How much does allied health marketing cost in Australia in 2026?

What does an agency retainer cost?

Credible ongoing work for a single-location practice sits at $1,500 to $2,500 a month in 2026.

Australian agencies publish local SEO retainers at $1,000 to $3,000 a month. Single-location work clusters at $1,500 to $2,500. A competitive suburb or a second location pushes it to $2,500 to $4,000 (Leads4Business, 26 June 2026; A.P. Web Solutions, 4 June 2026; Henry Wong Consulting, 18 August 2026). A full-service retainer covering several channels runs $2,500 to $5,000 a month for a small business, with $1,500 the published floor and ad spend on top (Odin Digital, 8 June 2026; WME, 3 July 2026).

Where the guides disagree is the floor. Two put entry work at $500 to $1,000 a month. The others say credible work starts near $1,500, and one cites a dental practice that spent fourteen months at $400 a month with nothing to show for it. Our reading: under about $1,000 a month you are usually paying for a report, not for work.

What the hourly rate tells you

Agencies charge $120 to $250 an hour, and senior specialists $150 to $300 (WME, 3 July 2026; Cemoh, 2026). Divide a retainer by the rate and you get the hours in it. A $1,500 retainer at $150 an hour is ten hours a month. Under $120 an hour usually means a junior is doing the work. Ask who.

Social media and content

Social media management runs $500 to $1,500 a month from a freelancer and $1,500 to $3,500 from an agency (CodeQy, 3 April 2026; Cemoh, 2026). Articles cost $300 to $1,000 each, and regulated health copy sits at the top of that range because someone has to check every claim against Ahpra's advertising guidelines (WME, 3 July 2026; That Content Agency, 4 June 2026). Cheap health copy is usually copy that skipped that step.

What does a website or automation project cost?

A project has a start, an end and a written price, and most practices should start with one.

A professionally built site of 5 to 15 pages costs $3,000 to $10,000, with $2,500 the published floor. Custom builds with integrations run $10,000 to $25,000 (WP Creative, 8 September 2026; RockingWeb, 8 June 2026; Webics, 6 July 2026). For a practice the integration that matters is the booking flow into Cliniko, Halaxy, Splose, Nookal, Power Diary or Zanda. A site that shows a fee and a booking button on one screen is the point of the spend. A prettier site with the same leaks fills the same calendar.

Workflow automation costs $2,500 to $15,000 to set up and $500 to $2,000 a month to keep working. An AI receptionist runs $1,500 to $4,000 to set up plus $200 to $600 a month (Loudachris AI, 2026; Source Digital, 2026). For an allied health practice the workflows worth paying for are report assembly, intake and referral acknowledgement, and waitlist follow-up, because each one returns clinician hours you can bill.

Chatbots split into two markets. A configured off-the-shelf assistant costs $300 to $1,000 once. A custom build with a reviewed knowledge base and booking integration costs $2,000 to $8,000 plus $300 to $800 a month (Bumblebee Studio, 1 August 2026). For a health practice the custom route is the only one to put in front of patients, because every answer needs a clinician's sign-off. A $300 assistant answering health questions unreviewed is an Ahpra problem waiting to happen.

AI visibility, the work of getting a practice named when someone asks ChatGPT or Google AI who to see, is the least settled price of all. One Australian vendor publishes a $2,500 diagnostic and retainers from about $3,200 a month on a six-month minimum (Intelligent Resourcing, 30 June 2026). No survey data exists. Most of the work overlaps with good SEO, so ask whether citation measurement sits inside the SEO retainer or on a second invoice. Paying for it twice is the risk.

What do Google Ads cost: media versus management?

Two numbers, and they should never be on the same invoice.

Management costs $800 to $2,000 a month flat, or 10 to 20% of spend. A usable minimum media budget is $1,500 to $3,000 a month on top of that (WME, 3 July 2026; Ape-X, 16 May 2026). Fund three months of media before you start. The first month is the expensive one, and the account learns from it.

We would not pay a percentage of spend. It rewards the agency for spending more of your money whether or not the bookings follow. A flat fee, or management folded into a retainer, keeps the incentive on results.

The media itself goes on your card in your own Google Ads account, so the history and the data stay yours if you change agencies. Health is a sensitive category under Google's personalised advertising policy, so remarketing and lookalike audiences are off the table whoever manages it.

Under about $1,000 a month you are usually paying for a report, not for work.

What moves a quote up or down?

Four things, and a fair quote names which of them applies to you.

Professions and locations

One profession at one location sits at the bottom of each range. Every added profession or location adds pages to write, a Google Business Profile to maintain and prompts to measure.

The state of what exists

A usable website and a complete Google Business Profile keep a project in the low thousands. A site that has to be rebuilt, or a profile that has never been claimed, roughly doubles it.

How much you automate

Each automation connects to your practice management software and has to be maintained when the funding rules change. Two workflows cost less than half of five.

Regulated copy

Health content costs more than a cafe's because every claim gets checked against Ahpra's advertising guidelines and section 133 of the National Law. If a quote for health copy is cheap, ask which step it skipped.

Does the spend pay for itself?

Divide the monthly cost by what one clinician bills an hour. That is the number of extra booked hours you need.

On NDIS work the rate is fixed. An occupational therapy or speech pathology hour is $193.99 for 2026-27 (NDIA Pricing Schedule 2026-27, July 2026), so the same retainer is under eight claimable hours across the whole practice.

Hours returned count the same way. An OT who gets two hours back on every NDIS report at $193.99 recovers a $5,000 automation build after about thirteen reports. For a practice writing three a week, that is inside the first quarter.

As one example, Go Forth Digital's pricing is quote-based and set in ranges, all ex GST: one-off projects from $1,500 to $10,000, ongoing work on one service from $800 to $6,500 a month, and full-service retainers from $3,000 to $8,000 a month, on a three-month initial term then rolling, quoted in writing. Run those against your rate the same way you would run anyone else's. If the arithmetic does not get there, the right answer is to fix the Google Business Profile yourself and spend the money on a clinician.

Bring your utilisation by clinician and your hourly rate to any first conversation. An agency that will not run the numbers with you before quoting is telling you something.

What should a quote include before you sign?

Scope, term, ownership, and who pays the vendors.

1. A written scope with a fixed price. The number moves only if you change the scope. "From" prices without a scope are not quotes.
2. A short initial term, then rolling. Three months is fair, because the first citations and the first automation savings take a quarter to show. After that, a month's notice should end it. A twelve-month lock-in is a sign the work does not stand on its own.
3. Ownership in your name from day one. The site, the domain, the content and the automations sit in your accounts. A handover clause that puts everything in your hands within a week of leaving belongs in the agreement, not in a promise.
4. Vendors billed to you, not through the agency. Ad spend, your practice management software, the automation platform and the calendar tool stay in your name at the vendor's published price. This is also why a retainer can sit below the full-service figures above: the media and the tools are not inside it, so there is nothing to mark up.
5. The name of the person doing the work. The hourly rate tells you their seniority. The name tells you whether you will ever speak to them.
6. One line on compliance. Ask how they check pages against Ahpra's advertising guidelines, or the Speech Pathology Australia, Dietitians Australia or ESSA standards if that is your profession. The answer should be a process, not a reassurance.