How Much Does Physical Therapy Marketing Cost in 2026?

16 min read
Overhead view of a desk with a calculator, an invoice, and a coffee mug, bright daylight.
Real published prices from PT marketing agencies, with setup fees, contract terms, and year-one totals. No estimates. Every number links to the page it came from.

Physical therapy marketing costs between $199 and $3,095 a month from agencies that publish their prices and serve one to three clinic practices, plus setup fees of $0 to $899 on flat monthly plans and ad spend on top. Year one runs from $3,287 to $37,140 before ad spend, and enterprise agencies that serve multi-location groups start at $5,000 to $10,000 a month.

Those are not estimates. Every number comes from a vendor's own pricing page, FAQ, terms page, or Clutch profile, and links to its source. I did not round anyone's price. Where a vendor publishes nothing, I say so.

Key takeaways
- Specialist PT marketing plans run $199 to $3,095 a month; six of the eight agencies below publish their prices.
- Year one, including setup fees and before ad spend, runs $3,287 to $37,140.
- The term length and the setup fee change the real cost more than the monthly rate does.
- Ad spend is always extra: plan on $500 to $1,000 a month per location if you run ads.
- Most independent practices spend 1 to 5 percent of revenue on marketing; advisors say 5 to 8 percent. If your hours are sellable, doing it yourself is the expensive option.

What do physical therapy marketing agencies actually charge?

Here is what each agency publishes as of August 2026. Year one is 12 times the monthly price plus the setup fee. Ad spend is excluded, because it goes to Google or Meta, not the agency. Prices change. Check the linked page before you sign. The bracketed numbers point to the sources in the References list.

Agency

Who it serves

Monthly price

Setup fee

Term

Year one (12 months + setup, no ad spend)

Behind the Practice (that's us) [8]

Cash-based PT, one clinic per metro

$595 flat from go-live, or $200 per showed evaluation

None on the flat plan. $2,500 build on pay-per-evaluation, 14-day refund

90-day commitment ($1,785 total, nothing up front), then cancel any time

$7,140

Practice Promotions [1]

PT and rehab, 3+ providers

$1,495 (Platinum, 24-month term) or $1,795 (12-month). Pro and Ultimate $1,895 to $3,095

None

12 or 24 months, then 3-month renewals, 1 month notice

$17,940 (24-month rate) or $21,540 (12-month rate)

E-rehab [2]

PT only, 1 to 10 locations

$199 (Silver), $299 (Gold), $599 (Marketing Support), $1,199 (Virtual Marketer)

$899, up to 3 locations

Month to month, 60-day money back

$3,287 (Silver) to $15,287 (Virtual Marketer)

PT Marketing Pros [3]

PT only

$750 to $1,000 entry tier; $1,000 to $1,800; $2,000 to $3,000; $3,000 and up

Not stated

Month to month

$9,000 to $12,000 at the entry tier, before any setup fee

Breakthrough [4][5]

PT and chiro; ads and CRM only, no SEO or websites

"From $399" on the pricing page, "start at $700" in the FAQ; upper tiers unpriced

Not disclosed

30-day notice; all fees non-refundable; $1,000 a month Facebook ad-spend floor

$4,788 to $8,400, before setup and the required ad spend

Healthcare Success [6]

Enterprise, all healthcare

Not published; their own cost guide says "at least $10,000 per month"

Not disclosed

Not disclosed

$120,000 and up

Cardinal Digital Marketing [7]

Enterprise, multi-location groups

Not published; Clutch lists a $5,000 minimum project

Not disclosed

Not disclosed

$60,000 and up

Practice Promotions also recommends $500 to $1,000 a month per location in ad spend on top of its plans [1].

One thing stands out. Four of the six agencies publish prices, and the two that do not are the enterprise firms. Secrecy is an enterprise-tier habit, not a small-clinic one. You can compare the specialist market from public pages alone.

What drives the cost up or down?

Four terms beyond the monthly rate decide what you pay and what you risk.

Term length. The lowest monthly rates on this page come with the longest commitments. Practice Promotions' $1,495 rate requires 24 months, which is $35,880 of commitment before you see a result [1]. E-rehab and PT Marketing Pros are month to month [2][3]. Breakthrough publishes a 30-day notice rule but not a term length [5]. A month-to-month plan at a higher rate can cost less than a cheap plan you cannot leave.

Setup fees. On flat monthly plans they range from $0 (Practice Promotions and Behind the Practice) to $899 (E-rehab) [1][2][8]. Our pay-per-evaluation plan is the exception: it carries a $2,500 build, because there is no monthly fee to cover the work up front [8]. A setup fee usually means someone is building you a real asset, most often the website. Ask what you keep if you cancel. E-rehab says you own your domain [2]. Our answer is on the pricing page: your domain, every article as a file, your Google Business Profile, your CRM and contacts, your analytics accounts, and a static export of every page. If an agency's answer is "the site stays with us" and nothing else, the setup fee bought you a rental.

Ad spend on top. None of the monthly prices above include the money you pay Google or Meta. Practice Promotions recommends $500 to $1,000 a month per location [1]. Breakthrough's terms set a $1,000 a month Facebook floor [5]. So a $1,495 plan with ads is a $2,000 to $2,500 monthly outlay.

Guarantees. Most agencies offer none. The exceptions: Practice Promotions promises 20 qualified new-patient calls a month or the next month is free, on its Pro and Ultimate tiers [9]. E-rehab offers 60 days money back [2]. Breakthrough advertises "30 leads in 90 days", but only when it is written on your order form, with conditions [4]. Behind the Practice guarantees 8 showed evaluations in 90 days or the work is free [8]. A guarantee is worth what the contract says, so read the contract, not the landing page.

How much should a PT clinic budget for marketing?

There is no single number, because the answer depends on whether your hours are sellable. Three lenses, in order of how much they matter for a small cash-based clinic.

Lens 1: what practices actually spend, and what advisors say to spend. The one survey I could find of independent practices is Tebra's, from November 2023: 106 private practices, mostly physician-owned. Most of them (62 percent) spend 1 to 5 percent of gross revenue on marketing; 14 percent spend 6 to 10 percent; and the most common annual budget is $15,000 or more, reported by 15 percent of respondents [12]. Advisors recommend more. WebPT's guidance for healthcare practices is to start at 5 percent of revenue and adjust for referral volume, cash-pay mix, and competition, and it cites the U.S. Small Business Administration's 7 to 8 percent figure for businesses under $5 million [13]. I have not found a PT-specific benchmark from APTA or WebPT's State of Rehab Therapy reports; if one exists behind a paywall, I will update this page.

So the honest range is "practices spend 1 to 5 percent, advisors say 5 to 8 percent." Here is what that means in dollars, all marketing included:

Clinic revenue per year

At 3 percent (what most practices do)

At 7 percent (what advisors recommend)

$50,000

$125 a month

$290 a month

$100,000

$250 a month

$585 a month

$150,000

$375 a month

$875 a month

$250,000 and up

$625 a month and up

$1,460 a month and up

Most solo cash-based clinics sit in the $100,000 to $150,000 band. At that size, what practices typically spend buys a website plan and not much else. What advisors recommend buys E-rehab's tiers or PT Marketing Pros' entry tier. Every full-service plan on the list, ours included, sits above both numbers. That is not a problem with the plans. A clinic at that size buying full service is buying growth, and growth has to be judged by the next two lenses, not by a percentage.

Lens 2: what your own hours cost. Every plan on this page assumes someone does the work. If it is you, price your time. Five hours a week of marketing is about 22 hours a month. If your schedule has 28 open hours a week, those hours cost you nothing but energy, and a $199 plan plus your own effort is a rational choice. If you are booked, 22 hours a month at a $150 session rate is about $3,300 a month of patient revenue you did not bill. At that point every agency on the price list is cheaper than doing it yourself, and the middle of the market, $750 to $1,200 a month, is the cheapest option you have. The right budget question is "are my hours sellable?", not "what percent of revenue?"

Lens 3: what a new patient is worth. Decide what you will pay for one new patient, then work backwards. If a full plan of care at your clinic is $1,500 and you want 8 new patients a month, that is $12,000 a month of new revenue on the table. Paying $150 to $300 to acquire each of those patients is a good trade. The only published per-patient price in this market is ours: $200 per showed evaluation, or a flat $595 a month with no setup fee and 8 showed evaluations guaranteed in the first 90 days [8]. At the flat rate, 8 evaluations in 90 days is $223 per new patient, and every one past 8 is free. We are the only plan on this page that publishes its price per patient, and the guarantee is what makes the price safe to test.

Two adjustments to all three lenses. A clinic in its first two years usually has to spend above the floor to build awareness, and a clinic with a full schedule and a waitlist can spend below it.

E-rehab's FAQ makes the opposite case, and it is worth hearing: "if you are paying more than $160/month, the chances are you aren't getting good value" [2]. That is true if a website with hosting is the only job. It is not true if the job is new patients from search, which is why the price bands below run so wide.

What should you expect at each price band?

$199 to $299 a month. A templated website with hosting and basic Google Business Profile upkeep. This is E-rehab's Silver and Gold range [2]. You get a presence, not a growth engine. Right for a referral-fed clinic that needs a credible site.

$595 to $1,200 a month. Managed local SEO, a real website, review systems, and monthly reporting. Behind the Practice at $595, E-rehab's Marketing Support and Virtual Marketer tiers, and PT Marketing Pros' entry tier all sit here [2][3][8]. This is the band where a one to three clinic practice should expect measurable new-patient flow. The differences inside the band are the setup fee, the term, and whether anyone guarantees a result.

$1,500 to $3,100 a month. Full-service with paid ads management, video, and more content, usually with a contract. Practice Promotions lives here [1]. Worth it when several providers have open schedules and you can absorb 20 or more new patients a month. Add ad spend.

$5,000 a month and up. Enterprise agencies serving multi-location groups and private-equity platforms. Healthcare Success and Cardinal target "five- and six-figure monthly budgets" [6][7]. If you run one to three clinics, you are not their customer, and that is fine.

For a checklist on judging what an agency delivers, read How to Choose a Physical Therapy Marketing Agency. For the channels themselves, see the Complete 2026 Guide.

How much does a physical therapy website cost?

A physical therapy website costs $0 to $899 upfront when bundled with a flat monthly marketing plan, based on the published setup fees above [1][2][8]. Practice Promotions charges no setup and rolls the site into a 12- or 24-month contract. E-rehab charges $899. We charge nothing up front on the flat plan: the custom site is built before your first $595 is billed, and the bill starts when the site goes live [8].

Here is the thing. A $0 website on a 24-month contract costs you $35,880 before you can walk away with it. A $0 website on a plan you can leave after 90 days costs you $1,785 before you can walk away with your domain, your content, and a static export of every page. Run the math over the term, not the setup line. What a site must do to earn its cost is in Physical Therapy Website Design That Books Patients.

Where Behind the Practice sits, and the honest caveats

Here are our numbers in the same format, so you can compare like with like. No build fee. $595 a month flat, billed from the day your site goes live. The 90-day commitment totals $1,785, with nothing up front. Year one is $7,140. If you do not get 8 showed evaluations in 90 days, the work is free until you have. If you would rather pay for results than a flat rate, the second plan is a $2,500 build and then $200 per showed evaluation with no monthly fee; that build fee carries a 14-day refund [8].

Now the caveats.

  • The site runs on our platform. There is no setup fee to buy it outright, and you cannot take the running site with you. What you keep if you leave is listed on the pricing page: your domain, every article as a file, your Google Business Profile and reviews, your CRM and every contact, your analytics accounts, and a static export of every page, so nothing goes dark.

  • We are not the cheapest. E-rehab's Silver plan is $3,287 in year one against our $7,140. If a templated site with hosting is all you need, buy that. Our price is a price per new patient, and it comes with a guarantee that the patients show up.

I wrote Is Behind the Practice Right for Your Clinic to answer the fit question plainly.

Frequently asked questions

How much should a PT clinic spend on marketing per month?

Most independent practices spend 1 to 5 percent of gross revenue on marketing, and advisors recommend 5 to 8 percent, agency fees and ad spend together [12][13]. Within that, published agency prices run $199 to $1,199 a month for specialist plans without paid ads, and $1,495 to $3,095 a month for full-service plans with ads management, plus $500 to $1,000 a month per location in ad spend [1][2][3]. Pick the band that matches your open capacity.

Is a cheaper physical therapy marketing plan worth it?

Yes, when it does the one job you need. E-rehab's $199 a month plan gives a referral-fed clinic a credible website for $3,287 in year one [2]. It is not worth it when you need new patients from search, because that work costs more. Cheap and wrong is the most expensive plan.

Why do some agencies not publish their prices?

The enterprise agencies (Healthcare Success, Cardinal) scope each engagement to the client and start at $5,000 to $10,000 a month [6][7]. Every PT specialist on this list publishes prices. If a specialist agency will not, ask why before you book the call.

What is the real total cost of a 24-month marketing contract?

Multiply the monthly rate by 24 and add the recommended ad spend. Practice Promotions' Platinum plan at $1,495 a month is $35,880 in fees over the term, before $12,000 to $24,000 in ad spend at their recommended $500 to $1,000 a month per location [1]. Compare that against what a new patient is worth over a full plan of care, and against a month-to-month alternative.

The bottom line

Physical therapy marketing costs $199 to $3,095 a month from specialists who publish prices, with year-one totals from $3,287 to $37,140 before ad spend. The monthly rate matters less than the term, the setup fee, the ad spend, and what you own when you leave. Run the year-one math yourself, then ask every agency one question: how many showed evaluations did your last three clients get, and what did each one cost? That is the only price that counts.

Prices on this page are as published in August 2026 and change without notice. Verify on the linked vendor pages. This article is business information, not financial or legal advice. Results vary by clinic, market, and capacity.

References

  1. Practice Promotions. Pricing. https://practicepromotions.net/pricing/

  2. E-rehab. Pricing and FAQ. https://www.e-rehab.com/pricing/ and https://www.e-rehab.com/faq/

  3. PT Marketing Pros. Pricing. https://ptmarketingpros.com/pricing/

  4. Breakthrough. Pricing. https://getbreakthrough.com/pricing/

  5. Breakthrough. Terms of Service. https://getbreakthrough.com/terms/

  6. Healthcare Success. Healthcare Marketing Agency Cost and Pricing Guide. https://healthcaresuccess.com/blog/healthcare-marketing/healthcare-marketing-agency-cost-pricing-guide.html

  7. Clutch. Cardinal Digital Marketing profile. https://clutch.co/profile/cardinal-digital-marketing

  8. Behind the Practice. Pricing. https://behindthepractice.io/pricing

  9. Practice Promotions. Ultimate PT Marketing plan and guarantee. https://practicepromotions.net/pricing/ultimate-pt-marketing/

  10. Better Business Bureau. Practice Promotions profile. https://www.bbb.org/us/va/chesterfield/profile/digital-marketing/practice-promotions-0603-63418704

  11. E-rehab. Reviews. https://www.e-rehab.com/reviews/

  12. Tebra. Survey Reveals Healthcare Marketing Budget Benchmarks for Independent Practices (106 private practices, November 2023; updated September 2025). https://www.tebra.com/theintake/medical-deep-dives/get-new-patients/survey-reveals-healthcare-marketing-budget-benchmarks-for-independent-practices

  13. WebPT. Developing a Marketing Budget for Your PT Practice (cites the U.S. Small Business Administration's 7 to 8 percent guidance). https://www.webpt.com/blog/developing-marketing-budget-your-pt-practice

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I'm Jordan, a former PT. I built Behind the Practice for my wife's vestibular clinic, Dizzy Free PT. The free report shows where your clinic shows up when a patient asks Google or ChatGPT who to see, and where it doesn't. Read it. If you want help closing the gaps, book the audit. No commitment either way.