MED SPAS // UPDATED SEPTEMBER 2026
Med Spa Marketing and Search Statistics 2026
Aesthetics has more marketing content per square inch than almost any category and less real research behind it. Every figure below names the organization that ran the study and the year. Where the only measurement comes from a company selling software to med spas, it says so. Where no measurement exists at all, it says that too.
11 statistics · 9 sources · every one dated and linked
94%
Of consumers say rate-and-review websites affect their decision when choosing a provider for a cosmetic dermatologic procedure.
American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, consumer survey · 2025
35.7 vs 9.1
Mean US Google Trends search interest for lip filler paired with "med spa" versus the same procedure paired with "dermatologist", across ten years of data. Botox runs 49.4 versus 29.1 and laser hair removal 71.1 versus 63.7, all statistically significant at P of 0.004 or better.
JMIR Dermatology, Google Trends analysis, June 2015 to June 2025 · 2026
92%
Of med spa clients say they will not book with a med spa rated below 4.0 out of 5. 64% will only consider one rated 4.5 or higher, and 91% look at ratings before deciding to visit.
Zenoti, survey of 1,195 US med spa clients · 2024
HOW PATIENTS CHOOSE
What actually moves an aesthetic patient
94%
Of consumers say rate-and-review websites affect their decision when choosing a provider for a cosmetic dermatologic procedure.
American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, consumer survey ·2025
ASDS is the dermatologic surgery trade body, so it has a position in the med spa debate. Included because it is its own original consumer survey of more than 3,500 US adults, and no independent body measures this.
74%
Of consumers follow the social accounts of the provider they are seeing or considering seeing. Around half say a provider’s social presence affects whether they book.
24%
Name cost as the single biggest reason they hesitate before booking a cosmetic procedure. Safety and side effects follow at 16%, pain at 14%, and 11% worry they will not get the result they want.
American Society for Dermatologic Surgery ·2025
The closest thing to evidence for publishing prices. It measures stated hesitation, not booking behavior, so treat it as a reason to answer the question rather than proof that a price page converts.
70%
Of adults who have had an aesthetic procedure say it matters that a provider shows before-and-after photographs. 55% prefer a provider with a verified social account, and 41% say a provider’s social presence made them more likely to book.
SEARCH DEMAND
Which words patients actually use
35.7 vs 9.1
Mean US Google Trends search interest for lip filler paired with "med spa" versus the same procedure paired with "dermatologist", across ten years of data. Botox runs 49.4 versus 29.1 and laser hair removal 71.1 versus 63.7, all statistically significant at P of 0.004 or better.
JMIR Dermatology, Google Trends analysis, June 2015 to June 2025 ·2026
The pattern reverses for chemical peels, laser resurfacing and microdermabrasion, where "dermatologist" wins by a wide margin. So the category word to optimize for follows the procedure, not the business model.
11,000+
Med spa locations operating in the US, employing more than 100,000 people, in an industry the association puts above $17 billion and growing by more than $1 billion a year.
American Med Spa Association, State of the Industry Report ·2024
AmSpa is the industry trade association and sells the full report. Only these headline figures are public. Any more precise location count or average-revenue figure in circulation comes from agency blogs paraphrasing the paid report, not from AmSpa.
REVIEWS AND RATINGS
The rating floor, and who measured it
92%
Of med spa clients say they will not book with a med spa rated below 4.0 out of 5. 64% will only consider one rated 4.5 or higher, and 91% look at ratings before deciding to visit.
Zenoti, survey of 1,195 US med spa clients ·2024
VENDOR SURVEY. Zenoti sells booking and reputation software to med spas and benefits from this finding. No field dates, panel provider or margin of error are published. It is the only med-spa-specific rating threshold data that exists anywhere, which is itself worth knowing.
95%
Of med spa clients say it matters that a business responds to negative reviews. 93% expect responses to positive ones as well.
Zenoti, survey of 1,195 US med spa clients ·2024
Same vendor caveat as above.
42%
Of US consumers now trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation, down from a peak of 84% in 2016 and 2017.
BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey ·2025
Cross-industry, not med spa specific, and BrightLocal sells local SEO software. Included because it is the source most often misquoted in aesthetics marketing. See the rejected claims below.
GETTING HOLD OF YOU
Where bookings leak
79%
Of regular med spa clients say they have abandoned a booking because it was too hard to reach someone or book online. 82% say 24/7 booking would make them more likely to rebook.
Zenoti, survey of 1,100+ US med spa clients ·2025
VENDOR SURVEY, and the weakest-sourced figure on this page: Zenoti sells the exact product this finding recommends. No mystery-shopper study of med spa responsiveness exists, unlike in legal, so this is all there is. Weigh it accordingly.
18%
Of dermatology clinics had front-desk staff describe a non-physician clinician as a "dermatologist", "doctor", "physician" or "board-certified" when a prospective patient called to book. 23 of 128 qualifying clinics across 12 states.
Cureus, mystery-shopper study of 344 clinics across 25 states ·2021
Dermatology clinics, not med spas. It is the only study measuring how credentials are described at the moment of booking, which is why it is here, but do not restate it as a med spa figure.
HOW OLD IS THE EVIDENCE
Every figure, by the year its study was published.
Marketing pages quote statistics without dates because the dates are usually embarrassing. This is the distribution for the 11 figures above, oldest 2021, newest 2026. Where a column is short, that year simply produced less research worth citing.
CHECKED AND REJECTED
Claims about med spas we could not verify.
These circulate widely. We went looking for the original study behind each one and could not find it. They are listed here so nobody repeats them, including us.
“88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation”
Usually attributed to BrightLocal, usually undated
BrightLocal has asked this question since 2010 and publishes the whole series. The peak was 84%, in 2016 and 2017. It was never 88%. The current figure is 42%, exactly half the peak, and BrightLocal itself calls it a significant downward trend. The 88% appears to be a mutation of a separate finding about responding to reviews.
“97% of consumers search online for local businesses”
Usually attributed to Google, or BIA/Kelsey, or nothing at all
It traces to BIA/Kelsey and ConStat in March 2010, and the actual finding was that 97% of consumers "use online media when researching products or services in their local area", which is a far broader claim. It is sixteen years old, predates the modern smartphone, has no published sample size, and has nothing to do with med spas.
“80% of med spa clients feel confident in the safety measures taken by medical spas”
Usually attributed to Allied Market Research
It does not appear in Allied Market Research’s public material. The trail leads to a paywalled report from a different publisher with no methodology, sample size or field dates disclosed. We could not find any primary document containing this figure.
“80% of cosmetic procedure lawsuits come from non-physician med spa treatments”
Usually attributed to JAMA Dermatology
Half right, and routinely misstated. The underlying study found the non-physician share of cutaneous laser litigation reached 77.8% in 2011, up from 36.3% in 2008. That is a single-year endpoint from a laser-specific dataset published in 2014, not a standing industry-wide rate across all cosmetic procedures.
Plain answers.
Do online reviews decide whether someone books a med spa?
For aesthetics they work more like a filter than a tiebreaker. ASDS found in 2025 that 94% of consumers say review sites affect their choice of provider. Zenoti, a software vendor surveying its own category, puts a threshold on it: 92% of med spa clients say they will not book below 4.0 stars and 64% will only consider 4.5 or higher. Read the vendor numbers with that interest in mind, because nobody independent measures it.
Should I optimize for "med spa" or for "dermatologist"?
It depends on the procedure, and there is ten years of data on it. A 2026 JMIR Dermatology analysis of US Google Trends from 2015 to 2025 found "med spa" framing drew significantly more search interest than "dermatologist" for lip filler, Botox, laser hair removal and microneedling. The pattern reverses for chemical peels, laser resurfacing and microdermabrasion. Follow the procedure, not the business model.
Does posting on social media actually bring in patients?
It measurably affects intent. ASDS found 74% of consumers follow the accounts of the provider they are considering and roughly half say social presence affects whether they book. A 2023 Aesthetic Surgery Journal survey of 651 adults who had undergone procedures found 70% want before-and-after photographs and 55% prefer a provider with a verified account. What none of this tells you is how many bookings it produces, because no one has measured that.
Should I publish prices on my website?
The evidence says cost is the biggest thing standing between a reader and a consultation: 24% of consumers name it as their top hesitation, ahead of safety at 16% and pain at 14%. What does not exist is any audit of how many med spa websites publish prices, or any study of what happens to bookings when one does. So the honest version is that you would be answering the most common objection, not that a price page is a proven conversion lever.
How fast do I need to respond to an inquiry?
Nobody credible has measured this for med spas. The "respond in five minutes and you are 21 times more likely to qualify the lead" rule that circulates in aesthetics marketing is from a 2007 B2B software study funded by a company selling speed-to-lead software, and it is routinely misattributed to Harvard Business Review. The only med-spa-specific figure is a vendor survey finding 79% of clients have abandoned a booking because it was too hard to reach someone. Responding fast is obviously sensible. The multiplier is not real.
WHERE ALL OF THIS CAME FROM
9 sources, listed in full.
Ordered by how many figures on this page each one carries. Every link goes to the organization that ran the study, not to a summary of it.
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