Insights › Benchmarks
Cost per lead is the most quoted number in aesthetic marketing and the least useful one. It's easy to lower and easy to lower in ways that cost you money.
Published figures for plastic surgery paid search generally land between $100 and $300 per lead, with surgical procedures on the higher end and non-surgical treatments considerably lower. Meta and TikTok typically produce cheaper leads than search — sometimes dramatically so — because you're interrupting rather than intercepting.
Treat all of these as orientation, not targets. Market density, procedure mix, seasonality and how you define a "lead" move the number more than anything you'll read in a benchmark report.
Anyone can halve your cost per lead. Widen targeting, loosen the offer, shorten the form, add a giveaway. You'll get twice the leads at half the price and fewer cases, because you've bought a different kind of person.
The practices with the lowest cost per lead in a market are frequently the ones with the worst economics. The number moves inversely to lead quality far more often than it moves with efficiency.
Say a case is worth $9,000 and you're willing to spend 20% to acquire one — $1,800. If half your consults convert to surgery, a booked consult is worth $900 to you. If 40% of leads become consults, a lead is worth $360. Suddenly a $250 lead looks like a bargain and a $90 lead from a channel that never books looks like what it is.
Blended cost per lead across rhinoplasty, injectables and skin treatments is a meaningless number. Break it out by procedure, and by channel within procedure. You will usually find one procedure quietly subsidizing three others.
Aesthetic surgery has a long consideration window. Someone who inquires in March may book in July. If you judge a campaign on a 30-day window you'll kill campaigns that were working. Look at cohorts — leads generated in a given month, measured 90 and 180 days out.
Rather than chasing a benchmark, aim for a stable, known cost per case that sits comfortably under your acceptable marketing cost of sale, with enough volume to fill your operating schedule. A practice that knows its numbers and holds a 15–20% cost of sale is in a far better position than one celebrating a low cost per lead it can't trace to revenue.
We run growth marketing for plastic surgery practices nationwide, and rent licensed operating rooms across South Florida. Tell us which problem you have.