What agencies sell and how they charge

Agency proposals are hard to compare because every agency bundles and names its services differently. Break each proposal into the services it actually contains and the way each one is charged, and the comparison gets much easier.

What dental marketing agencies sell

• SEO and local SEO: website content, technical fixes, Business Profile management and citations. Slow to show results, and the area with the most shortcuts for sale. The local SEO guide explains what the honest version looks like.
• Paid ads management: setting up and running campaigns on Google, Meta and other platforms, including landing pages and call tracking.
• Websites: design and build, hosting, maintenance and updates. Some agencies build a site you keep; others run it on their own platform for a monthly fee.
• Social media management: posting, graphics and sometimes community replies.
• Review and reputation software: tools that send review requests and collect reviews in one place, usually sold as a monthly license.
• Reporting and call tracking: dashboards, tracking numbers and call recording, often bundled into the above.

How agencies charge

• Monthly retainer. A fixed fee for an agreed scope of work. Predictable, and fair when the scope is clear. The risk is a vague scope: ask exactly what is done each month and how you will see it.
• Percentage of ad spend. The management fee rises as your ad budget rises. More spend often does mean more work, so this isn’t unreasonable, but it also means the agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not it works. Ask whether there is a minimum, and whether a flat fee is available.
• Setup or onboarding fees. One-time charges for building campaigns, a website, tracking or reporting. Ask what you keep from that work if you leave.
• Per-lead or per-patient pricing. You pay for each call, form or booked patient. It sounds perfectly aligned, but everything depends on the definition: does a lead include existing patients, wrong numbers, duplicates and calls that never book? Pricing tied to the number of patients or the revenue they produce can also run into state dental board rules on fee splitting and, where government programs are involved, federal anti-kickback rules. Ask a healthcare attorney before you agree to it; the compliance guides cover where to start.
• Software licenses. Monthly fees for review tools, call tracking or patient messaging, sometimes resold by the agency. Ask whether you could hold the license directly.

Websites: owned or leased

A leased website, where the agency hosts and maintains the site on its own platform, can be a reasonable choice for a practice that wants no technical responsibility. Just know what you’re getting: if you leave, you may keep your words and photos but not the site itself. Ask in writing what happens to the website, the domain and the content when the contract ends. The dental website guide covers what a good practice site needs.

Compare on one number

Whatever the model, the comparison that matters is what each agency will cost per new patient who actually books, including ad spend, fees and software. The budget and ROI guide shows how to separate ad spend from fees and work that number out.