HMDG Form Fill Reality Calculator

Layer 1

The form-fill CPA looks fine

Start with the numbers the agency or ad report gives you: how many form leads came in and what the media cost was. Then add the monthly management fee, because that is part of acquisition cost too.

Ad cost for those leads £ Form leads reported this month Marketing agency monthly fee £

0 form leads for £0 makes the report say £0 per lead. Add the £0 agency fee and the lead is already £0 before anyone books.

Layer 2

How fast do you get back to them?

A form is not a booking. It is someone asking to be contacted. If they are in pain and ready to book, delay gives them time to call another clinic.

Average response time 1 hr

5 minsnext day

MSK patients often want the quickest route to a slot, not a callback tomorrow.

The calculator estimates the booking rate from response time. Faster follow-up keeps intent alive. Slow follow-up turns active demand into a callback list.

Layer 3

The chase you have to staff

Every form lead creates work for someone. They have to call, email, text, leave notes, and try again if the patient does not answer.

Who handles the form follow-up? You (clinician) £75/hr opportunity cost Reception team £14/hr Dedicated admin £16/hr loaded cost Nobody forms sit in the inbox

Calls/emails per form lead Average staff minutes per form lead Total time across the calls, emails, texts and notes.

Forms move work from the website into reception. Calls, voicemails, texts, emails, notes and reattempts all become part of your acquisition cost.

Nobody chasing? Then your form-to-booked rate is capped at 8% because most form fills never become appointments without follow-up.

Layer 4

Booked still is not attended

A manually booked form lead often has weaker commitment than someone who chose a time and confirmed it themselves. The useful CPA is cost per attended patient.

Form-booked attendance rate 80%

50%100%

Someone who picked a time and confirmed it has made a stronger commitment than someone who asked for a callback. The final CPA has to be cost per attended patient, not cost per form.

Layer 5

Compare it with an online-booking benchmark

Use a deliberately conservative benchmark. If online booking can acquire an attended patient at £50, every pound above that is extra cost created by the form journey.

This does not give online booking credit for extra after-hours bookings or patients who would have self-booked instead of submitting a form. It only compares CPA.

Hidden costs

The costs that do not show in the lead report

These are the things that make a cheap form lead expensive in practice.

Staff drag

0 hrs/mo

Reception hours spent turning half-bookings into actual appointments.

Benchmark gap

£0 / 10 pts

Extra acquisition cost per 10 attended patients versus a conservative online-booking CPA benchmark.

Dated booking experience

Flagged

In 2026, asking private patients to request a callback can make the clinic feel slower and less modern than competitors.

The reveal

Where your £0 form fill actually went

£0 per attended form-fill patient. 0× the form CPA.

Commercial impact

The actual comparison is attended patients

Same reported leads. Same marketing cost. Compare the real form CPA with a conservative online-booking CPA benchmark.

Online booking CPA benchmark £

Extra acquisition cost per 10 attended patients

£0

Form CPA £0 Benchmark CPA £0 Extra per patient £0 Extra at current volume £0/mo

Talk to us if you want clinic marketing that optimises for booked and attended patients, not soft leads.

Talk to us