Dental Marketing Budget: Set It From New Patient Value

A dental marketing budget is three numbers multiplied: new-patient slots a month, the share ads should fill, and the most you'd pay for one new patient who shows up. A percentage of collections is a check on that number, not the number itself.

Quick answer

• Count the new-patient slots you can seat next month, hygiene and doctor.
• Pick the most you would pay for one new patient who shows up.
• Multiply slots, the share ads should fill, and that price.
• Keep website, booking and tracking costs on a separate line.
• Review after 90 days using new patients from your practice software, not leads.

What sets the number

Monthly ad budget = new-patient slots a month × share ads should fill × target cost per new patient.

The target cost comes from value, so take what one new patient produces in the first year, then decide what share of it you'd pay to gain that patient. The example below uses 15%. Pick the ads' share of slots yourself, since referrals and walk-ins fill slots too.

A percentage of collections or production shows what practices spend. It can't tell you what a new patient is worth to yours. Use it after the math, as a sanity check.

Where each input lives, and how to pull it

Each input already sits in your practice management software (PMS), the system that holds charts, schedule and billing.

On Dentrix or Eaglesoft, ask support which report lists new patients with their referral source.

Two details in Open Dental change the numbers.

So if a first visit ends with nothing set complete, the patient counts in the month a procedure is first set complete. All-time production also means a patient from three years ago looks richer than one from last month. For a first-year figure, use patients who started about a year ago, and expect a small overstatement.

The Referral Analysis report only includes patients with a Referred From entry in the Family Module. A patient with no source never shows up there, so count the blanks in New Patients instead.

Pull your own numbers this afternoon:

1. Run the New Patients report for one month about a year ago, such as October 2025.
2. Divide the Production Fee total by the number of patients for a rough first-year production per new patient.
3. Run it again for last month and count the rows with an empty Referral column.
4. Count next month's empty new-patient blocks on the schedule.

If many rows have no source, fix the intake field before you judge any channel.

Fixed costs on one side, ad spend on the other

Fixed costs keep running when the ads stop, so list them apart from the ad budget. A dental website's price belongs here, and so do the tools around it.

An agency fee tied to a percentage of spend moves with the budget, so list it with the ads. A flat fee sits with the fixed lines. You want to see two totals: what you commit to, and what you can turn up or down.

How Google and Meta spend against a monthly number

Neither platform treats your budget as a hard daily cap. Both let a day run over, then hold the week or month to a limit.

For a month, Google suggests dividing the monthly figure by 30.4 to get the daily budget. The example below runs that math.

On Meta, if you cut a daily budget mid-day, that day's limit stays at "75% more than the highest daily budget in place that day." A paused ad can also bring a bill, though only for charges from before it stopped.

On postpay, where Google charges automatically after ads run, it charges whenever the account reaches its payment threshold and on the first day of the month. So a month can show several charges, while accounts on monthly invoicing get one invoice. Match charges to the monthly line, not one by one.

The math for a three-chair practice

The $300 result doesn't mean "cut" yet. First count the people who booked from an ad and never sat in a chair; if there are many, the booking path leaks before the budget does.

For scale, Google's Keyword Planner puts a click on "dentist near me" at $14.71 on average (October 2026). At that price, the imaginary $4,000 Google line buys about 270 clicks a month.

What to do after 90 days

Judge the budget by cost per new patient who showed up, from the PMS, not by form fills or calls. Google Ads for dentists explains the first 90 days of an account in more detail.

By then the numbers point one of three ways:

• Under target with slots still open, raise the budget in small steps, a month apart.
• Over target with many no-shows, fix the booking and reminder steps before cutting.
• Over target while nearly everyone who books shows up, cut spend on the campaign with the highest cost per new patient.

Also look for campaigns limited by budget. Google says a limited budget could mean fewer clicks and impressions than the campaign might have earned. The Billed cost report in Report editor lists served and billed cost for each campaign, and served minus billed is the cost Google credited back.

Ask your agency to tell you:

• Which report in your PMS they use to count new patients.
• Whether they count patients by first visit or first completed procedure.
• Who sets the daily budget, and who can change it.
• What happens to their fee when you raise ad spend.

For channels beyond ads, eight dental strategies ranked by cost fits next to this budget.

Prices and rules checked on 2026-10-26.