"How much should I spend on Facebook ads?" is the single most common question we hear from dental practice owners. And it's a smart question — because spending too little wastes money just as much as spending too much. After managing over $1.5 million in dental ad spend across South Florida, we have real data to guide your decision. Here's the complete breakdown of dental facebook ads cost in 2026.
Let's skip the vague "it depends" and give you actual numbers. Your ideal monthly ad spend depends primarily on the size and growth goals of your practice.
Recommended budget: $1,000–$2,000/month
If you're a single-doctor office or you've been open less than two years, this range lets you test the waters without overcommitting. At this spend level, expect 15–30 leads per month in most markets. The goal here isn't to flood your schedule overnight — it's to learn which offers resonate, which creative formats perform, and how well your front desk converts inquiries into booked appointments.
Recommended budget: $2,500–$5,000/month
This is the sweet spot for most general dentistry practices that already have a steady patient base and want to grow. With $3,000/month in ad spend, you can run multiple campaigns simultaneously — one for new patient acquisition, one for retargeting website visitors, and one for building brand awareness with video content. Expect 35–60 leads per month.
Recommended budget: $5,000–$15,000/month
If you're running multiple offices, offering high-value services like implants or Invisalign, or operating in a fiercely competitive metro area, this is where you need to play. At $7,500/month you can dominate your geographic zone and generate 75–150+ leads per month across service lines.
Two practices in the same city can spend the same amount and get wildly different results. Here are the variables that determine your actual cost per lead.
Facebook ads work on an auction system. The more advertisers targeting the same audience, the higher your costs. A dental practice in downtown Miami or Boca Raton will pay significantly more per impression than one in Fort Pierce or Port St. Lucie, simply because more businesses are competing for attention in those markets.
Not all dental services cost the same to advertise. General cleaning offers tend to produce the cheapest leads ($12–$25), while specialty services like dental implants ($35–$75 per lead) and cosmetic dentistry ($25–$50 per lead) cost more because the audiences are smaller and more competitive. However, the revenue per patient is also much higher for specialty services, so the ROI often works out better.
Your offer is the single biggest lever you can pull. A practice running a "Free Whitening with New Patient Exam" will see cost-per-lead rates 2–3 times lower than one running a generic "Schedule Your Visit" campaign. The offer doesn't have to cost you much — it just needs to feel valuable to the patient.
Facebook rewards engaging content with lower costs. Ads that earn high click-through rates and engagement get shown to more people at a lower price. Video ads consistently deliver 40–60% lower cost per lead compared to static image ads. Authentic, relatable videos of the dentist and team outperform polished stock photography every time.
Sending ad traffic to your homepage is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make. A dedicated landing page with a single clear call-to-action converts 3–5 times better than a generic website page. That means the same ad spend generates three to five times more leads.
South Florida is one of the most competitive dental markets in the country. Here's what we see across our client base in the region:
South Florida also has seasonal fluctuations that savvy dentists can exploit. From November through April, the population swells with snowbirds who need dental work done while they're in town. Ad costs rise slightly during this window, but the patient quality and volume also spike — making it the best time to be aggressive with your budget.
Forget impressions and click-through rates for a moment. The only metric that matters is return on investment. Here's how the math works for a typical dental practice:
Monthly ad spend: $3,000
Leads generated: 45 (at $67 cost per lead)
Leads that book appointments: 18 (40% booking rate)
Patients that show up: 14 (80% show rate)
Average first-year patient value: $1,100
First-year revenue from ad spend: $15,400
ROI: 5.1x on ad spend alone
And that's just the first year. The lifetime value of a dental patient ranges from $5,000 to $15,000 depending on the services they receive and how long they stay with your practice. When you factor in referrals from happy patients, the true ROI is often 15–25x.
Here's a simple formula to back into your ideal monthly ad spend:
This formula gives you a data-driven starting point instead of an arbitrary number. Adjust after 60 days of real performance data.
How you distribute your budget across campaign types matters as much as the total amount. Here's how we structure a $3,000/month budget for our dental Meta ads clients:
Running Facebook ads on $300/month is worse than not running them at all. At that budget, the algorithm doesn't have enough conversions to optimize, so every lead is expensive and inconsistent. $1,000/month is the minimum for any meaningful campaign.
You can have the best ads in the world, but if your front desk takes two hours to call back leads, you're burning money. Facebook leads are time-sensitive — calling within five minutes increases your booking rate by 400%. Budget means nothing without speed-to-lead.
Many dentists slash their ad spend when the schedule gets light, which is exactly backward. Slow months are when you need more advertising, not less. Facebook's algorithm also loses its optimization data when you pause campaigns, meaning you'll pay more to restart.
Tracking cost per lead is easy. Tracking cost per patient who actually shows up and accepts treatment requires a CRM and intake process. Without this data, you're making budget decisions blind. Every practice running paid ads needs a closed-loop tracking system.
Ad fatigue is real. The same audience seeing the same ad for 8 weeks stops paying attention. Plan to refresh your creative every 4–6 weeks — new videos, new images, new angles on your offer.
Scaling too fast kills campaigns just as easily as underspending. Increase your budget only when these conditions are met:
When all four boxes are checked, increase your budget by 20–30% at a time. Monitor for two weeks. If performance holds, increase again. This gradual approach prevents the algorithm from resetting and protects your ROI.
The real dental facebook ads cost isn't just what you spend on Meta — it's the total system: ad spend, creative production, landing pages, CRM, and front desk training. Practices that invest in all five pieces consistently see 5–10x returns. Those that cheap out on any one of them struggle to break even.
Start with $1,500–$3,000/month in ad spend, pair it with authentic video creative and a high-converting landing page, and give the campaign 60–90 days to optimize. Most practices see their first profitable month within 45 days.
For South Florida dental practices, the opportunity is massive. The market is competitive, but the patient volume is enormous — especially during snowbird season. The practices that win aren't the ones spending the most. They're the ones with the best systems.
The data behind why video ads crush static images for dentists — and how to start producing them.
Every channel, every tactic, every budget range — the definitive guide for South Florida dental practices.
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