How to make your vet practice website CMA compliant
​The CMA has mandated what we’ve preached for a long time: pet owners need to be able to find your prices on your website. But what they’ve stipulated goes further than the shoppable items we’ve historically published. So here's what that looks like, what the rules say and why you should treat this as a marketing opportunity rather than a box-ticking compliance exercise.
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Prior to the CMA investigation, fewer than half of UK practices had any prices on their website at all. Of those that did, plenty had buried them. Three clicks deep. Hidden under 'visit us'. Tucked away in a PDF from 2023 that nobody remembers uploading.
That's over. The CMA wants prices one click from your homepage, on a page a pet owner can find without thinking about it.
So the first job is simple. Put a link in your main navigation and call it 'prices', 'pricing' or 'fees'. Those are the CMA's words, not mine. Don't get creative with 'investment in your pet's care' or 'our packages'. Pick one of the three and move on.
History is against the industry
This isn't 'publish whatever you feel comfortable sharing'. The CMA has defined a list of 36 common services, and every practice has to price all of them.
It covers the things which the CMA believe pet owners compare. First and repeat consultations, with your standard appointment length in minutes. Nurse consults. Vaccinations, primary course and boosters. Microchipping. Prescription and dispensing fees. Neutering, dentals, x-rays and ultrasound. Blood tests, urine screens, CT and MRI. Euthanasia and cremation, communal and individual.
And yes, your pet care plan is on the list too. Monthly cost, with a link to the details. More on that in a minute.​
What has to be on the page
Every price has to be shown for six types of patient – cats, then dogs in five weight bands:
under 10kg
10 to 25kg
25 to 40kg
40 to 60kg
over 60 kg
That's 36 rows and six columns, or thereabouts.
The services have to use the CMA's names for them. No free text, no rebranding a 'dental assessment' as a 'COHAT Dental'. Where you offer variants, list them separately and make clear which is your standard option.
For dentals, castrations and spays, you also have to tick off what's included in the price. General anaesthetic, sedation, pain relief, hospitalisation, pre-op bloods, post-op checks. This is a good thing.
It stops your £550 spay being compared with someone else's £380 basic spay that includes none of the things a quality practice includes as standard.
If you don't offer something on the list, you’ll need to say so on the page and name the provider you refer to.
A requirement to keep it current
The rule here is clear. The price list has to be updated before you charge the new price. Not after your next website review. Before.
In reality, most practices move their prices once or twice a year. So this is not a huge burden, but it does need an owner. Someone whose job it is to update the website on the same day the PMS changes. Write it into your SOPs for a price review process, so it never becomes the thing you forgot.
The same goes for what's on the wall in reception. The CMA wants the same price list available in practice too – poster, leaflet, screen or a QR code that points to the web page. Whatever you choose, the numbers on the wall and the numbers online have to match.
Build it for humans AND for robots
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Your price page needs to be real text on a real web page. Not a PDF. Not a graphic your practice manager made in Canva.
Two reasons. First, the CMA's plan is for the RCVS Find a Vet platform to collate this information, so pet owners can compare practices in one place. You'll be handing over the URL of your price page for that. If it can't be read, you're not compliant.
Second, and bigger. Pet owners are already asking ChatGPT, Gemini and their phone assistant, 'how much does a cat spay cost near me'. Those tools answer by reading websites. A clean, properly structured HTML table with Schema and clear headings gets indexed. A PDF gets skipped. Get this right and your prices become the answer people see.
It's also better for Google, better for accessibility - remember, 70% of traffic to a vet practice website is on mobile - and far easier for your team to update.
One more thing to know. Your booking confirmation emails and texts will need to state the price of the consultation booked, plus a link to your price page. We’re hopeful that the likes of Vetstoria, PetsApp, Rapport, ProVet etc all will develop these solutions for us all imminently.
The CMA has set a floor. Nowhere does it say your price page has to be a spreadsheet and nothing else. In fact, the CMA is explicit that you may add other information about your services alongside the required list.
So do.
For those that already have them, the price page is one of the top 5 pages clients visit on their website. In time, pet owners who have never met you may land on it directly from a comparison site or a search result. What do you want them to learn about you, apart from what you charge for a booster?
Communicate the value that a consultation includes. How long it is. Who it's with. What happens afterwards. Show the team who deliver the care. Explain that your spay price covers everything, not just the surgery.
And the health plan. It's on the mandated list, which is a gift. You have a CMA-required reason to put your plan in front of every pet owner who is browsing your prices. Show the monthly cost, show what's in it and show your workings on the savings. The price is fixed, the benefits are clear and the savings are tangible. There is no more transparent thing a practice can offer.
The practices that win from this won't be the cheapest. They'll be the ones whose price page makes it obvious why they cost what they cost. And back it up with clear calls to action; book an appointment or join the health plan.
This is a
marketing page.
Treat it like one
Without a deadline,
nothing gets done
If you run fewer than 15 practices, you get six months from the CMA's order taking effect to have all of this live. Larger groups get three.
Six months sounds like a lot. It isn't, when you've lost the password to your website's CMS, you’re waiting on a web developer, or you're dealing with the soup that is the CMA’s myriad of requirements. Start now.
Need a hand?
We've been building high-performing websites for years, and we’re currently accountable for guiding 20 practices through the swamp that is the CMA requirements whilst helping them thrive. If you'd like to outsource this problem to us, or you just want someone to sanity-check what you've built, book a chat:
https://calendly.com/practicemadepurrfect/30min.
Justin
Vet practice marketing
To us it's personal
If you’re eager to improve your practice’s marketing but you’re unsure where to start, I’m taking on new clients for the next quarter! Book an initial discovery below!
