What are normal dental marketing numbers in Australia: missed-call rate, cost per enquiry, cost per booked new patient and review response time?

Each measure has one numerator and one denominator, so two people can count it the same way.

• Missed-call rate: inbound calls that no person answered, divided by all inbound calls in the same period. It comes from the practice phone log.
• Cost per enquiry: money paid to Google for the ads, divided by the enquiries that spend produced. An enquiry is a call, a form or a chat from a person asking about an appointment. The management fee is not in it.
• Cost per booked new patient: money paid to Google for the ads, divided by the new patients who booked from that spend, counted in the practice software. Booked, not attended.
• Review response time: the time from a new Google review to the practice's public reply, read from the two public timestamps.

It is not counted. One Australian vendor's page says there is no official figure: the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Australian Communications and Media Authority do not publish a missed-call rate (Aussie AI Agency, updated 29 September 2026). That page prints an estimate, not a survey, and it sells missed-call recovery. A rate with no sample is a claim, not a count.

You can count your own. Divide the calls nobody answered by all inbound calls, from the phone log. Do not use the Google Ads call report: it misses calls that went to the main number. Say whether after-hours and weekend calls are included, and use the same window each month.

It is not counted for dental. There are two nearest figures, and both are labelled.

• Healthcare, not dental: $95.82 per enquiry across 220 Google Ads Search campaigns in Australian healthcare, December 2024 to November 2025, with $4,061,276 total spend. This is one agency's own accounts (Medico Digital, published 27 November 2025). The page calls it cost per acquisition. Dentistry is not one of its specialties. The same page gives $45.52 for its spend-weighted view.
• One dental account: $85.00 average per lead, $6,289.95 spent, 74 leads, November 2025 to April 2026, a regional Queensland practice (Marketing Together case study). One account is not a benchmark.

Two Australian agency pages opened on 27 October 2026 print ranges of $35 to $90 and $150 to $400 per lead. The ranges do not overlap, and neither page prints a sample size. See what Google Ads cost for dentists in Australia.

It is not counted. A range on an agency page with no sample is a claim, not a count. Do not read one as a benchmark, and do not average several.

To count your own, divide Google Ads spend by the new patients who booked from that spend. Take the count from the practice software, and use its own flag for a new patient. A patient who booked and did not attend stays in the count.

It is not counted for dental. The nearest counted figures are for Australian and New Zealand healthcare brands, not dental practices. They cover reviews from 1 January to 31 October 2023 and no sample size is printed (InMoment, Reputation Benchmark Report 2024, Australia).

• The healthcare box shows an 83% response rate and 1.8 days to respond.
• The text on the same page says leaders reply to 91% of reviews in under one business day, and average businesses take nearly twice as long and reach around 80%.

The two lines do not match, so both are printed as the page prints them. They are not merged.

In the CommBank Health and Australian Dental Association survey, 81% of practices have some form of sales and marketing budget. They spend 3.5% of annual turnover on marketing on average. Practices focused on growth spend 4.0%, and metropolitan practices spend 3.7%. The survey ran from 27 October to 17 November 2023 and covered 414 decision-makers and influencers at dental practices across Australia (CommBank Health and ADA, Dental Insights Report 2024). See how much a dental practice should spend on marketing.

Two context lines:

• The Australian Bureau of Statistics counted 20,296 actively trading dental businesses at 30 June 2025 (ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, released 16 December 2025).
• The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that 54% of people aged 15 and over visited a dental professional in the previous 12 months (2024-25), and about $13.2 billion was spent on dental services in 2023-24 (AIHW, Oral health and dental care in Australia).

Print the number with its sample, its period and its channel. Label one practice as one account. Keep an agency's range apart from a count, and keep another country's figure out of an Australian line.

Ask any agency for these four numbers with the sample, period and channel behind each. See how to choose a dental marketing agency, what Shoutout Agents charges and how the AI agents work. To see your own Google Ads numbers, get the free Google Ads account audit.

• CommBank Health and the Australian Dental Association, Dental Insights Report 2024. Survey by Fifth Quadrant, 27 October to 17 November 2023, 414 respondents.
• Medico Digital, 2025 Healthcare Paid Search Benchmarks. Published 27 November 2025, data December 2024 to November 2025. Opened 27 October 2026.
• Marketing Together, Google Ads case study, regional Queensland dental practice. Data November 2025 to April 2026, no page date printed. Opened 27 October 2026.
• InMoment, Reputation Benchmark Report 2024, Australia. Reviews 1 January to 31 October 2023. Opened 27 October 2026.
• Australian Bureau of Statistics, Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, July 2021 to June 2025. Released 16 December 2025. Opened 27 October 2026.
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Oral health and dental care in Australia. Opened 27 October 2026.
• Aussie AI Agency, Missed Call Statistics Australia 2026. Published 20 May 2026, updated 29 September 2026. Opened 27 October 2026.
• The two per-lead ranges are from Australian agency pages opened on 27 October 2026. They are not printed as a benchmark.