There’s no minimum spend on Google Ads: a dental practice sets a daily budget and pays when someone clicks. Published 2026 UK estimates put general dental searches at roughly £1.50 to £4.50 a click, with implant searches from about £3.50 to £15 and Invisalign from about £2 to £9, and more in central London. Most private practices need around £1,000 a month or more in ad spend to get enough enquiries to judge results. The number that matters, though, isn’t the cost of a click. It’s the cost of a booked consultation compared with what a treatment is worth.
This guide covers what dental clicks cost, how to work out a budget from the patients you want, the rules that shape dental ads, and what sits on top of your ad spend.
What dental clicks cost: UK estimates for 2026
Google doesn’t publish average costs by sector, so the figures below come from UK dental marketing agencies’ own published estimates. They disagree with each other, sometimes by a factor of two or three, so treat them as rough ranges and check your own keywords in Google’s Keyword Planner:
| Search type | Published UK estimates | Why |
|---|---|---|
| General dental searches (“dentist near me”, check-ups) | About £1.50 to £4.50 a click | Local, high-volume searches with lower value per patient |
| Invisalign and clear aligners | About £2 to £9 a click | High-value treatment, heavily advertised by practices and aligner brands |
| Dental implants | About £3.50 to £15 a click | Treatment often worth several thousand pounds, so practices bid hard |
Location makes a big difference. One agency estimates central London practices pay 40 to 60% more than practices in Birmingham or Manchester for the same keywords. Demand also tends to rise in January and September, when more people start planning treatment.
For costs across other sectors, see our guide to how much Google Ads cost in the UK.
How to work out your budget
Start from the patients you want, not from a round number. You need three figures:
- How many consultations you want each month for a treatment.
- Your conversion rate: the share of clicks that become a booked consultation. Published dental estimates range from about 5 to 15%, depending on the treatment and how good the landing page is.
- Your cost per click for that treatment’s keywords.
An illustrative example (not a client result): a practice wants 10 implant consultations a month. At a 6% click-to-consultation rate it needs about 167 clicks. At £6 a click, that’s a budget of about £1,000 a month, or £100 per booked consultation.
Then check it against what a patient is worth. If 3 of those 10 consultations go ahead and an implant case is worth £2,500, £1,000 of ad spend has produced £7,500 of treatment. If only 1 in 10 goes ahead, the same budget is far less attractive. That’s why tracking which enquiries book and attend matters more than the cost per click. Our ad budget calculator and CPA calculator do this maths for you.
A budget too small for its treatment is the most common mistake. £300 a month spread across implants, Invisalign, whitening and general dentistry won’t give any one of them enough clicks to learn from. It’s better to start with one or two high-value treatments and do them properly.
From experience
With £1,000 a month, I'd put it all into Google search first. You're reaching people who are actively looking for dental treatment, which is the quickest way to turn spend into booked consultations. Meta and other channels can come later, once search is paying for itself.
Measure booked consultations, not clicks
Most dental enquiries arrive by phone, and many web forms never turn into a booking. If Google only sees clicks or form fills, it will find you more of the cheapest ones. To fix that:
- Track calls from ads and from your website with call tracking, so phone enquiries count. Our guide to Google Ads call tracking explains how.
- Record outcomes: which enquiries booked, attended and went ahead. A simple spreadsheet or your practice software is enough.
- Send those outcomes back to Google as offline conversions, so its bidding favours the searches that produce real patients. See our guide to offline conversion tracking, which works the same way for practices.
The rules that shape dental Google Ads
Dental advertising sits under three sets of rules, and they affect what your ads can say and how you can target them.
The General Dental Council (GDC). The GDC’s guidance on advertising requires anything you publish to be accurate, not misleading and backed by facts. Practice websites should show the dentists’ qualifications and GDC numbers, the practice address, a complaints route and when the site was last updated. Only dentists on a GDC specialist list can call themselves a specialist, so ad copy shouldn’t say “implant specialist” or “smile specialist” unless that’s true. Promotions should make clear that treatment depends on an assessment and may not suit everyone.
The ASA and the CAP Code. Claims need evidence, before and after photos must be genuine and representative, and a dentist using “Dr” mustn’t imply a medical qualification they don’t hold. Botox and other prescription-only medicines can’t be advertised to the public at all, including indirect phrases such as “anti-wrinkle injections”. You can promote a consultation for lines and wrinkles instead. CAP has also warned that claims such as “faster” or “less painful” braces need robust clinical evidence.
Google’s health advertising policy. Google limits personalised ads for health topics, and its list includes invasive procedures such as injections. For ads in these categories, your own remarketing lists and Customer Match audiences can’t be used. In practice, dental Google Ads work best as search-led campaigns that answer someone already looking for treatment, rather than ads that follow past website visitors around.
None of this stops dental ads working. It does mean ad copy, landing pages and targeting need to be planned with the rules in mind from the start, not fixed after a complaint.
What makes dental Google Ads cost more or less
- Treatment mix. Implant and aligner keywords cost more but are worth far more per patient than check-ups.
- Your area. A tight radius around the practice keeps clicks local and cheaper than bidding across a whole city.
- Negative keywords. A private-only practice should usually exclude searches such as “NHS dentist”, “free” and “jobs”, which can eat budget without producing patients.
- Ad schedule. If enquiries come by phone, show call-focused ads when someone can answer.
- Treatment landing pages. A page for each treatment, with prices or “from” prices, finance options and a clear way to book, converts far better than sending everyone to the homepage.
- Google Business Profile. A complete profile with good reviews strengthens your location assets and your presence in local Maps results.
From experience
The two mistakes that waste the most money in dental accounts are targeting too wide an area and paying for information searches. Patients rarely travel far for a dentist, so ads should focus on the streets around the practice. Searches like "how long do implants last" come from people researching, not booking. Tighten the area and add research terms as negative keywords, and the same budget goes much further.
Costs on top of your ad spend
- Management, whether that’s your own time, a team member or an agency.
- Landing pages for your main treatments, if you don’t have them yet.
- Call tracking software, usually a small monthly cost.
- VAT and Google’s fees. Most dental treatment is exempt from VAT, so many practices aren’t VAT registered and can’t reclaim the VAT on Google’s invoices. Google also adds a fee for ads shown in the UK. Check your invoices and ask your accountant how this applies to you.
What Brightpace charges
Our fee is a monthly fee agreed up front, scaled to your ad spend and scope, no setup fee and a 30-day rolling contract. Ad spend is paid directly to Google. See how we run Google Ads for dental practices.
FAQs
Are Google Ads worth it for dentists?
They usually are for high-value private treatments such as implants, Invisalign and composite bonding, where one new patient can be worth thousands of pounds. They’re harder to make pay for low-value routine treatment, or if your diary has no room for new patients.
Can dentists advertise Botox on Google?
No. Botox is a prescription-only medicine, and UK rules don’t allow it to be advertised to the public. You can advertise a consultation for lines and wrinkles, and non-prescription treatments, as long as the ad doesn’t suggest a prescription-only product is on offer.
How much should a dental practice spend on Google Ads?
Work back from the consultations you want, your conversion rate and your cost per click. For one or two high-value treatments in a single area, that’s typically £1,000 a month or more. Start narrow and add treatments once the first ones are profitable.
Should a private practice bid on “NHS dentist” searches?
Usually not. People searching for NHS treatment rarely become private patients, so most private practices add “NHS” as a negative keyword. Mixed practices with NHS capacity may choose differently.
In short
Google Ads for dentists costs what you choose to spend, with general dental clicks at roughly £1.50 to £4.50 and implant and Invisalign clicks much higher. Set your budget from the consultations you want, track which enquiries book and attend, and keep ads within GDC, ASA and Google health rules. Judge the results on cost per booked consultation and treatment value, not cost per click.
Sources
The rules, platform documentation and published estimates this guide is checked against. Cost figures are agencies’ own estimates and vary widely. Last checked October 2026.
- Guidance on advertising, General Dental Council
- Dental: General, ASA and CAP
- Ad Alert: Botox and prescription-only medicines, CAP
- Enforcement notice: advertising of braces and dental devices, CAP
- Health in personalised advertising, Google Advertising Policies Help
- Dental Google Ads and PPC guide, Whitehat SEO
- Dental advertising cost UK guide, Dominate Dental
- UK dental PPC costs, Whito
Want to know what Google Ads could cost and return for your practice? See how we work with dental practices, or let’s chat.
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