01The benchmark study
What it costs to acquire a full arch case.
Our measured blended average cost to acquire a full arch case is $800 in ad spend per seated arch, counting only cases actually started and paid for, across 103 offices over the six months ending August 2026.
Last updated 2026-09-16
Cost per seated arch, across four conditions.
Every row states its own source, because a measured figure and a published benchmark are not the same kind of number. Published figures are ranges and are shown as ranges.
| Condition | Cost per seated arch | Source |
|---|---|---|
| ARCH WORKS accounts, blended average | $800Measured | Measured by us. Blended average across 103 offices over 6 months ending August 2026, not a best case. |
| Competently run operation, trained coordinator in place | $1,500 to $3,500Published benchmark | Published benchmark range from industry sources. Not measured by us and not a point value. |
| Weak intake, no coordinator process | $4,000 to $7,000Published benchmark | Published benchmark range from industry sources. Not measured by us and not a point value. |
| Category midpoint, all conditions | roughly $2,500Published benchmark | Published benchmark midpoint, stated as approximate because it is the middle of a published range rather than a measurement. |
Benchmark ranges are from published industry sources, not from any competitor's marketing claim.
02Methodology
How the figure was produced.
- Sample size
- Full arch campaigns run across 103 offices. Every office in the sample is included, including the ones that performed worse than the average.
- Date range
- The six months ending August 2026. Six consecutive months, not a selected window inside a longer period.
- What counts as a seated arch
- A case started and paid for. A treatment plan presented does not count, a case accepted verbally does not count, and a case financed but not yet started does not count. A dual arch case counts as the arches actually seated.
- What is included in cost
- Ad spend only. Media paid to Google, Meta and Local Services Ads on full arch campaigns, plus mail and print spend where a mail program ran.
- What is excluded from cost
- Our fees are excluded. So are lab and component cost, surgical chair time, coordinator commission, staff wages and software subscriptions. This figure is a media efficiency figure, not a margin figure.
- How attribution was determined
- Each started case was traced back to an originating click or call in the tracking layer, then reconciled against the practice management system so the case counted here is the case the practice actually collected on. Cases with no resolvable origin were left out of the numerator and their media stayed in the denominator, which makes the figure conservative rather than flattering.
What drives the spread.
The same funnel produces a very different number in two different practices. Six things account for almost all of it.
01What gets called a lead
The largest single cause of the spread is definitional rather than operational. A practice counting every form fill, chat session and page conversion as a lead will report a low cost per lead and a high cost per seated arch, and a practice counting only calls that connected will report the opposite. Two practices with identical results can publish figures that differ by several multiples purely on where they draw this line.
02Whether a trained treatment coordinator is in the room
Consult to start rates in full arch run from roughly 15 percent with an untrained presenter to 35 or 40 percent with a coordinator working financing first. At the same media cost and the same show rate, that swing alone changes cost per seated arch by about 2.5 times, with no change to a single ad.
03Speed to lead
Contact rates in this category sit near 50 percent when first response is measured in hours and rise sharply when it is measured in minutes. Every lead never contacted is media already spent with no chance of producing a case, so intake speed sets the ceiling on everything downstream.
04Whether the practice will also place single implants
A practice that only accepts full arch cases discards clinically qualified patients who need one or two implants, and the media that produced them stays in the denominator. A practice that treats those patients recovers value from the same spend, which lowers the blended cost of the full arch cases it does seat.
05Market demographics
Tooth loss prevalence, household income and age distribution vary enormously between metros, and platform targeting restrictions on health related audiences limit how precisely a practice can correct for that. A campaign running in a market whose demographic profile matches the treatment will produce cheaper cases than the same campaign in a market where it does not.
06The practice's own fee
Cost per seated arch is a cost figure, but the fee decides whether that cost is affordable. A practice charging at the low end of its market closes more cases at a lower cost per arch and collects less per case, and a practice charging at the high end does the reverse. Any comparison of this figure between two practices at different fees is comparing two different businesses.
The funnel underneath it.
At published benchmark rates, 100 full arch leads produce roughly 3 seated arches.
| Stage | Benchmark rate | Remaining from 100 leads |
|---|---|---|
| Leads | The starting cohort | 100 |
| Contacted | 50 percent of leads | 50 |
| Qualified | 50 percent of contacted | 25 |
| Booked | 85 percent of qualified | 21.25 |
| Showed | 60 percent of booked | 12.75 |
| Presented | 90 percent of showed are still qualified once the clinician looks | 11.48 |
| Started | 30 percent of presented | 3.44 |
started = leads x 0.50 x 0.50 x 0.85 x 0.60 x 0.90 x 0.30 = 3.44 per 100 leadsChange the rates yourself in the interactive model
Bring your questions about cost per arch.
We will explain how we measure it, and how your current reporting compares.
The measured figure, with its denominator.
Cost per seated arch, measured
Cost per seated arch
$800
Offices in the sample
103
Months measured
6
Stated because a number without a denominator is not a result. This is the only cost per case figure in this category published with its sample size and date window attached.
ARCH WORKS, cost per seated arch
$800
103 offices, six months ending August 2026
Blended average across all 103 offices, not a best case.
Published benchmark, competent operation
$1,500 to $3,500
Range, not a measured figure. Midpoint $2,500
Published benchmark, weak intake
$4,000 to $7,000
Range, not a measured figure
68%
lower cost per seated arch than the published benchmark midpoint of $2,500.
What the number means
Cost per seated arch. Ad spend divided by cases actually started and paid for, matching the Started definition in The Arch Standard. Not cost per lead, not cost per consult, and not cost per treatment plan presented.
Sample: 103 offices, measured over six months ending August 2026
Benchmark ranges are from published industry sources, not from any competitor's marketing claim.
How we define a seated archThe number has a cause, not a miracle behind it. The demographic match removes the discovery spend that normally burns the first 60 to 90 days, because the campaign starts from a matched market profile instead of learning your market on your budget.
That is why cost per lead runs about 35 percent below what comparable campaigns produce. On its own that would only mean cheaper leads, and a cheap lead that never seats is worth nothing. The qualification, the speed to lead routing, and the coordinator handoff protect the rest of the funnel, so the cheaper leads survive to a started case instead of dying later. Cheaper in, and the same or better survival through, is what moves cost per seated arch.
What we do not know.
Four numbers that would materially help any practice in this category are simply absent from the public record. Listing them is the point. A study that only publishes what flatters it is not a study.
Scan to close conversion
No published figure exists for the share of patients who take a diagnostic scan and go on to start treatment. It is one of the most useful numbers in the funnel and nobody in this category publishes it.
Financing decline rate at the chair
The share of consulted patients declined for third party financing at the point of presentation is not published anywhere we can verify. Estimates circulate. None of them come with a sample.
The real finance versus cash split
How full arch cases actually get paid for, financed against paid outright, is not in the public record at any usable sample size. It changes how a practice should structure a presentation, and it is missing.
Disqualification reason breakdown
Why qualified leads fail, split between geography, clinical candidacy, financial capacity and readiness, is not published. We are collecting this on our own accounts and intend to publish it with its sample and definitions attached, the same way this figure is published.
A note on this URL
This URL is the canonical location for this figure. When the sample grows or the window moves, this page is updated in place and the date at the top changes with it. It will not be replaced by a new URL, and the old figure will not quietly disappear.
The last updated date at the top of this page is the real date the content changed. It is not bumped on a deploy that did not change the study.
Last updated 2026-09-16
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