This page covers healthcare pricing only. For the wider market, see what AEO costs in 2026.
What do published healthcare AEO prices look like?
| Type of organization | Published monthly range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Practice doing its own clinical sign-off | From about $999 | Entry-level managed service |
| Single practice, full service | $2,000–$5,000 | Small and mid-size practices |
| Mid-market group, specialist agency | $7,500–$25,000 | Multi-location groups |
| Hospital or health system | $30,000+ | Multi-location schema, compliance review and reporting bundled |
All four rows are from GTM 80/20. The single-practice row is a benchmark it quotes from a separate 2026 healthcare guide, so treat it as secondhand. The spread between rows is large because a health system and a two-provider practice are buying different things under the same name.
How much does AEO cost by medical specialty?
We found no published AEO prices broken out by specialty. These are ElytraCo's own planning estimates for a single-location practice, based on the scope each usually needs.
| Specialty | Estimated monthly investment | Main cost driver |
|---|---|---|
| Medical spas | $2,500–$5,000 | Many treatments, injector credentials, heavy local competition |
| Dental practices | $3,000–$5,000 | Cosmetic and implant procedures each need their own pages |
| Plastic surgery practices | $4,000–$8,000 | Surgeon-level profiles, procedure depth, high case value |
How does medical AEO pricing compare with medical SEO?
Medical SEO is cheaper at the bottom of the market and has far more published prices.
| Service | Published monthly range | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Local healthcare SEO | $300–$2,000 | WebFX |
| Healthcare SEO retainer | $1,500–$5,000 | WebFX |
| Medical SEO services | $2,500–$7,500 | SEO.com |
| Med spa SEO, one location | $1,000–$1,500 | The Search Sherpa |
| Med spa SEO, competitive metro | $1,500–$3,000 | The Search Sherpa |
| Full-service AEO, single practice | $2,000–$5,000 | GTM 80/20 |
The gap at the low end is real. A med spa can buy SEO for $1,000 a month, and nobody credible publishes full AEO at that price. The reason is the off-site work: provider profiles, review programs and third-party mentions take hours that a $1,000 retainer does not cover.
Can a typical practice afford it?
This is the question most pricing pages skip. In a 2026 survey by Growth99, reported by Webtonic from AmSpa data, 52% of med spas invest less than $2,500 a month in all of their marketing, and only 25% reach $5,000.
Put that next to the table above. For about half of med spas, a full AEO retainer would take the entire marketing budget. That is not a sensible first move. A practice at that level is better served by three cheaper steps:
- Get a baseline. A tracking tool at $30 to $50 a month, or a free audit, shows whether AI names you and who it names instead.
- Fix the provider profiles. Healthgrades, RealSelf, Zocdoc and Google Business Profile corrections cost staff time, not a retainer.
- Ask for specific reviews. Reviews that name the provider and the procedure are what AI quotes.
A retainer makes sense once the practice has budget beyond those basics and a procedure worth enough to carry it.
How does AEO compare with paying for search ads?
Search ads are the channel most practices already understand, so they make a fair yardstick. LocaliQ's 2026 search advertising benchmarks report these averages:
| Category | Cost per click | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|
| Physicians and surgeons | $4.76 | $40.04 |
| Dentists and dental services | $8.00 | $72.97 |
| Beauty and personal care | $4.62 | $39.25 |
At $40 a lead, a $3,000 budget buys about 75 search leads a month. An AEO retainer at the same price has to earn its place against that. The case for it is that ads stop when the budget stops, while a practice that AI names keeps being named. The AEO ROI calculator lets you compare the two on your own patient value.
What does compliance add to the cost?
Healthcare content needs more review than most, and review is billable time.
- Clinical review. GTM 80/20 puts outsourced clinical or compliance review at $2,000 to $8,000 a month on top of a mid-market retainer. A single practice usually avoids this by having a provider approve each page.
- Testimonials and before-and-after photos. These fall under the FTC's endorsement guides and state medical board rules. Typical results have to be disclosed and consent kept on file.
- Review responses. A reply to a review must not confirm that the reviewer is a patient.
- Tracking on your website. This is separate from AEO, but it comes up in every engagement. See what medical practices can still run.
Why do providers and procedures change the price?
AI often recommends a named provider, and it answers by procedure. "Best plastic surgeon" and "best surgeon for revision rhinoplasty" return different names from different sources. So the scope of a medical program is roughly the number of providers multiplied by the number of procedures you want to be recommended for.
A practical way to control cost is to choose. Pick the three or four procedures you most want more of, and the providers who perform them, and have the first 90 days scoped to those. More on the work itself on our page for medical practices, and on how the engines pick in what patients see when they ask AI to recommend a doctor.
Medical AEO pricing FAQ
Does AEO for a medical practice require patient data?
Is clinical review included in an AEO retainer?
Is AEO priced per provider or per procedure?
What does ElytraCo charge medical practices for AEO?
More on AEO pricing
- AEO pricing: What AEO costs across the market, from 15 published prices.
- Law firm AEO pricing: Costs by firm type and the math per signed case.
- AEO vs SEO cost: The two services priced side by side.
- AEO ROI calculator: Break-even and return on your own numbers.
Sources
Every figure above was read from these pages on 14 November 2026. Prices change, so check the source before you rely on a number.
- GTM 80/20: AEO retainers for healthcare organizations. Page dated Nov 2026.
- WebFX: healthcare SEO pricing. Page dated Oct 2026.
- SEO.com: medical SEO service pricing.
- The Search Sherpa: med spa SEO pricing. Page updated Oct 2026.
- Webtonic: med spa marketing budgets, reporting Growth99's 2026 survey. Page dated Oct 2026.
- LocaliQ: search advertising benchmarks by industry. Page updated Jun 2026.