Healthcare Google Ads Benchmarks: 2026
We priced 101 commercial healthcare search terms in Ahrefs across 12 service lines, then matched those estimates with LocaliQ and WordStream benchmark reports covering 3,542 healthcare ad campaigns and 13,474 campaigns across all industries. The results show what healthcare advertisers pay on Google as of Q4 2026.
Key Findings
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A dermatology practice and a psychiatry group can buy ads on the same platform, target people in the same city, and end up paying very different amounts for one new inquiry. Most practice managers see only the numbers in their own account, so they often learn the going rate by spending money first. A year of data shows how quickly that rate can move. In the 12 months LocaliQ measured, cost per lead for mental health campaigns rose 146%, while dermatology fell 37%.
Our analysts pulled estimated cost per click for each search term from Ahrefs on November 9, 2026, keeping terms that signal someone shopping for care and dropping brand names, job searches, and how-to questions. We then set those keyword prices beside the published medians in LocaliQ's specialty report and WordStream's 2026 all-industry report.
In the following sections, we compare estimated click prices by service line, cost per lead across 16 specialties, click-through rates by specialty, and how healthcare categories stack up against other industries.
Addiction Treatment Searches Carry the Highest Click Prices in Our Sample
Start with the click itself, since every campaign budget is built on it. Some service lines cost far more to bid on than others, even when the searches look alike.
Estimated Google Cost per Click by Healthcare Service Line (November 2026)
Service Line | Terms Sampled | Median CPC | Lowest CPC | Highest CPC |
Addiction treatment | 7 | $12.00 | $9.00 | $14.00 |
Medical weight loss | 9 | $4.50 | $3.00 | $6.00 |
Therapy and psychiatry | 12 | $4.50 | $2.00 | $8.00 |
Dental implants | 10 | $3.75 | $0.40 | $6.00 |
LASIK | 8 | $3.50 | $1.10 | $12.00 |
Botox | 12 | $3.50 | $2.50 | $5.00 |
Fertility clinics | 9 | $3.00 | $2.50 | $8.00 |
Invisalign | 6 | $2.75 | $1.60 | $6.00 |
Hair transplant | 5 | $2.50 | $1.90 | $3.50 |
Physical therapy | 5 | $2.50 | $1.20 | $3.00 |
Plastic surgery cost searches | 12 | $1.80 | $1.40 | $2.50 |
Hearing aids | 6 | $1.25 | $1.00 | $3.00 |
Key Findings
Addiction treatment terms sat about 2.7 times above the next highest service lines. Two searches, drug rehab near me and inpatient alcohol rehab, reached $14.00 per click.
Near-me phrasing tended to cost more. The 41 near-me terms had a median of $4.00, compared with $2.50 for the 60 terms without it.
For a practice owner, these estimates show which service lines take the largest budget to buy the same number of clicks. Bids change as clinics enter or leave a market, so the order can shift from month to month.
Mental Health Leads Cost More Than Any Other Specialty
A cheap click means little if few people go on to call or fill out a form. Cost per lead captures both steps, and this is where specialties pull apart.
Median Google Ads Cost per Lead and Conversion Rate by Specialty (October 2024 to September 2025)
Specialty | Cost per Lead | Conversion Rate |
Mental Health | $141.17 | 1.85% |
Addiction Recovery | $120.30 | 0.50% |
Urology | $111.05 | 4.61% |
Plastic & Cosmetic Surgery | $102.51 | 8.52% |
Hearing Aids & Care | $96.54 | 5.62% |
General Dentistry | $84.77 | 7.74% |
Emergency Dentistry | $75.19 | 8.89% |
Assisted Living, Elder & Home Care Services | $74.44 | 5.51% |
Hospitals & Clinics | $72.97 | 6.10% |
Orthodontics | $71.52 | 14.21% |
General Practice & Family Medicine | $62.80 | 11.63% |
Oral-Maxillofacial Surgery | $55.15 | 11.60% |
Emergency Medicine | $41.68 | 6.89% |
Physical Therapy | $32.79 | 15.35% |
Ophthalmology | $30.88 | 18.29% |
Dermatology | $18.54 | 25.33% |
All 16 specialties | $66.02 | 8.09% |
Key Findings
Mental health leads cost about 7.6 times what dermatology leads cost. Only 1.85% of mental health clicks turned into leads, the second-lowest rate after addiction recovery at 0.50%.
Costs moved sharply within a year. Hearing aid leads rose 107%, addiction recovery rose 77%, and plastic surgery fell 29%, according to LocaliQ.
Practices can judge their own accounts against the row for their specialty instead of the overall median. If conversion rates keep falling in mental health, budgets will need to rise to hold lead volume steady.
Emergency Medicine Ads Earn the Highest Click-Through Rates
Click-through rate shows how often people who see an ad decide it answers their question. Urgent care needs and planned procedures tend to sit at opposite ends of this list.
Median Google Ads Click-Through Rate and Cost per Click by Specialty (October 2024 to September 2025)
Specialty | Click-Through Rate | Cost per Click |
Emergency Medicine | 10.33% | $2.29 |
Hospitals & Clinics | 7.00% | $4.90 |
Physical Therapy | 6.61% | $4.95 |
Ophthalmology | 6.52% | $4.95 |
Emergency Dentistry | 6.40% | $7.85 |
Assisted Living, Elder & Home Care Services | 6.35% | $6.30 |
Urology | 5.93% | $5.64 |
Dermatology | 5.91% | $4.90 |
Oral-Maxillofacial Surgery | 5.89% | $7.85 |
Plastic & Cosmetic Surgery | 5.81% | $5.75 |
General Practice & Family Medicine | 5.50% | $5.47 |
General Dentistry | 5.06% | $7.03 |
Hearing Aids & Care | 5.00% | $8.00 |
Addiction Recovery | 4.57% | $3.46 |
Mental Health | 4.46% | $4.22 |
Orthodontics | 4.35% | $8.76 |
All 16 specialties | 6.07% | $5.64 |
Key Findings
Emergency medicine reached a 10.33% click-through rate, about 1.7 times the overall median, at the lowest cost per click in the report, $2.29.
Orthodontics sat at the other end, with the lowest click-through rate, 4.35%, and the highest cost per click, $8.76. Mental health and addiction recovery also landed in the bottom three on click-through rate.
The overall click-through rate fell about 12% over the year while cost per click rose about 6%, according to LocaliQ. Advertisers are paying slightly more to reach fewer people, and practices that track the two numbers together will catch that squeeze early.
Physician Leads Cost Less Than the All-Industry Median While Dental Leads Cost More
A practice owner weighing Google Ads against other channels will want a reference point from outside healthcare. WordStream's 2026 report provides one, with medians for dozens of categories.
Healthcare Google Ads Results Compared With All Industries (April 2025 to March 2026)
Category | Click-Through Rate | Cost per Click | Conversion Rate | Cost per Lead |
Dentists & Dental Services | 5.66% | $8.00 | 10.67% | $72.97 |
Physicians & Surgeons | 6.61% | $4.76 | 12.43% | $40.04 |
Health & Fitness | 5.81% | $6.17 | 6.94% | $67.36 |
All industries | 6.64% | $5.42 | 8.18% | $66.69 |
Key Findings
Dentists and dental services paid $8.00 per click, the highest of the four groups, and physicians and surgeons paid $4.76.
Physicians and surgeons converted 12.43% of clicks, well above the all-industry 8.18%. WordStream reports their cost per lead fell about 30% from the prior year.
Both healthcare groups converted clicks at higher rates than the all-industry median, so a higher click price does not always mean a much higher cost per lead. Dental clicks cost 48% more than the all-industry median, while dental leads cost 9% more. The 2027 WordStream report will show whether that pattern holds.
Google Ads pricing in healthcare follows the specialty more than the platform. The same auction system charged mental health campaigns far more per lead than dermatology campaigns, and that gap grew wider in one year.
The practices trying to reach people looking for mental health care or addiction treatment now pay the most for each inquiry. Those are also the specialties where the fewest clicks turn into leads, so an extra dollar of budget buys less.
Across the 16 specialties, clicks became more expensive and click-through rates fell over the year, even as the overall cost per lead eased about 6%. So if you run Google Ads for a healthcare practice, compare your cost per lead to the row for your specialty first.
Methodology
We selected 101 US commercial search terms across 12 healthcare service lines from Ahrefs Keywords Explorer on November 9, 2026, keeping terms with a reported cost per click and removing brand names, job searches, celebrity searches, and how-to questions. Cost per click values are Ahrefs estimates of what advertisers pay, shown as medians within each service line.
LocaliQ's specialty figures come from a sample of 3,542 US search advertising campaigns that ran from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025, with at least 43 campaigns per subcategory. LocaliQ labels these averages but reports medians.
WordStream's figures come from 13,474 US search advertising campaigns that ran from April 1, 2025, to March 31, 2026, with at least 52 campaigns per subcategory, also reported as medians.
Derived figures, including ratios and percentage gaps, were calculated from these data.
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