Setting next year’s marketing budget can be tricky, especially if this year’s results were mixed and it’s unclear where your money was best spent. But building a practice marketing budget doesn’t need to be an exercise in guessing.
Start with a baseline percentage of revenue, adjust for your growth targets and margins, and focus your spend on channels that actually bring in patients.
When you track what each channel returns, your budget becomes a practical tool you can measure instead of a figure you hope pays off. If you’re still not sure, you can work with our team to build a tailored healthcare digital strategy plan that maps it all out for you.
What a marketing budget for a medical practice should cover
How much should a healthcare practice spend on marketing?
Choose a budgeting method that fits your practice
How to allocate your healthcare marketing budget
Measure return so next year’s budget is easier
Frequently asked health marketing budget questions
Plan a budget built around your practice
Key details
- A practice marketing budget should cover all channel costs, including website updates, local SEO, Google Ads, content creation, photography, and tracking tools.
- Benchmarks generally start at 5 to 7 per cent of revenue to maintain an established practice, 8 to 12 per cent to drive active growth, and up to 20 per cent for new clinic launches.
- The best budgeting approach pairs a percentage-of-revenue baseline with a goal-based model to ensure your target spending matches your desired patient numbers.
- Allocation should focus heavily on four main digital pillars, comprising a high-converting website, local search optimisation, targeted Google Ads, and trust-building patient content.
- Combining your website, SEO, and paid advertising into one connected strategy avoids wasted spend while keeping all marketing fully Ahpra-compliant.
- Tracking your cost to acquire a patient against patient lifetime value turns future budget planning into an evidence-based decision, not guesswork.
What a marketing budget for a medical practice should cover
A marketing budget is your planned annual investment in attracting and retaining patients. It covers every channel and cost involved in getting found and chosen, not just advertising.
Scoping what it includes comes before deciding how much to spend. For a healthcare practice, a marketing budget usually covers:
- Your website, including hosting, updates and improvements.
- SEO and local search, so patients can find you.
- Paid advertising, such as Google Ads.
- Content and copywriting for your site and blog.
- Photography, video and other creative assets.
- Tools, tracking and any external support or agency fees.
How much should a healthcare practice spend on marketing?
Most practices start with a percentage of annual revenue, then adjust. The right figure depends on your growth goals, profit margins, competition and how much of your business already comes from referrals.
Benchmarks give you a sensible starting range, not a fixed answer.
According to Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey, marketing budgets average 7.7% of company revenue, though that survey focuses on large enterprises.
A commonly cited rule of thumb for smaller businesses is 7 to 8% of revenue. Gartner also notes that average budgets were 11.2% of revenue before the pandemic, so spending has tightened, and doing more with less is now the norm.
| Practice situation | Common starting range | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Established, steady, strong referrals | 5 to 7% of revenue | Maintaining visibility |
| Growing in a competitive market | 8 to 12% of revenue | Attracting new patients |
| New or expanding quickly | 12 to 20% of revenue | Building awareness fast |
These ranges assume healthy margins, so treat them as a starting point and adjust to your practice’s numbers.
Choose a budgeting method that fits your practice
There’s no one-size-fits-all marketing budget. An established GP clinic with a steady patient base has different needs from a new specialist practice or an allied health clinic expanding into new locations.
Rather than choosing an arbitrary figure, successful practices use structured models that account for their financial position, profit margins and growth goals.
There are two main ways to set your budget, and many practices use a combination of both:
The percentage-of-revenue method
This method sets your budget as a fixed share of your revenue, such as 8% of last year’s income. It is the most common starting point because it is quick to calculate and flexes automatically as your practice grows or contracts.
The main limitation is that it looks backward, basing next year’s spend on last year’s performance rather than your goals for the year ahead. It works best as a baseline you then adjust, not a final answer.
The goal-based method
This method starts with what you want to achieve, then works out what it costs to get there. If you want 200 new patients next year, you estimate what it costs to acquire one, and multiply up to reach your budget.
It connects spending directly to growth, which makes it easier to justify. The catch is that it relies on knowing your numbers, particularly your cost to acquire a patient, so it suits practices that already track their results.
How to combine both
Most practices get the best of both by using them together. Set a percentage-of-revenue figure as your baseline, then sense-check it against your patient goals for the year.
If the baseline falls short of what your goals would require, you know to either increase the budget or adjust the target. This keeps your spending grounded in what the practice can afford while still driving real outcomes.
How to allocate your healthcare marketing budget
Smart allocation is about meeting patients where they are. You want to divide your budget across the specific channels that attract and convert your ideal patient base, leaning heavily into those with proven results.
Digital channels deserve particular attention because Australians are already using them extensively to navigate healthcare. Healthdirect recorded 47.4 million website visits in FY24, demonstrating that patients routinely research symptoms, conditions, and practitioners online before ever booking an appointment.
A practical allocation for medical practices typically centres on four core pillars:
- A fast, easy-to-use website as the foundation.
- SEO and local search to be found by nearby patients.
- Google Ads for faster, targeted enquiries.
- Content that answers patient questions and builds trust.
Turn disconnected marketing costs into one strategy
Deciding how to split a budget is often harder than setting the total, especially across channels that each promise results.
Through our healthcare marketing strategy service, the team may help you set a budget, choose channels and plan medical marketing that fits your goals.
Because practiceedge covers website design, SEO, Google Ads, and content under one roof, you can plan your budget as a single, connected strategy rather than a set of disconnected costs.
Every recommendation is built to be Ahpra-compliant, so your spend supports growth without putting your registration at risk.
‘When you view SEO, Google Ads, and website design as separate line items, you usually end up overspending. Bringing everything together means every dollar works together toward a single goal, growing your practice safely and predictably.’
– Simon Mauger, practiceedge Founder
Measure return so next year's budget is easier
A budget is only as useful as what you learn from it. Tracking results turns next year’s planning from guesswork into an evidence-based decision. The goal is to know which spend brought patients, and at what cost.
Key numbers worth watching:
- Cost to acquire a patient: Divide your total marketing spend by the number of new patients gained in the same period. Tracking it over time shows whether your marketing is getting more efficient or more expensive.
- Patient lifetime value: Estimate what a patient is worth across the whole relationship, including repeat visits and referrals. A higher acquisition cost may be well justified when patients stay for years.
- Enquiries and bookings by channel: Record which sources actually convert, not just which attract clicks, so you can see where your patients really come from.
- Return on each channel: Compare what you spend against what each channel brings in, so you know where to invest more and where to pull back.
Comparing acquisition cost to lifetime value is the clearest signal of whether your health marketing is paying off.
Frequently asked health marketing budget questions
When should I start planning next year's marketing budget?
Ideally a few months before your financial year ends, so your marketing plan aligns with your wider budgeting. This gives you time to review what worked, set goals and avoid rushing decisions. Planning early also means campaigns are ready to run from day one.
Should I reduce my marketing budget when the practice is quiet?
Cutting spend entirely in a quiet period can be risky, since it removes the visibility that brings future patients. Trimming carefully is often wiser than switching off, because rebuilding momentum later usually costs more than maintaining it.
Do I need a large marketing budget to compete as a small practice?
No. A focused, well-targeted budget often outperforms a larger one spent without direction. For a smaller medical practice, consistency, clear local visibility and a strong website may matter more than the total sum.
Should a healthcare practice hire an agency or market in-house?
It depends on your time, skills and goals. In-house gives you direct control, while an agency brings specialist expertise and capacity, which can help with compliance-sensitive healthcare marketing. Many practices use a mix of both.
How is budgeting for a healthcare practice different from other businesses?
Healthcare marketing must stay within Ahpra’s advertising rules, and much of it centres on trust and the patient journey rather than hard selling. Referrals also play a larger role, so your budget supports reputation and visibility as much as direct acquisition.
Plan a budget built around your practice
Setting a marketing budget can feel daunting, especially when you are balancing tight margins and trying to make every dollar count. The reassuring part is that a structured approach changes the whole conversation.
Once you have a clear baseline, a smart channel split and a way to track your return, next year’s budget stops being a hopeful guess and becomes a practical growth plan.
If you would like a sounding board to help shape that plan, practiceedge may be a good fit.
As healthcare marketing specialists, our team tailors its approach to your practice’s goals rather than offering fixed packages, helping you set a realistic budget, spend it wisely and measure what it delivers.
