't show, and leads who wanted a price and nothing else.

With deposits and the machine:$50–$80 per booked patient. The ads aren't cheaper. The system filters at every step, so less of the spend disappears before it produces a booking.

Face Foundry: $4,957 in ad spend. 82 bookings. $60.45 per booked patient.

PM Aesthetics: $2,121 in ad spend. 51 clients. $41.60 per booked patient.

Show-up rates

Across the clinics I've worked with, the show-up rate without deposits sits around 70–80%. Two or three out of every ten booked patients don't walk through the door. That's wasted consultation time, wasted room time, and wasted ad spend on patients who never arrived.

Face Foundry with deposits: 96% show-up rate. Out of 82 bookings, nearly every patient arrived.

PM Aesthetics with deposits: 100% show-up rate. Every single person who booked walked through the door. 51 out of 51.

The difference is not about reminder texts or follow-up calls. A patient who has paid a deposit has made a financial commitment before they arrive. They've moved from browsing to invested. The deposit filters out the people who were never going to show up, before they take a spot on your calendar.

Return on ad spend

ROAS measures whether the money going into ads comes back as revenue. It is the single most important number for evaluating whether your marketing spend is an investment or a cost.

PM Aesthetics: 7.7x pipeline ROAS. Every dollar of ad spend produced $7.70 in booked treatment value. 4.3x invoiced ROAS on treatments already delivered and paid for.

Face Foundry: $4,957 in ad spend. 82 bookings at $60 deposit each. $4,920 collected in deposits alone, before a single treatment was delivered. The machine nearly paid for itself in deposits before any treatment revenue.

If your agency cannot tell you your ROAS on a monthly basis, they are tracking the wrong things. Impressions and CPM do not tell you whether the spend is coming back.

Marketing budget allocation

High-performing clinics allocate 8–15% of gross revenueto marketing. For a clinic doing $100,000 a month, that is $8,000–$15,000 across ads, trust assets, production, and the systems that turn attention into deposit-paying patients.

The split that works: roughly 40% toward patient acquisition (ads, landing pages, booking infrastructure). 25% toward retention and referrals (rebooking systems, patient communication, referral programs). 20% toward trust assets and search visibility (video, photography, AHPRA-compliant content that builds credibility over time).

Below 8%, most clinics are under-investing and relying on word-of-mouth they can't predict. Above 15%, the spend is usually compensating for something broken in the system. The percentage matters less than what the spend produces per dollar.

Revenue per patient

Acquisition cost only means something in relation to what each patient is worth.

PM Aesthetics current invoiced LTV: $180.49 per patient. Full pipeline LTV: $319.80 per patient (including booked future treatments).

45% of PM Aesthetics consultations converted to treatment on the day. Not over a follow-up sequence. On the day. That conversion rate is what makes a $41.60 acquisition cost profitable immediately, not over 6 months.

One number that shows how the machine creates compounding value: Aerolase Neo treatments account for 43.6% of future booked revenueat PM Aesthetics. The $99 diagnostic skin consultation converts patients into high-value laser treatment plans. A low-cost entry point that leads to high-value ongoing treatment. That's the machine working across the full patient journey, not just the first booking.

What to track and what agencies track instead

What you should track: cost per booked consultation, ROAS, cash payback window, show-up rate, rebooking rate. These five numbers tell you whether your marketing is producing patients or producing activity.

What most agencies track:impressions, reach, CPM, click-through rate, “leads.” These numbers can all improve while the calendar stays empty. They measure inputs. You need outputs.

The gap between what gets reported and what matters is where the budget disappears. A monthly report showing 40,000 impressions and a 2.1% click-through rate tells you nothing about whether anyone booked. If your agency reports on reach but cannot tell you cost per booked consultation, the reporting is measuring the wrong thing.

See where your clinic sits

The free scorecardtakes two minutes and tells you where your clinic's numbers fall against these benchmarks. No pitch. Just a clear picture of what's working and where the gaps are.

Frequently asked questions

Where do these benchmarks come from?

From real clinics where I've built the machine. Face Foundry and PM Aesthetics are Perth-based aesthetic clinics where I set up the full patient acquisition system. The numbers are from their actual ad accounts, booking systems, and invoicing. Not surveys. Not industry reports that aggregate self-reported data. Exact figures from clinics I've worked inside.

How does the deposit model improve these numbers?

Deposits filter commitment. The people who pay a deposit before arriving are the same people who show up, proceed with treatment, and rebook. The people who won't pay a deposit are the same people who would have ghosted the appointment, asked for a price quote, or arrived with no intention to proceed. You lose enquiry volume. You gain patients. The cost per actual patient drops because less of the spend disappears before it produces an outcome.

What ROAS should an aesthetic clinic aim for?

Anything above 3x pipeline ROAS means your ad spend is producing meaningful revenue. PM Aesthetics hit 7.7x pipeline ROAS and 4.3x invoiced ROAS. The gap between pipeline and invoiced is future booked treatments that haven't been delivered yet. Both numbers matter. Pipeline tells you the machine is producing value. Invoiced tells you that value has been collected.