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UK Clinic Benchmark: Winning a New Patient Costs £25, One Consultation Earns £74

HMDG's 2026 UK Private Practice Barometer found that among the clinics who actually track it, the median cost of winning a new MSK patient is £25, set against a median £74 consultation fee. This is squarely about clinics, though anyone charging for a first appointment might want to keep reading.

Page updated: 14 Aug 2026

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Clinics that bother to measure their acquisition cost end up with a small, slightly humbling number, and the rest are left guessing.

Original Research	HMDG's annual stocktake of UK private MSK clinics on pay, pricing and patient acquisition
Source	https://hmdg.co.uk/private-practice-barometer/
Overview	The 2026 Barometer draws on 715 responses from UK private musculoskeletal clinics, benchmarking salaries, fees and operational figures, including how much it costs to win a new patient.
Year	2026
Publisher	Industry body, HMDG
Relevance to Wellbeing	For clinical practices, this is a disclosed, UK-specific benchmark for what patient acquisition should cost, handy for either justifying your spend or quietly questioning it.
Our Verdict	Too early to tell the figure is real and specific, but it comes from a smaller, more data-literate slice of the sector than the headline suggests.
Our Summary	A disclosed sample and a named methodology, which is more than most acquisition-cost claims manage. A genuine UK benchmark clinics can measure their own numbers against, rather than a plucked-from-nowhere figure. Only around a quarter of respondents actually track cost per acquisition, so the median reflects the keener end of the sector, not everyone. It's MSK-specific, so borrowing the £25 for a coaching or healing practice is comparing rather different animals.
Our Geo View	UK-specific: fees, wages and acquisition costs reflect the UK private clinic market and won't map onto other countries' pricing or insurance systems.

Abstract of wellbeing niches and revenue flow

Recognise how this might impact your practice

Why this might matter to you

Coaching: this matters because it shows how modest new-client costs look once somebody actually sits down and measures them, rather than guessing over coffee.
Therapy: this matters because a real number beats whatever your gut tells you marketing "feels like" it costs.
Training: this matters because studios weighing up drop-ins against regulars can borrow the logic, even without an MSK price tag attached.
Alternative Healing: this matters because a benchmark like this quietly raises the bar on what "we're doing fine, thanks" is supposed to mean.
Clinical: this matters because it's the one line in the whole report clinics can actually check their own spreadsheet against.
Retreat/Centre: this matters because centres selling higher-ticket packages can use the ratio, even if their own figures look nothing like £25 and £74.

Where this came from

HMDG's yearly stocktake of UK private MSK clinics, covering pay, pricing and how new patients actually turn up.

HMDG, UK Private Practice Barometer 2026, published 2026.

Credibility flags: 715 respondents overall; the £25 figure comes specifically from the 25.8% of clinics who track cost per acquisition; publisher is an industry data firm serving the private clinic sector.

How we scored this

A relevance score out of 100, built from three things: how well it fits the six practice types, how recent it is, and how solid the methodology behind it is.

93%

Practice fit, 100How new, 100How solid, 75

Marked down slightly on how solid the method is, since the headline figure comes from a self-selected slice of trackers rather than the whole sample, though practice fit and recency both score well given this is fresh, sector-specific UK data.

It's worth considering changes to your marketing practices

What this means for your marketing

Put the £25-versus-£74 comparison on your booking page, right next to the consultation fee.
Say the acquisition figure out loud before a prospective client asks whether marketing is even worth it.
Brief your front desk on the ratio, so it comes out as a fact, not a sales pitch.
Use one line of it in ad copy: a new patient pays for themselves inside a single visit.
Keep the MSK caveat handy, so nobody quotes the £25 figure for reiki or reflexology.

Who this is most useful for

Practice type	Relevance	Recommended action
Coaching	Medium	Borrow the acquisition-to-fee ratio logic, not the pound figure itself.
Therapy	Medium	Use it as a prompt to work out your own cost per client.
Training	Low	Interesting context, but pricing isn't directly comparable.
Alternative Healing	Low	Treat as a benchmark mindset rather than a benchmark figure.
Clinical	High	Use directly; same sector, same pricing logic.
Retreat/Centre	Medium	Adapt the ratio to package pricing, ignore the actual pounds.

Best before

Best before: revisit when HMDG publish the next Barometer, expected 2027. Until then, treat these 2026 figures as current via the HMDG Private Practice Barometer.

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