Patient acquisition cost (CAC) in dentistry: what it is and what it should be

CAC (customer acquisition cost) is how much it costs you to get a new patient who actually converts. It's the metric that decides whether your marketing is profitable, and the one most ignored in dentistry.

How to calculate dental CAC

CAC = total marketing spend (ads + agency + tools) divided by the number of new patients who closed treatment in that period. Not per lead or per consult: per patients who paid.

What should it be?

• ✓There's no universal number: it depends on the treatment ticket.
• ✓For implants or All-on-4 (ticket $5,000-$6,000+), a CAC of several hundred dollars is still very profitable.
• ✓For a cleaning, that same CAC would lose money: that's why we focus on high-ticket.
• ✓Rule of thumb: CAC shouldn't exceed 15-25% of the treatment ticket.

Why CAC rises at scale

As you increase spend, the high-value audience saturates and cost per patient rises. The lowest CAC is at the start, and you should always measure it against the ticket, not in the abstract.

How we lower your CAC

By qualifying before booking and raising the show rate: if more of your booked patients show up, your real CAC drops without spending a dollar more. Book a call and we'll calculate it for your clinic.