Med spa marketing costs two things: what you pay the agency and what you pay Meta and Google for the ads. Owners mix those up all the time, and it is why most price comparisons are useless. At Robbp Media our Booked Consults program is $3,000 to set up, then $4,000 a month for Meta and Google together, with the ad spend paid by you direct to the platforms, at least $3,000 a month. Organic social is a $1,000 a month add on. That is the real price, written down, and the rest of this post explains what sits behind it and how to judge whether any agency's number is worth paying.
The two numbers you are actually paying
The first number is the agency fee. That pays for the person deciding where your money goes, the creative, the landing page, the follow up and the report. The second number is ad spend, which goes to Meta and Google and buys the attention.
I keep the two completely separate. You pay the platforms direct, on your own card, in ad accounts you own. My fee never comes out of your ad budget and I never mark up your spend. If an agency bundles them into one figure, ask them to split it. You cannot judge either half until you can see both.
What the setup fee pays for
A med spa does not need more ads. It needs a path that turns a stranger into a booked consult. That path has several parts, and most of them have to be built before the first dollar of spend goes out.
Tracking comes first, because without it nobody can tell you what worked. Then the landing page, one page per offer, built to get a phone number or a booking rather than to look nice. Then the ad accounts, audiences and the first round of creative. Then the follow up, which is where most practices lose the money they already paid for. We use GoHighLevel and ManyChat so that a comment on a laser video or a form fill gets an answer in minutes, day or night, rather than waiting until the front desk gets to it on Monday.
The $3,000 setup covers all of that. It is a one time cost because it is one time work. If an agency charges a setup fee and then sends traffic to your homepage, ask what the fee bought.
What the monthly fee pays for
The $4,000 a month covers running Meta and Google together: new creative every month, testing hooks and offers, cutting what does not book, moving budget to what does, keeping the landing page honest, and a weekly report that leads with one number, consults booked against ad spend.
How much should a med spa spend on ads
We ask for at least $3,000 a month across Meta and Google. Below that, a med spa usually cannot buy enough data to learn which treatments, offers and audiences book, and the test drags on for months. Above it, the right number depends on what a new patient is worth to you and how many consults your team can actually handle in a week.
Start from the value of a patient, not from a budget you picked because it felt safe. If a new injectables patient comes back four times a year, the first visit can cost more than its own ticket and still be a good buy. If your calendar is already full on Thursdays, more spend will just create no shows. We work this out on the first call before anyone spends anything.
For context on what the platforms themselves charge, I wrote a separate post on how much Instagram ads cost. The short version is that there is no fixed price, and the creative does more to bring the cost down than the budget does.
What good looks like, with real numbers
Dr. Zoumalan, a facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, is the account I point to when people ask whether paid social works for a practice. Meta ads produced $24,500 in confirmed revenue over two months on about $1,837 of spend. That is a 13.3x return, and it came from creative, audiences and the booking flow being built together, not from a big budget.
A Beverly Hills medical client ran at 1,233% return on ad spend on paid social. And on the organic side, Dr. Andrew Brunswick grew from 9,590 to 115,000 Instagram followers with no paid growth, and his ManyChat system collected more than 54,750 contacts. That last number matters for cost, because every one of those contacts is someone a practice can reach again without paying for the click twice.
I share these because they are real and because they show the pattern. The return comes from the system, not the ad. A med spa that buys ads without the page, the follow up and the reporting is paying full price for half the job.
Why we guarantee the first sixty days
If we book fewer than ten consults in your first sixty days, month three is free. There is a ninety day minimum, then it runs month to month. I set it up that way because a new client is taking a risk on me, and I would rather share it than ask for a long contract to hide behind.
Red flags when you compare quotes
Be careful with any quote that hides the ad spend inside the fee, reports followers or reach as the main result, locks you into a long contract before anything is proven, or keeps the ad account in the agency's name. Each of those makes the price look better than it is and makes it harder to leave if it is not working.
Questions people ask
How much does med spa marketing cost per month?
With us it is $4,000 a month for Meta and Google together, after a $3,000 setup, plus ad spend of at least $3,000 a month paid direct to the platforms. Organic social is a $1,000 a month add on. Other agencies price differently, so always ask for the fee and the ad spend as two separate numbers.
Is ad spend included in the agency fee?
Not with us. You pay Meta and Google direct, in accounts you own, so the fee and the spend never mix. If an agency quotes one combined figure, ask them to split it before you compare.
How long before a med spa sees booked consults?
The first month is mostly build: tracking, landing page, ads and follow up. Consults usually start once the ads go live, and our guarantee is ten booked consults in the first sixty days or month three is free.
Is paid social worth it for a med spa?
It can be when the creative, the landing page and the follow up are built together. Dr. Zoumalan's Meta ads returned $24,500 in confirmed revenue over two months on about $1,837 of spend, and a Beverly Hills medical client ran at 1,233% return on ad spend.
Do I need organic social as well as ads?
Not to start. Ads and follow up are what book consults fastest. Organic builds the trust that makes ads cheaper over time, which is why Dr. Andrew Brunswick's growth from 9,590 to 115,000 followers mattered, but it is an add on, not a requirement.
Let's talk
If you run a med spa, plastic surgery or dermatology practice and want to know what this would cost you specifically, email me at info@robbp.com with your main treatments and roughly what you spend on ads now. The full program is on the Booked Consults in 30 Days page, and the way we work with practices is on the medical aesthetics marketing page.