What a med spa site holds, and where the price jumps
In short
A med spa site with treatment pages and a consultation request is a website. Once it takes deposits, keeps signed forms or gives members a sign-in, it holds something for each client, which makes it an app and moves the price up a step.
The site itself carries the treatment pages and the providers, with a consultation request that reaches the desk. A page for each treatment adds pages, and passing each request into the booking software your staff use adds a connection; a written plan prices both line by line.
The line between a website and an app is whether the site holds something for one particular client. A deposit, a signed consent and a member's plan each belong to a person, so they need accounts, payments and rules about who can see what, and that work costs more than pages do.
| What it does | What it adds to the price | |
|---|---|---|
| The site itself | Treatment pages grouped by concern, the providers, the hours, a consultation request | Pages, set by how many treatments get one |
| Booking with a deposit | A request that states the practice's terms and takes the payment | A connection to your booking software, or app work when the site takes the card itself |
| Intake and consent forms | Forms a client completes on a phone before the visit, saved to their record | Nothing when your software sends them; app work when your own system holds them |
| Memberships | A sign-in where a member sees the plan and the visits that remain | App work, with payments and accounts |
| A before-and-after gallery | Paired photos the practice has cleared to show | Nothing beyond the page it sits on |
Swipe sideways to see every column
What moves the price
In short
Two choices move the price most: whether your booking software stays behind the site, and how many treatments get a page of their own. Who writes the words comes next, and the look of the design moves it far less.
Keeping the booking software you already pay for is usually the cheaper path. The site wins the client and takes the request, and the calendar, the card on file and the forms stay in the product made for them. Replacing parts of that product with a build of your own costs more at the start, and makes sense where you want the request, the deposit rules and the client list in your own accounts.
Words are the other cost. A quote that assumes the practice supplies the text and the photos costs less, and treatment pages take care to write. The American Med Spa Association notes that medical professionals typically cannot make statements or run advertising considered deceptive or false, so have whoever answers for compliance at the practice read each page before it goes live. Nothing in this guide is medical or legal advice.
A worked example (hypothetical)
In short
A practice with two treatment rooms that keeps its booking software needs a site with a page per treatment and a request that lands in its calendar. Deposits and signed forms on the site itself, later, are a second and separate piece of app work.
Picture a med spa with two treatment rooms that takes consultations by phone and runs its calendar in a booking product. It wants a page for each of its eighteen treatments, grouped by concern, and a request form that asks what the client hopes to change, with each request passed into the calendar the desk already watches.
A year on, the owner wants the deposit taken on the site under the practice's own terms, and the consent forms signed on the client's phone and filed on their record. That is app work, quoted in a written plan of its own and added to the first site, not built in place of it.
What it costs each month after launch
In short
After launch you pay for hosting and the domain on your own card, and for the booking software if you kept it. A deposit taken by card carries the payment processor's fee, and care for the site is optional.
The booking product is usually the largest monthly software line, and it is not ours: you pay the vendor directly, on whatever its plan counts, such as locations or users. The site adds only its hosting and its domain, which stay in your name.
A care plan keeps a site updated and backed up, and an app is looked after by a support retainer instead, since it holds client records and payments that have to keep working. Both are priced in the written plan, and neither is required.
What this means for a small business
In short
Decide what the site must do for a new client before you ask anyone for a price. A written list of the pages and what each form does is what makes two quotes for a med spa site comparable.
A med spa is a small business like most others. The SBA Office of Advocacy says 99.9 percent of businesses in the United States are small, and that small businesses employ 45.9 percent of private sector workers. A practice of that size rarely needs everything at once, and a clear site in front of the booking software it already runs is a sound first step.
Projects start at $2,500. Book a call and we ask what the site has to do for a new client, then send a written plan with the exact price; in the Los Angeles area we can meet at the practice, and with practices elsewhere we write it over video.