What a clinic site has to do
A physio, chiro, osteopath, podiatry or multi-disciplinary clinic website has one job: turn someone in pain, searching on their phone, into a booked appointment with the right practitioner. Everything about cost should be judged against that. A cheap site that does not book is expensive; a mid-priced one that fills the diary is cheap.
Here are the bands as they stand in 2026, and where a typical clinic should land.
Band 1: do it yourself, under $500 plus subscription
A Squarespace or Wix template, or your practice software's free "website" feature, set up in-house.
Included: a presentable page or two, your details, a link to online booking.
Missing: speed on a phone, a page per service and condition that can rank in search, real integration with your practice management system beyond a link, and support. The subscription runs forever.
Right for: a sole practitioner starting out, for the first year.
Band 2: template build by a local designer, $1,500 to $4,000
A WordPress theme or builder template with your branding, photos and copy, and a booking link to Cliniko, Jane or Nookal.
Included: a site that looks like yours, basic SEO fields, a training session.
Usually missing: speed (templates and builders are heavy), condition and service pages with structure, booking embedded and tested on a phone, conversion tracking, and clarity on who owns the hosting and domain. Ask.
Right for: a clinic that needs a solid presence and gets most patients by referral.
Band 3: purpose-built for a clinic, $4,000 to $12,000
A fixed-scope build by a studio that works with booking-led health businesses: a page per service and per common condition, practitioner profiles with registration and specialisms, online booking integrated with your practice software and tested end to end on a phone, a fast build that passes Google's mobile speed thresholds, structured data for a medical business, conversion tracking, and a handover with everything in your name.
Included: a site designed to produce bookings and measured on whether it does. Condition pages that can rank for "sciatica physio [town]" and "sports massage near me". A booking flow that lets a patient choose the right practitioner without phoning.
Not usually included: photography, copywriting (unless specified), ongoing SEO campaigns.
Right for: most established clinics with two or more practitioners, and any clinic that relies on search for new patients.
Band 4: groups and platforms, $15,000 and up
Multi-site clinic groups, patient portals, class and membership systems, deep PMS integration, full brand projects.
Running costs after launch
- Hosting: managed WordPress at $20 to $50 a month, or often free on a framework host, in your name.
- Domain: small, annual.
- Practice management system: you have this already; its online booking is usually included or a modest add-on.
- Maintenance: a care plan at a modest monthly fee covering updates, backups, monitoring, security and small changes; or pay-as-you-go when something breaks.
- Photography: a half day locally. Real practitioners in real treatment rooms convert; stock models do not.
- Copywriting, if you would rather not write the condition pages.
Where the money goes in band 3
For a clinic asking why band 3 costs three times band 2, the difference is in what is built rather than how it looks:
- Structured content. Services, conditions and practitioners as records with fields, not paragraphs pasted into pages. This is what makes the site rank per condition and what makes it editable by reception without breaking it.
- Booking done properly. Not a link, but the practice software's widget embedded, configured for practitioner and service selection, tested on a phone in the in-app browsers patients actually use, with a tracked button on every page.
- Speed. Built and measured to pass Core Web Vitals on a mid-range phone, because the patient in pain does not wait four seconds.
- Search foundation. Titles, descriptions, structured data for the clinic and each service, a sitemap, Search Console set up.
- Tracking. Booking clicks, calls and form submissions counted by page and source, so the clinic knows what the site produces.
- Ownership and handover. Domain, hosting and every account in your name; a recorded walkthrough; a document.
Band 2 rarely includes more than one of those. Band 3 includes all of them, and they are the parts that produce patients.
How to compare quotes
Ask each provider for the scope in writing and compare on: which pages and content types, which booking integration and whether it is embedded and tested, what speed target, what tracking, what is handed over and in whose name. Then ask to see a clinic site they have built, on your phone, and its Search Console speed report. A provider who cannot show a fast clinic site has not built one.
What we charge
Our clinic sites are band 3, at a fixed price with the scope published. The details are on the clinic page, and the first step is a short call to confirm which practice software you use and which services you want patients for. If your current site is in band 1 or 2 and the diary is not filling from it, the cost that matters is the patients booking with the clinic whose site loaded first.