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What a new audiology client should cost you on Google in 2026
The cheapest acquisition band in allied health, and why a low number is the first thing I check rather than the last.
By Pete Flynn · 2 August 2026 · 8 min read
Independent hearing clinics get the best acquisition number in allied health. New clients at $65 to $95, against an initial assessment around $250. On paper it is the easiest maths in the sector.
It is also the number I trust least when an owner reads it to me down the phone. Audiology is cheap for a reason that has nothing to do with how well the account is run, and that same reason is how a low number ends up describing a clinic that is quietly going backwards.
So here is the band, where it comes from, and the split that tells you whether yours is worth celebrating.
Ten new clients, two hearing clinics
The same cost to acquire, on the same report, hiding two completely different clinics.
$65 to $95 to acquire · $250 initial assessment · about 4 visits
Both accounts below blend to $78, which is illustrative and sits inside the band. The mixes are the point, not the price.
Account A
Blended $78The one that looks cheap
What the ten clients actually were
What those ten opened
Thin
Six of the ten were sorted in a visit and gone. Nothing wrong with the work. It is just not an episode of care, and it is quietly pulling the average down.
Account B
Blended $78The one building a clinic
What the ten clients actually were
What those ten opened
A book of care
Eight of the ten walked in for a real assessment. Same money out the door, and a diary that still has those clients in it next year.
Nothing in Account A is broken. No keyword is wrong, no bid is wrong, and the number at the top of the report is inside the band. The mix is simply doing the owner’s thinking for them.
The whole point
Ask for your cost to acquire split by which search brought the client in, never as one blended average. In audiology the split is the story, because a wax booking and a tinnitus booking cost about the same and are worth nothing like the same.
The cheapest band in allied health, and where it comes from
A healthy independent audiology Google Ads account in Australia acquires new clients at $65 to $95 each. That is the cost to acquire a new client, and it sits under every other profession we publish a band for. Physio starts at $80 and psychology runs to $120.
The reason is market shape, not skill. The national hearing chains have concentrated their budgets on the device head terms, because that is where the money they care about sits. Tinnitus, balance, hearing tests and kids' hearing get left almost uncontested in a normal suburban catchment, and a quiet auction is a cheap auction.
Now put the other number beside it. A typical initial assessment sits around $250 and an audiology episode of care runs about four visits, so roughly $1,000 of work walks in with each new client before anyone says the word device. Paying $80 to open $1,000 is a good trade in any profession.
Audiology is cheap because the chains stopped bidding on the searches that matter to you. That is a gift, not a grade.
The blended average is the part that lies
Here is where the low number turns on you. Four very different people book a hearing clinic through Google and they all cost about the same to acquire. Someone with a blocked ear, someone comparing the price of a hearing test, a parent acting on a note home from school, and someone whose ears have been ringing since March.
Those four are worth nothing like the same once they are in the booth. Wax is one visit, sorted, gone. Tinnitus and balance need a real workup and usually more than one appointment. Your cost to acquire is simply the weighted average of whichever ones you happened to buy this month.
So an account can get cheaper month on month while the clinic gets weaker, because the mix drifted toward the quick work. Nothing in the campaign broke and nobody made a bad decision. The average just stopped describing the business. The same gap between two accounts shows up in every profession, and audiology has the widest version of it I have seen.
$68 to acquire, and still a problem
- More than half the new clients came in for wax removal.
- One visit each, sorted, and gone by Friday.
- The tinnitus and balance work the audiologist trained for is thin.
- Average client value is falling while the report looks better every month.
- The cheap bookings pull the average down, so nobody goes looking.
$91 to acquire, and perfectly healthy
- Most new clients booked a proper initial assessment.
- Tinnitus, balance and kids' hearing carry the mix.
- Roughly $1,000 of care walks in for every $91 spent.
- Device conversations happen in the room, months later, off the back of trust.
- The diary is filling with the clients the clinic wants more of.
The one auction you are supposed to lose
Every independent that has run ads has tried hearing aids at some point. It is the obvious keyword, because it is the one with the money attached. It is also the single auction where a suburban clinic bids against national retailers who will happily carry a loss on a click for years.
The clock is the other problem. Hearing loss is the slowest decision in healthcare, and someone typing hearing aid prices in March is not buying in March. They are gathering. Your budget has to survive a consideration cycle measured in seasons, and an independent budget cannot fund that.
There is a whole side of a hearing clinic Google was never going to reach either. Program funded pensioner and veteran clients mostly arrive through referral, eligibility and word of mouth, not a search bar. Advertising amplifies a path that already exists, it does not create one, so those clients belong to your referral work rather than your ad budget.
You do not win the device client in the auction. You win them six months earlier, in the room, as the clinic that tested their hearing properly and told them the truth.
What the assessment fee actually has to carry
Work the economics on the assessment alone. Around $250 for the initial, about four visits across an episode of care, so the first appointment covers a $65 to $95 acquisition on the day and everything after it is margin. That is the version of the maths you can defend without a single assumption about devices.
Device revenue is real and it is the reason audiology is a good business. It is also downstream, months later, and it is not what the campaign bought. Justify your ad spend on the assessment and the episode of care, then treat the device work as the upside it is.
Our band is a benchmark. Yours is a maths problem, and what you can afford to spend acquiring a client should drive the budget rather than our range. Put your own assessment fee and your own visit average in below.
Patient lifetime value
What you can actually afford to spend.
Plug in the maths of one of your average patients. Three numbers, one formula: fee times visits per year times years on books. For most acute clinics, set years on books to 1 and read the yearly value as your headline. For NDIS, paeds, or chronic care clinics where patients stay for years, set years on books accordingly and read lifetime value as your headline.
Out of pocket or agreed rate per visit
Average visits per patient over a year
1 for acute, 3 to 6 for paeds or NDIS
Yearly value of one patient
$1,000
$250 per visit × 4 visits per year = $1,000 a year. Set years on books above 1 to project lifetime value.
Aggressive growth · 3× ROI
$333
Max CPA you can spend
Spending hard to win share, eg. ramp up phase or new location
Healthy growth · 5× ROI
$200
Max CPA you can spend
Sustainable, scalable, every dollar 5× back
Conservative · 10× ROI
$100
Max CPA you can spend
Profit first; small budget, disciplined targeting
Empty chair economics
During ramp up, you can spend up to $250 to acquire a patient and still break even on session one.
When the diary has white space your team is already paid for, the marginal cost of that next session is near zero. So on the first appointment alone, almost the full fee is gross profit. Every session after that is upside on the value above.
These numbers are deliberately gross-revenue based, not gross-profit. For a quick scale-confidence check, gross is the right frame; for board level reporting, swap in your gross margin percentage. The shape of the maths doesn't change.
One new patient is worth $1,000 to your clinic, and at healthy growth you can spend up to $200 to win one.
Your website is what turns that value into bookings, and most clinic sites quietly leak it.
The rules you are writing ads to
Audiology is not one of the nationally registered health professions. Audiologists self regulate, through Audiology Australia certification and its professional standards, and that changes the shape of the compliance conversation without loosening it.
What governs your advertising is Australian Consumer Law. Every claim you publish has to be truthful, substantiated and not misleading, and the constraints that sit on advertising hearing devices apply on top of that.
The practical bar is easy to hold in your head. If you cannot prove it, it does not go in the ad. That covers the assessment claims, the outcome language, and every number you put next to a device.
What to do with the band
Compare your account to $65 to $95, then, whatever it says, run the four checks below in order. Most accounts we open, whatever the profession on the door, have at least the first two loose.
Four checks, in this order
Check one
Split your new clients by which search brought them in.
Wax, hearing test, kids' hearing, tinnitus, balance. If your report gives you one blended cost to acquire and nothing else, that is the first job, not the campaign.
Check two
Read 90 days of search terms, sorted by cost.
The four that always turn up in a hearing account are salary and course searches, battery and accessory shopping, repairs on devices you never fitted, and price comparison traffic that was always buying online.
Check three
Put the assessment fee on the page.
A real share of hearing test searches are price led. Answering the fee question on the first screen wins you the booking you already paid for, and hiding it behind a phone call loses it.
Check four
Cap the device campaign, or switch it off.
If hearing aids is running on head terms, it is almost certainly the reason your number is above the band. Contain it to the long tail and your own suburb, or give the money back to tinnitus and balance.
Audiology marketing, run by clinic owners
We will show you which hearing searches your budget is actually buying.
Tinnitus, balance, hearing tests, kids' hearing, wax. We split your new clients by the search that brought them in, then show you what each one cost and what each one opened.
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