Open slots, and a phone that isn’t ringing.
Your Psychology Today profile is on page four behind sixty other clinicians, and the inquiries that do come through are random or mismatched. Whether you are filling open slots with in-network commercial insurance or building a 100% private-pay practice, we put your practice at the top of local Google Search, write the intake page that pre-qualifies patients, and pay for the ads out of one flat rate.
What you are actually thinking.
We would rather answer the four hard ones now than have you read a pitch with them still in the back of your mind.
I got burned by an agency that promised twenty clients in thirty days.
So has almost every clinician we speak to. We do not promise a client count, because nobody honest can — search volume for your specialty in your city is a fixed quantity and no agency controls it. What we commit to is the campaign, the intake page, the ad spend, and the reporting, month to month, with nothing to cancel. If it is not working by month two, you leave and we have both learned something.
Self-promotion makes me deeply uncomfortable.
Nothing we write for you uses urgency, scarcity, or the word "transform". A search ad is closer to a phonebook entry than a billboard: someone has already decided to look for a therapist, and the ad states that you exist, what you treat, and where. You are not persuading anyone to want therapy. You are being findable at the moment they went looking.
Is it even safe to put tracking on a therapy website?
This is the right question, and most agencies get it wrong. We do not put invasive Meta pixels or tracking cookies on your site. All calls, texts, and booking clicks route directly into your existing practice phone line or secure client portal (SimplePractice, TherapyNotes, etc.), so no patient health information is ever collected or exposed by ad platforms.
I want to go private pay, but I am scared of losing my caseload.
Then do not do it in one step. The sensible sequence is to keep your panels running while the campaign fills the private-pay slots, and depanel only once the replacement volume is real and repeating. The point of running ads first is that leaving insurance stops being a leap of faith.
I take commercial insurance (or use Headway/Alma) — does this work for me?
Yes, and usually with less friction. Searches like "BCBS therapist near me" or "Aetna counseling" are high-volume and unambiguous — someone naming their payer has already decided to start and is checking who takes their plan. The cost objection is smaller too, since most of the fee sits with the insurer rather than the patient, though anyone still inside their deductible pays the contracted rate until it is met. The same caveat applies as everywhere else on this page: we will not put a number of clients or a timeline on it. What changes for an in-network practice is which searches we bid on, not how the work is done.
Why marketing built for software fails mental health practices.
Dear clinician,
If you opened a private practice for the autonomy, the depth of the work, and the chance to earn what your training is actually worth — and instead find yourself waiting to be found — you are in very good company. Nearly every practice owner we speak to describes the same thing, whether they bill insurance, cash, or some of each.
A Psychology Today profile puts you on page four behind sixty other clinicians in your city, sorted by an algorithm you cannot see. Generic agencies quote $1,500 a month for non-compliant lead lists, and the inquiries that do come in are for a plan you are not on or a fee nobody discussed until the first call.
There is a second thing, and almost nobody says it out loud: most marketing aimed at this profession is written in a register that makes clinicians wince. Countdown timers. Testimonials from clients. Language about closing and converting. You did not train for six years to run a funnel, and the guilt attached to charging your full rate does not need any help from a copywriter.
When someone types “trauma therapist near me,” they are not browsing. They are looking for care today.
That is the whole idea. High-intent local search puts your practice in front of people at the exact moment they have decided to seek help — and an honest, well-written intake page tells them what you specialize in and how you bill, whether that is the panels you accept or the fee you charge, before they ever pick up the phone. The result is fewer inquiries and far better ones.
Two ways to fill a caseload.
One depends on being found by someone browsing a list. The other puts you in front of a person who has already decided to start therapy this week.
Your profile sits on page four behind sixty clinicians with the same specialties, ranked by a directory algorithm you have no control over.
Calls about a plan you are not on, a fee they cannot meet, or a presenting problem you do not treat — each one a conversation you did not want to have.
Organic SEO eventually works, but it will not fill the three open slots on your calendar this quarter.
You appear at the top of Google the moment someone nearby searches the exact modality you practice.
A landing page that states which plans you take, or what you charge, so anyone who does not match self-selects out before they reach your inbox.
Campaign, landing page, negative keyword stack, and $500 of ad spend — running before the end of next week.
Three steps, and only one of them needs you.
The most common reason practices put this off is the assumption that running ads becomes another job. It does not. Here is the entire extent of your involvement.
A thirty-minute call, then nothing from you
We map the search demand for your specialty in your metro, agree which panels you want to fill or which fee you want to hold, and take the brief. After that you are not writing copy, picking keywords, or approving mockups — that is the job you are paying for.
We build the campaign and the page behind it
Search campaign, negative keyword stack, and a high-converting landing page that states your specialty and how you bill — panels accepted, or your fee. Inquiries route directly into SimplePractice, TherapyNotes, your office phone, or whatever calendar you already use.
Inquiries arrive already knowing how you bill
You get people who searched for what you actually treat, in your city, and saw whether you take their plan — or what you charge — before submitting. Each month we review the real search terms, cut what is wasting spend, and send you a plain-English summary.
Clinicians who stopped waiting to be found.
Solo clinicians, in-network practices, and group practices who took control of their caseload growth — in their own words.
“Filled four private-pay slots in 6 weeks without haggling over fees.”
“In-network search ads filled 8 open slots across our schedules in 21 days.”
“Every inquiry already read my $200 fee on the landing page before booking.”
“We keep 4 associate schedules full using a mix of BCBS and cash slots.”
“Ads made leaving insurance panels a predictable, safe transition.”
Break-even is two clients.
Lifetime value is the flattering number, so here is the one that decides it. At $175 a session an active client bills about $700 a month against the $1,295 entry plan — so the campaign covers itself once two attributable clients are on your books. Everything past that is contribution.
Modelled at $175 a session, 4 sessions a month, and a 6-month course of treatment, against the $1,295 entry plan. CAC assumes the full plan fee is attributed to acquisition, which is deliberately conservative — it charges you for the landing page and creative as though they produced nothing on their own. Two things worth checking against your own calendar: this only counts clients you would not otherwise have got, and at 3 new clients a month you would settle at about 18 active clients — roughly 18 sessions a week to staff. If you do not have that capacity, the honest answer is a smaller campaign.
One fee. Ad spend included.
No separate Google bill, no setup fee, no percentage of spend. We build, manage, and optimize the campaign, write and host your custom landing page, and pay Google out of the same flat rate.
Solo
One acquired client covers two to three months of this plan, in-network or private pay.
For independent clinicians and licensed psychologists who want a steady, predictable stream of inquiries — whether you bill insurance, cash, or both.
The other $795 is the work: ad copy and creative, campaign build, your landing page, negative keyword management, and monthly optimization. Agencies commonly bill $500–$1,500 a month for management alone — before you have funded a single click.
- Up to $500/mo in Google Search ad spend
- Ad copy and creative, written and tested for you
- Custom high-converting landing page
- Full negative keyword protection stack
- EHR & calendar integration (SimplePractice, TherapyNotes)
Growth
One acquired client covers roughly two months of this plan, in-network or private pay.
For clinicians expanding a caseload, launching a new specialty, adding panels, or moving off them.
The other $1,045 is the work: multiple ad variants written and split-tested, campaign build, landing page, and monthly optimization across more than one specialty.
- Up to $750/mo in Google Search ad spend
- Multiple ad variants written and split-tested
- Everything in Solo
- Multi-specialty targeting (anxiety, EMDR, couples)
- Monthly search-term review & bid tuning
Group Practice
One acquired client covers one to two months of this plan, distributed across 2–5 associate schedules.
For group practice owners who need enough volume to keep several associate therapists at capacity.
The other $1,495 is the work: per-clinician ad copy and landing pages, routing and attribution, and monthly optimization across every associate you are filling.
- Up to $1,000/mo in Google Search ad spend
- Per-clinician ad copy and landing pages
- Everything in Growth
- Multi-clinician routing & attribution
- Per-clinician inquiry reporting
Each LTV range spans both payer models over a 24-session course of treatment: the low end assumes an in-network rate near $120 a session, the high end a private-pay fee of $175. Volume is a target, not a guarantee — search demand varies by metro and specialty, and we run your local numbers with you on the call before you commit to anything.
- Direct-to-practice routing
- No long-term contract
- Live in five business days
The things clinicians ask us first.
Your flat monthly rate covers both campaign management and your Google Search ad spend — $500/mo on the Solo plan. We pay Google directly, so there is no second invoice, no card on file with Google, and no reconciling ad bills at the end of the month.
The negative keyword stack is built around how you actually bill, not a template. A private-pay practice targets out-of-network intent — "private pay EMDR therapist near me" — and blocks "free", "low cost", "medicaid", "sliding scale", and the panel names you do not take. An in-network practice does the opposite: it bids on the payers you accept and blocks the ones you do not. Either way your intake page states the terms plainly, above the form, so anyone who does not match never submits.
Because intent is the whole game for a local practice. On Meta you interrupt someone scrolling and hope they happen to want therapy. On Search someone has typed the words "therapist near me" — the decision is already made, and you are competing for a person who is looking rather than manufacturing demand. Meta can work for group practices at volume; for a solo caseload it is usually a more expensive route to the same seat.
Narrow is an advantage here, not a problem. Broad terms like "therapist" are expensive and competitive; "OCD specialist" or "perinatal EMDR" in one metro is cheap, specific, and converts far better. If search volume for your niche is genuinely too thin to work, we will tell you on the call rather than take the money.
No. Everything runs month to month. Adjust your budget or pause entirely with 14 days notice before your next billing cycle. We would rather earn the next month than hold you to a year.
After a 30-minute onboarding call, your landing page and Google Search campaign are live in three to five business days.
Stop wondering where the next client comes from.
A free thirty-minute call. We look at search volume in your city, review how your specialty is positioned against the practices already advertising, and tell you honestly whether this is worth doing. No deck, no pressure.
- Local search demand for your specialty
- Who is already bidding in your city
- Realistic cost per qualified inquiry
- A straight answer on fit