What you are actually buying
A hygiene clinic site has a narrower job than a whole dental practice site. It has to do three things for a stranger on a phone: tell them whether they can come to you without a referral, show what a visit costs, and get the appointment into your diary with a recall attached so they come back in six months.
That third part is the whole business. A patient who comes twice a year for a decade is worth many multiples of a single visit, so the site is not really buying you one booking. It is buying you the start of an interval. The bands below are what the market charges to build that.
Band 1: the booking tool's own page
Cliniko, Jane, Acuity and Square Appointments all give you a public booking page with your clinic name on it. Dentally and Software of Excellence give a practice a patient-facing booking route as part of the system.
Cost: nothing beyond the software you already pay for.
You get: a way to take an appointment.
You do not get: a domain of your own ranking for hygienist searches in your town, a price list, any explanation of direct access, a page on what a visit involves, or a plan sign-up.
Right for: a hygienist in the first few months, filling the diary from a former practice's patients.
Band 2: a template site, $800 to $2,500
A dental or clinic theme with your name on it, a stock photo of a smile, and a link out to booking.
You get: something presentable.
Usually missing: speed on a phone, a price list you can edit yourself, booking embedded rather than linked, a direct-access line on the first screen, plan pricing explained, and hosting in your name.
Right for: a clinic that is already full and wants a business card.
Band 3: a purpose-built hygiene clinic site, $2,500 to $6,000
Built around the sequence a patient actually follows. Direct-access messaging on the first screen where it applies, and a referral or recent examination collected in the booking flow where it does not. A price per visit type and per plan, held as editable records. Booking from Dentally, Software of Excellence, Cliniko, Jane, Acuity or Square Appointments embedded and deep-linked, with reminders before and recalls after at the interval you set. A page on what a hygiene visit involves and how long it takes. Your registration details presented the way your regulator expects. Real photography of your room. Fast on a phone, structured data, tracking, everything in your name.
You get: a site that is found locally, answers the price question before the phone rings, and starts a six-monthly habit rather than selling a single appointment.
Not usually included: photography and copy unless the quote says so.
Right for: an established independent hygienist or a clinic with two or more surgeries.
Band 4: multi-site or mixed clinics, $8,000 and up
Two or more locations with separate diaries, or hygiene sitting alongside general dentistry where the site has to route two different patients cleanly. That work belongs closer to a full dental practice website.
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 software or booking tool: whatever you already pay Dentally, Cliniko, Jane or Square.
- Maintenance: a care plan at a modest monthly fee, which is where prices, recall messages and registration details are kept current.
- Photography: half a day. Your own surgery photographs better than any stock image of a dental chair, and patients are choosing a room as much as a clinician.
Where the band 3 money goes
- Direct-access messaging written for the country you practise in, with the referral path built where one is needed.
- A price list as structured records, per visit type and per plan, so you edit a field rather than ring a developer.
- Booking with reminders and recalls, configured at your interval, tested on a phone.
- The what-happens page, because most patients have never chosen a hygienist directly.
- Plan and membership explanation with sign-up through your booking or payment tool.
- Health information handled properly, so anything clinical travels through a tool built for it under the right agreement, and the website itself stores nothing.
- Speed, local search foundation and tracking of booking clicks and call taps by page.
Judging a quote
Ask six things. Does the first screen say whether a referral is needed, and is it right for my country? Can I edit the prices myself? Is booking embedded, with recalls configured, or is it a link? How is anything containing health information handled? What is the mobile speed target? Whose name are the domain and hosting in? A quote that cannot answer those is a template quote whatever the number says.
Where this sits
Our dental hygienist websites sit in band 3 at a fixed price, with direct-access messaging, the editable price list, booking with recalls and the what-happens page included. If your site is in band 1 or 2 and your phone still rings asking what a scale and polish costs and whether a referral is needed, count how many of those callers booked. The ones who did not rang somebody else.