Layer 1
The pitch you’ve been sold
30 leads at £10 each looks great. But you’re forgetting the agency fee. Suddenly each lead costs £77, not £10. Keep going.
Layer 2
Leads aren’t patients
On average, only 1 in 5 Meta MSK leads turns into a booked appointment. The other four ghost, change their mind, or never wanted an appointment in the first place. If your conversion is different, set it on the slider above.
Layer 3
The chase you didn’t price in
Leads don’t answer first time. Reception, admin, or worse – you – spend hours every month phoning, emailing, texting and WhatsApping people who half-remembered ticking a Facebook ad, if they remember at all. The time and cost of setting up those nurture tools doesn’t even show on this line.
Layer 4
The offer that gets them through the door
Meta MSK conversions live or die on the offer. Free assessments mean clinicians working unpaid. Discounts mean revenue gaps. Full price means almost nobody books.
Layer 5
The retention gap
Patients acquired on a discount come once and never come back. Patients acquired through brand, search or referral come 5+ times. You’re paying premium prices for one-time customers.
Layer 6
The hidden taxes
Diary cannibalisation
£180/mo
Every Meta-discount slot is a slot a full-price patient could have had. Estimated at £30 per booked patient.
Brand positioning
Flagged
You become the cheap clinic. Patients price-shop you forever. Hard to quantify, easy to feel.
Team morale
Flagged
Clinicians delivering free or discounted work to patients who don’t value it. Burnout. Attrition. Recruitment costs.
The reveal
Where your £10 lead actually went
Profitability
What it would take to actually make money
Forget the cost. How many paid sessions per patient would you need just to break even?
Paid sessions needed per patient to break even
0
Cash cost per patient £0 Profit per paid session £0