Med spa pricing, packages and memberships that actually hold up
Per-unit versus per-area pricing, good-better-best treatment plans, deposits, membership tiers that flatten slow months, and how pricing decides your ad math.
Pricing is the most consequential marketing decision a med spa makes, and it is usually made by copying the clinic across town and then discounting when the calendar gets thin.
The discounting is the part that compounds. Run a Botox special in February and again in April, and by June a meaningful share of your client base has learned to wait. In a business built on repeat visits, teaching clients to wait for a promotion is the single most expensive habit an owner can form.
Per unit versus per area
The industry runs both models and they attract different clients.
Per unit is transparent and it is what price shoppers compare. It also invites the conversation you least want, which is a negotiation about units, and it makes you look expensive against a clinic quoting a lower number and using a diluted product.
Per area or per treatment prices the outcome. "Forehead and glabella, $425." The client understands what she is buying, the injector uses what the face needs, and you stop competing on a number that says nothing about the result.
Most clinics that switch to per-area pricing report a higher average ticket and fewer price arguments. The exception is a market where every competitor advertises per unit and prospects arrive already framed that way. In that case, quote per area but publish the per-unit equivalent so you are comparable.
Either way, keep per-unit prices out of your ad copy. It attracts the wrong buyer and it collides with the prescription drug policy issues covered in the Google Ads guide.
Good, better, best in the consult
The consult should end with three written options, not one quote. Something like:
- Good. The single treatment she came in for. "Forehead and glabella today, $425."
- Better. The treatment plus the obvious complement. "Add crow's feet and a skin booster, $695, and we schedule your two-week touch-up now."
- Best. The plan across a year, usually as a membership or a package. "Quarterly neurotoxin plus two facials, $189 a month, which works out below the per-visit price and locks your injector's schedule."
Most clients pick the middle. That is the point. A single quote invites a yes or a no; three options invite a choice, and the average ticket in a three-option consult runs meaningfully higher than in a one-quote consult.
Write the options on paper or on a tablet, hand it to her, and be quiet. The presentation matters as much as the pricing.
Deposits
A $50 deposit at booking, applied to the treatment, does three things: it cuts no-shows sharply, it filters out the caller who was never going to come, and it converts a booking into a small commitment that psychologically precedes the larger one.
Clinics resist it because they fear losing bookings. They do lose some, and those bookings were the ones that would have no-showed. Track the change in shows-per-booked rather than bookings, and the picture is usually clear inside a month.
Make the refund policy plain and generous. "Fully refundable with 24 hours notice." Nobody argues with that, and it removes the objection before it forms.
Memberships, and why they change your marketing math
A membership is a monthly charge that either banks credit toward treatments or includes a set of services. It is the most important structural decision in an aesthetic practice because it converts unpredictable impulse revenue into a recurring base.
Start with a single tier. Price it near the value of a monthly facial or a partial neurotoxin appointment, somewhere in the $99 to $199 range in most markets. Include one service, a standing discount on everything else, and one member-only perk with no marginal cost, such as first access to event nights.
What it does to your numbers:
- Slow months flatten. January and the post-holiday stretch stop being a hole because members are already paying. The slow-season plan leans on this.
- Lifetime value rises enough to change what you can pay for a client. If a member averages 18 months at $149, you can justify an acquisition cost several times what a single-treatment buyer would support. That is the difference between Google Ads working and not working for your clinic.
- Rebooking stops being a task. Members book because they are paying either way.
Add a second and third tier only after you have 30 members and know which service they actually use. More tiers before that produces confusion and refunds.
Packages, and the trap in them
Package pricing (buy six laser sessions, save 15%) works for treatments that require a series. It fails when it becomes the default discount channel for everything.
Two rules. First, package only what genuinely needs multiple sessions: laser hair removal, body contouring, microneedling series, chemical peel courses. Second, put an expiry on the package, typically twelve months, and disclose it clearly at purchase, because unlimited-life packages become a liability on your books and a scheduling problem for your injectors.
Track unredeemed package value monthly. Clinics are routinely surprised by how large that number gets, and it is real money you have already spent staffing against.
What to publish and what to hold back
Publish enough to filter. A price range on the treatment page and a starting price in your Google Business Profile service descriptions is usually right. Hold back the full menu if your consult conversion is strong, because the consult is where the plan gets built.
What you never do is refuse to discuss price on the phone. "We would need you to come in for that" reads as evasive and loses the caller. Give a range, then close for the appointment. The exact script is in the follow-up guide.
Frequently asked
Should I match a competitor's $9 per unit Botox pricing? No. That price point is usually a loss leader funded by upsell or by a diluted product, and matching it hands your whole market a new anchor. Compete on the injector, the room and the follow-up.
How often should I raise prices? Once a year, quietly, on the published menu, and grandfather existing members for a defined period. Most clinics under-price for years and then attempt a large correction, which is far more disruptive than 4% annually.
Do memberships require special software? Any modern aesthetic practice management system handles recurring billing. What it will not do is sell the membership. That happens in the consult, with the third option written on the page.
If you want the offer structure, membership build and the consult framework set up, it is one of the services in the free 14-day trial. Text or call (385) 832-6175, or see where your clinic sits in the benchmark report.