Getting more private patients, by the numbers.
The money side of a private practice, in plain terms: what a patient is really worth to you, the most you can sensibly spend to win one, and what a system that runs it returns. Work it in your own numbers.
In short
Getting more private patients is a numbers problem before it is a marketing one. Once you know what one patient is worth to you over time, and the most you can sensibly spend to win one, every option, paid search, your website, referrals, can be held against that ceiling. The calculators below work those numbers out for your specialty, so the rest of the decisions get easier.
The calculators
Work out your own numbers.
Three calculators, each useful on its own. Two are live; the third is on the way.
What's a private patient worth?
Open the calculator Live now · Paid adsIs paid advertising worth it?
Open the calculatorWhat does a system return?
The consultation fee is what a patient pays to walk through the door. It tells you very little about what they are worth to you.
Someone who has the treatment, comes back, and sends a friend is worth many times that fee, and most practices have never worked out by how much. So they price their marketing off the consult in front of them, and the few hundred pounds it makes to win a patient feel like plenty. They are not, once you add up the treatment, the repeat visits, and the people each patient sends your way. The first job is simply to know the real number.
Knowing what a patient is worth is interesting. Knowing the most you can spend to win one is what you act on.
Once you have that ceiling, the question stops being how big the budget should be and becomes whether you are under it and winning enough patients. That one has an answer. How much is genuinely affordable depends on your margins, which you know far better than anyone outside the practice can, so the calculators give you the worth and the leverage and leave the line for you to draw.
Word of mouth counts for more than most practices allow for, and it comes in two kinds.
The direct kind is a patient happy enough to send someone in person. In fertility that runs to roughly one in five; in aesthetics, closer to one in seven; in some specialties it's very small. The more they refer, the more each patient is worth, and the more you can afford to spend winning the next one. That direct lift is the one the calculator counts.
The quieter kind matters more over time: the reviews and reputation that win patients who never met the one who referred them. That one isn't in the per-patient figure; it works on everyone weighing you up, and it's what the system builds, review by review. The practices that compound tend to be the ones that count both.
The questions behind the numbers.
How do I get more private patients?
Start with the numbers, not the tactics. Work out what one private patient is worth to you over time, then the most you can sensibly spend to win one, and you can judge any channel, paid search, your website, referrals, against that ceiling. Most practices skip this step and either underspend and stay quiet, or pay for activity that never books. The calculators here work out those two numbers for your specialty so the rest of the decisions get easier.
What is a private patient actually worth?
Usually far more than the consultation fee, often a few thousand pounds rather than the couple of hundred they pay to be seen. Add the treatment they go on to have, the times they come back, and the patients they refer, and a single new patient is worth multiples of that first appointment. The exact figure depends on your specialty and your prices, which is what the patient value calculator works out.
How much should I spend to win a new private patient?
Up to the point where you still make money on them, and not a penny more than you have to. If a patient is worth a couple of thousand pounds over time, spending a few hundred to win one usually leaves you well ahead, but the exact ceiling depends on your margins, which only you know. The calculator gives you the worth and the return at different spend levels; where you draw the line is your call.
Is Google Ads worth it for a private clinic?
It can be, as long as the cost of winning a patient stays under what that patient is worth to you. Paid search buys visibility today, which matters when you are starting out or filling a gap, but it stops the moment you stop paying. Whether it pays comes down to your cost per click, how many enquiries become patients, and your margins. The paid ads calculator works that out for your specialty, so you can see whether it pays before you spend a pound.
How much should a private practice spend on marketing?
There is no single right percentage, and copying one from another practice is how budgets go wrong. A more useful way in is per patient: work out what one is worth, decide the most you will spend to win one, then multiply by how many new patients you want a month. That gives you a budget tied to your own economics rather than a figure pulled from a blog.
What is a sensible cost to win a patient?
Whatever keeps you comfortably ahead once you have paid to deliver the treatment, which is a margin question only you can answer. As a rough guide, many practices keep the cost of winning a patient to a fraction of what that patient is worth, so there is room to spend and still profit. The calculator shows you the worth and the return at different spend levels so you can set your own line.
Do referrals really make that much difference?
In some specialties, yes. A happy aesthetics patient sends roughly one in seven your way; in fertility it is closer to one in five; in some specialties it's very small. Where word of mouth is strong it quietly raises what every patient is worth, and with it the amount you can afford to spend winning the next one.
Why isn't there one right marketing budget?
Because the right number is built from your own figures, not a benchmark. Two practices in the same specialty can have very different patient values, conversion rates and margins, so the same budget is generous for one and reckless for the other. Start from what a patient is worth to you and work outward, and the budget becomes a decision you can defend rather than a guess.
Knowing the numbers is the easy part.
Spending up to the ceiling every month, without losing people somewhere between the search and the booking, is the harder part. That is the system we build and run. If you want to go past the starting figures and see what this looks like for your practice, that is a conversation worth having.
Start with what a patient is worth, read why fragmented marketing leaks patients, or see how the system works.