How ABA practices actually acquire clients, build referral networks, and grow — written from data, not from an agency pitch. Every claim is dated and sourced, and our own interest is disclosed below.
Agencies pay up to $176 per click to reach ABA practice owners. Here is what actually fills a census — referrals, local search, a working intake — with real numbers behind every claim.
The best answer Google has for this query is a Reddit thread. Here is the actual system — referral sources, local search, intake conversion — and how to measure whether it's working.
GUIDE · 2026-08-12ABA therapy referrals come from four sources — pediatricians, diagnosing providers, schools, and parents. How to build a referral engine around them, run like a pipeline, not a coffee run.
GUIDE · 2026-08-12Families search 'aba services near me' about 3,600 times a month — and advertisers pay ~$27 a click to intercept them. The organic version of that visibility is a checklist, not a retainer.
GUIDE · 2026-08-12Your website's job is not to look reassuring. It is to move a stressed parent from 'found you' to 'talked to you' in one step — and to stop taxing every marketing channel you pay for.
GUIDE · 2026-08-12Nobody selling ABA advertising publishes what clicks cost. Here is the actual August 2026 data — client-side terms around $8–$27, provider-side terms up to $176 — and how to buy reach without burning it.
GUIDE · 2026-08-12Most ABA marketing anxiety is about the wrong things. The rules that bite: PHI in testimonials and photos, tracking pixels on health pages, review responses that confirm a client relationship, and the BACB's own advertising code.
The only startup guide with real reimbursement economics — what your state actually pays, from official fee schedules, before you sign a lease.
Recruiting RBTs and BCBAs with workforce data behind it: certificant supply by state, ratios, and what the shortage actually looks like.
Utilization, waitlist-to-census conversion, retention, diversification, and the numbers behind multi-site expansion.
The ABA Index is built by Glenmont Consulting, which sells marketing and growth services to healthcare organizations, including ABA providers. That is a conflict of interest for a section about marketing, so we handle it the way we handle every conflict on this site: we say so, on every page, and we hold this section to the same rules as the rest of the Index — official sources, dated claims, trade-offs written down, no pay-to-play placements. Where a guide would benefit Glenmont's sales pitch at the expense of accuracy, accuracy wins.