Key facts
- Google Ads management is billed as 10% of your monthly ad spend, floored at $600 CAD or $450 USD, with nothing marked up on the media Google itself charges.
- SEO is priced per page, $50 CAD or $38 USD, and a program has to begin at 10 pages a month before it can run.
- A calming, on-brand practice website with online booking is priced once, typically $1,500 up to $20,000 or more, separate from monthly ad or SEO spend.
- HIPAA in the US and privacy laws like PIPEDA and PHIPA in Canada shape how a practice can track ad results, and Google also restricts advertisers from targeting or remarketing to someone based on an inferred health condition, mental health included.
- Most people considering therapy check a practice's Psychology Today listing and Google reviews before they ever call, so directory presence and review count compete directly with paid ads for that first impression.
What to Budget by Practice Size
A solo therapist with a handful of open caseload slots can start near the $600 Google Ads floor, aimed at specialty searches like anxiety or couples counseling, run carefully within privacy-aware limits, then add SEO once there's proof the ads are bringing in the right fit.
A small group practice trying to fill several clinicians' calendars, not just one, usually lands in the $2,000 to $4,000 range, splitting spend between ads for the specialties in most demand and SEO past ten pages covering each clinician's focus area and the neighborhoods clients search from.
A larger group practice, or one also recruiting clinicians alongside clients, tends to need a bigger media budget rather than a bigger management fee, since holding visibility across more specialties and a wider service area takes real ad spend to sustain.
What Each Part of the Budget Buys a Practice
Google Ads, run in a privacy-aware way that avoids targeting or remarketing based on a health condition, reaches people the moment they decide to look for help, whether that's "anxiety therapist near me" or a specific modality search. Every inquiry is tracked to its source without exposing anything sensitive about the person searching.
SEO at $50 a page, from a ten-page floor, is where a practice builds pages by specialty and insurance question, the kind of content that answers what a hesitant potential client wants to know before ever picking up the phone. Those pages keep working long after they're published, at no per-click cost.
A website's price mostly comes down to whether online booking needs to connect to the practice's scheduling and EHR system, such as SimplePractice, and how much the site needs to do to make reaching out feel safe, versus a simpler site built around a clear phone number and contact form.
What to Cut First When Cash Is Tight
New SEO pages past the ten-page floor are the easiest thing to pause, since specialty pages already published keep bringing in inquiries without new ones being added that month.
Cutting ad spend carries more risk than it seems, since someone finally ready to reach out for help often acts on that decision the same day, and a practice that goes quiet in search can lose that inquiry to whichever practice stayed visible. If spend must shrink, keep the highest-demand specialty campaigns running and pause the broader, lower-intent ones first.
Gentle appointment reminders and intake confirmations are usually worth protecting even on a tight budget, since a client who books a first session but never confirms is one of the more common, and more preventable, ways caseloads stay under capacity.
The One Number to Watch
Track cost per booked consultation first, since it shows plainly whether ad and SEO spend is actually turning into scheduled first sessions, not just clicks or page views.
Then watch what share of those consultations are the right fit for the specialties and insurance or private-pay positioning the practice actually offers. A practice can spend well and still stay under capacity if the inquiries that arrive don't match what it's equipped to treat, since a poor-fit inquiry rarely turns into an ongoing caseload slot.
Related questions
Yes, when it's set up carefully. Campaigns and tracking can be built to avoid targeting or remarketing based on anyone's inferred health condition, and copy can stay warm and non-stigmatizing. The goal is helping the right people find and feel comfortable reaching out, never implying outcomes or exposing who has clicked an ad.
Yes. A practice's insurance or private-pay positioning shapes who reaches out, and fuzzy messaging on that point tends to bring inquiries the practice can't actually take. Clear, upfront language about what's accepted usually produces fewer mismatched consultations than a page that stays vague about cost.
Campaign setup for the specialties a practice wants to grow, privacy-aware tracking so inquiries are counted without exposing sensitive details, ongoing bid management, and a monthly report. The media spend itself is billed directly by Google, with nothing marked up by the agency.
A directory listing helps with discovery, but a practice's own website is where trust actually builds, through specialty pages, clinician bios, and a clear first step. Relying on a directory alone also means competing directly against every other listed practice on the same page.
Once caseload slots have real open capacity and the consultations already coming in are a good fit for what the practice treats. Raising spend before there's room on the calendar, or while poor-fit inquiries are common, usually just raises cost per consultation without filling more caseload slots.
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