Agency, in-house or directory profile compared
The three routes solve different problems. This table shows what each one covers and where each one falls short.
| Route | How you pay | What it covers | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|---|
| Specialist marketing agency | Monthly retainer plus ad spend | Website, search, ads and reporting handled by others | Few agencies know abortion rules, you depend on them for account access |
| General healthcare agency | Monthly retainer plus ad spend | Standard local search and web work | May not know certification, suspension handling or privacy needs |
| In-house owner | Staff time and ad spend | Full control and fast changes | One person must own it every week, and medical pages need clinical review |
| Abortion.io profile | $24 to $749 a month billed yearly | A verified listing next to the law, in eight languages, with inquiries and a monthly report | It does not rewrite your own site or run your ads |
What an agency can and cannot do for an abortion clinic
An agency can build and fix your website, set up Google Business Profile properly, write service pages, run search campaigns and send you a monthly report. That is real work, and it takes hours that a front desk team does not have.
It cannot do the clinical part. Every medical page needs review by a clinician, and the numbers on it, such as week limits and prices, must match what your clinic actually does. Teams that check drug facts and interactions can use a clinical reference such as a tool to check medication interactions and contraindications before a page goes live. An agency also cannot fix the platform rules. Google requires abortion certification before ads can show on abortion searches in the US, UK and Ireland, and Meta limits ads to adults 18 and older and may ask for authorization. Both can suspend an account, and the owner of the account is the one who loses inquiries while it is down.
For the full picture of what each paid channel costs, see our breakdown of abortion clinic advertising cost.
Questions to ask before you sign
Have you worked with licensed abortion providers?
Ask for named references and for the kinds of accounts they have managed. An agency that has only done dental or cosmetic clinics will learn the certification and suspension rules on your budget.
Who owns the ad accounts and the website?
The clinic should own the Google Ads account, the Google Business Profile, the analytics property and the domain. If the agency holds them, you cannot leave without losing your history.
How do you protect patient privacy?
Advertising pixels do not belong on appointment or intake pages. The agency should collect as little as possible about what patients searched, and say so in writing.
How do you report inquiries, not clicks?
Clicks are not patients. Ask for calls, forms and booking requests by channel, using tracked phone numbers or links, so you can work out cost per inquiry.
What happens if an account is suspended?
You want a named person, a written process for appeals and a backup channel that does not depend on ad approvals.
Is the contract month to month?
Avoid long lock-ins until you have seen three months of inquiry data.
Red flags when choosing a marketing agency
Guaranteed rankings or patient counts
No one controls Google. A promise of a number of patients per month is a sales line, not a plan.
A single national price with no look at your market
Costs depend on your location and on competing bidders, including pregnancy centers that invest in search. A quote without a look at your market is a guess.
Retainer pricing with no scope
You should know how many pages, campaigns and reports you get each month.
Tracking on intake pages
If the proposal puts advertising pixels on your appointment forms, walk away.
Where a fixed-price directory profile fits
A profile on Abortion.io is not an agency service. We do not touch your website or manage your Google Business Profile. Your verified profile sits on the state or country law page, in the clinic directory and in the legal options checker, in eight languages, so it reaches traveling patients who are still working out where they can legally go. It also acts as a citation that confirms your name, address and services, which supports your abortion clinic SEO work. Clinics near ban-state borders get the most from it, see out of state abortion clinic listing.
Because the price is fixed, you can run it next to an agency and compare the monthly report with your agency's numbers.
Abortion.io plans for clinics
Yearly
Monthly
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| Plan | Monthly price | Yearly price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profile | $49 per month | $24 per month, $288 billed yearly | A single clinic with 1 location, up to 30 inquiries a month |
| Featured | $149 per month | $74 per month, $888 billed yearly | Clinics seeking more patients, including from abroad, up to 150 inquiries a month |
| Network | $499 per month | $249 per month, $2,988 billed yearly | Clinic networks with up to 10 locations, up to 600 inquiries a month |
| Enterprise | $1,499 per month | $749 per month, $8,988 billed yearly | Hospital systems and national providers, unlimited locations |
The full feature list for each plan is on the pricing for clinics page, and the abortion clinic marketing overview compares every paid channel.