# The State of Addiction Treatment Search 2026 | AMA

> The 2026 benchmark on addiction-treatment search: 5,973 keywords across every modality, substance, audience and U.S. state, plus AI search.

# The State of Addiction Treatment Search 2026

The definitive 2026 benchmark on addiction-treatment search: 5,973 keywords analyzed across every modality, substance, audience and U.S. state, with cost-per-click benchmarked against healthcare and a deep look at AI search.

[Get your center benchmarked →](/contact/)[Read the findings](#summary)

5,973

keywords analyzed

$31 avg

high-intent CPC (max $580)

3.1x

the CPC of cosmetic surgery

64%

return a local pack

7% vs 97%

AI Overviews: treatment vs consumer health

#### What is inside

1. [Executive summary](#summary)
2. [Market structure](#market)
3. [Search intent](#intent)
4. [The local battleground](#local)
5. [Paid-search economics](#paid)
6. [How CPCs compare to healthcare](#compare)
7. [By substance](#substance)
8. [By modality](#modality)
9. [Specialty audiences](#audience)
10. [Geographic landscape](#geo)
11. [The AI-search shift](#ai)
12. [Ranking difficulty](#difficulty)
13. [What it means for operators](#operators)
14. [Methodology](#methodology)
15. [How to cite](#cite)

## Executive summary

This is the inaugural edition of the State of Addiction Treatment Search, an annual benchmark of how people actually search for treatment in the United States. Most marketing advice in this field is anecdotal. This is not: it is built from a systematically expanded universe of **5,973 distinct addiction-treatment search terms**, each measured for demand, cost-per-click and live SERP features, then benchmarked against the wider healthcare market.

Four findings define 2026. Treatment search is overwhelmingly **local** (64% show a local pack). Paid search is **among the most expensive in all of healthcare**, with high-intent clicks averaging **$31.44**, multiples of cosmetic surgery and dental, trailing only personal-injury law and insurance. And most consequentially, the **AI-search disruption that has already swept adjacent health topics has barely touched transactional treatment search**: 97% of consumer-health queries show an AI Overview versus just 7% of treatment queries, a narrow, closing window for centers to build answer-engine authority before it arrives.

### Key statistics

- **5,973** distinct addiction-treatment search terms analyzed across the U.S.
- Median cost-per-click **$18.91**; average **$28.88**; high-intent terms average **$31.44**.
- **16%** of treatment keywords cost **$50+** per click; 40% cost $25+; 3% top $100.
- The most expensive keyword measured costs **$580** per click.
- Addiction CPCs run **3.1x cosmetic surgery** and **1.9x dental** on high-intent terms.
- Only **personal-injury law ($309)** and **insurance ($131)** clearly out-price addiction in our comparison.
- **64%** of treatment searches return a Google local pack, rising to **87%** for geographic queries.
- **22%** of demand explicitly names a city or state; demand spans **50** states.
- **Only 7%** of treatment searches show an AI Overview, versus **97%** of adjacent consumer-health queries.
- AI Overviews on transactional/geographic treatment queries are effectively **1%**, an AI blind spot.
- AI Overviews concentrate in **behavioral and informational** addiction queries, not the money terms.
- Alcohol and opioids are the two largest substance categories by demand.
- **Detox** and **outpatient/IOP** are the highest-CPC levels of care.
- Search intent skews informational and navigational; transactional is a thin sliver.
- Difficulty is attainable: most volume sits in specific, local and long-tail terms, not a few heads.
- The treatment gap is enormous: ~77% of U.S. adults with mental illness went untreated in 2024 (SAMHSA).

## 1. Market structure: fragmented and local

Addiction-treatment search is not a handful of head terms; it is a long tail of thousands of modality, substance, program and city-level queries. After filtering non-treatment "rehab" meanings and collapsing duplicate clusters, we measured 5,973 distinct terms with real monthly demand, 22% of which explicitly name a city or state.

| Representative high-volume term | Monthly volume | CPC | Substance | Local pack |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| rehab centers near me | 74,000 | $46.10 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| drug abuse treatment center near me | 60,500 | $57.81 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| halfway house | 40,500 | $15.48 | General / unspecified | n/a |
| outpatient intensive program | 27,100 | $32.89 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| detox center near me | 27,100 | $68.51 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| rehab alcohol near me | 22,200 | $63.41 | Alcohol | Yes |
| center addiction treatment | 22,200 | $52.11 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| sober living near me | 22,200 | $15.10 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| methadone clinic near me | 22,200 | $18.04 | Opioids | Yes |
| drug rehabilitation center treatment | 22,200 | $52.11 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| alcohol abuse treatment center near me | 22,200 | $63.41 | Alcohol | Yes |
| addiction treatment in nj | 18,100 | $119.69 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| addiction treatment outpatient | 18,100 | $43.91 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| outpatient drug treatment center | 18,100 | $43.91 | General / unspecified | Yes |
| drug treatment center nj | 18,100 | $119.69 | General / unspecified | Yes |

**What it means:** there is no single keyword to win. Visibility is earned by covering the full matrix of modalities and locations, which is exactly what generalist agencies miss.

## 2. Search intent

Classified by primary intent, the universe skews heavily informational and navigational. Purely transactional queries are a thin sliver, which is why content, trust and local presence matter as much as conversion pages.

informational

3,674

navigational

1,821

commercial

398

transactional

79

Keywords by primary search intent (n=5,973).

## 3. The local battleground

**64% of all analyzed terms return a Google local pack** (4,234 SERPs measured), climbing to **87% for explicitly geographic queries**. The map pack and Google Business Profile routinely sit above both organic results and ads. Local-pack prevalence by level of care:

Sober living / housing

74%

Inpatient / residential

65%

MAT / medication

64%

General rehab / treatment

62%

Outpatient / IOP / PHP

61%

Detox

47%

Share of keywords showing a local pack, by modality.

**What it means:** Google Business Profile and local SEO are the single highest-leverage visibility investment in this field.

## 4. Paid-search economics

Across 3,599 terms with cost data, the average CPC is **$28.88** and the median is **$18.91**, but the high-intent terms that actually drive admissions average **$31.44**. The top of the distribution is severe: 40% of terms cost $25+, 16% cost $50+, 3% exceed $100, peaking at **$580**.

$0–5

278

$5–10

567

$10–20

1,034

$20–30

558

$30–50

588

$50–100

467

$100+

107

Keywords by CPC band (n=3,599).

### Most expensive keywords

| Keyword (volume 700+) | CPC | Monthly volume | Modality |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| drug detox los angeles | $175.54 | 720 | Detox |
| drug detox centers in new jersey | $155.97 | 1,000 | Detox |
| drug detox in nj | $145.76 | 1,600 | Detox |
| drug treatment center massachusetts | $129.97 | 3,600 | General rehab / treatment |
| rehab massachusetts alcohol | $121.90 | 1,900 | General rehab / treatment |
| addiction treatment in nj | $119.69 | 18,100 | General rehab / treatment |
| drug treatment center nj | $119.69 | 18,100 | General rehab / treatment |
| drug detox nashville tn | $115.84 | 720 | Detox |
| drug rehab facilities in new jersey | $115.49 | 3,600 | General rehab / treatment |
| addiction treatment center in new jersey | $115.49 | 3,600 | General rehab / treatment |
| substance abuse treatment centers nj | $115.49 | 3,600 | General rehab / treatment |
| rehab alcohol nj | $114.24 | 8,100 | General rehab / treatment |
| rehab for alcohol california | $110.88 | 880 | General rehab / treatment |
| california luxury rehab | $105.56 | 1,300 | General rehab / treatment |
| drug rehab facility massachusetts | $103.20 | 1,000 | General rehab / treatment |

**What it means:** at these prices, paid search punishes weak tracking and slow intake. LegitScript certification, call tracking and fast response are non-negotiable, and compounding organic/local assets are what lower blended cost per admission.

## 5. How addiction CPCs compare to the rest of healthcare

"Expensive" is relative, so we benchmarked addiction treatment against other high-value healthcare and the two priciest verticals in all of search. The result is stark: addiction treatment's high-intent clicks (**$31.44** average) cost **3.1x cosmetic surgery** and **1.9x dental**, and out-price LASIK, fertility and major elective surgery. Only personal-injury law and insurance, the perennial CPC champions, clearly sit above it.

Cosmetic surgery

$10.11

Major surgery / fertility

$10.88

Medical aesthetics

$14.62

Dental

$16.81

Vision (LASIK)

$26.15

Addiction (all terms)

$28.88

Addiction (high-intent)

$31.44

Insurance

$130.77

Personal injury law

$309.33

Average cost-per-click by vertical (US, June 2026). Addiction shown for all terms and high-intent terms.

| Comparison vertical | Avg CPC | Top term CPC |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Cosmetic surgery | $10.11 | $10.87 |
| Major surgery / fertility | $10.88 | $14.69 |
| Medical aesthetics | $14.62 | $20.66 |
| Dental | $16.81 | $25.29 |
| Vision (LASIK) | $26.15 | $27.16 |
| Insurance | $130.77 | $159.33 |
| Personal injury law | $309.33 | $531.31 |

**What it means:** a wasted click in addiction marketing costs more than in almost any other form of healthcare. Efficiency, compliance and conversion discipline are not optional, they are the margin.

## 6. Demand and cost by substance

Segmenting every keyword by the substance or behavior it references shows where demand and competition concentrate.

| Substance category | Keywords | Monthly volume | Avg CPC | Local pack | AI Overview |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| General / unspecified | 4,088 | 1,591,690 | $27.42 | 64% | 8% |
| Alcohol | 835 | 160,020 | $42.57 | 64% | 6% |
| Opioids | 942 | 118,220 | $25.31 | 64% | 2% |
| Marijuana | 30 | 9,400 | $25.82 | 15% | 4% |
| Stimulants (meth/cocaine) | 26 | 3,180 | $23.33 | 38% | 0% |
| Benzodiazepines | 9 | 2,500 | $33.73 | 43% | 0% |
| Behavioral (gambling/sex/etc.) | 36 | 1,920 | $17.26 | 53% | 27% |
| Prescription drugs | 7 | 190 | $30.20 | 75% | 25% |

### Average CPC by substance

Alcohol

$42.57

Benzodiazepines

$33.73

Prescription drugs

$30.20

General / unspecified

$27.42

Marijuana

$25.82

Opioids

$25.31

Stimulants (meth/cocaine)

$23.33

Behavioral (gambling/sex/etc.)

$17.26

**What it means:** alcohol and opioids carry the deepest demand, while behavioral addictions show the highest AI-Overview exposure, an early signal of where AI search lands first.

## 7. Demand and cost by modality

By level of care, demand and cost diverge sharply. Detox and outpatient programs command premium clicks; sober living and housing draw high volume at lower cost.

| Modality / level of care | Keywords | Monthly volume | Avg CPC | Local pack | AI Overview |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| General rehab / treatment | 2,849 | 918,140 | $33.12 | 62% | 8% |
| Sober living / housing | 808 | 611,860 | $13.05 | 74% | 8% |
| MAT / medication | 935 | 112,360 | $24.75 | 64% | 3% |
| Detox | 708 | 100,260 | $41.52 | 47% | 5% |
| Outpatient / IOP / PHP | 267 | 100,080 | $32.53 | 61% | 13% |
| Inpatient / residential | 406 | 44,420 | $34.04 | 65% | 8% |

### Average CPC by modality

Detox

$41.52

Inpatient / residential

$34.04

General rehab / treatment

$33.12

Outpatient / IOP / PHP

$32.53

MAT / medication

$24.75

Sober living / housing

$13.05

## 8. Specialty audiences

Queries that specify an audience (teen, veterans, women, men, luxury/executive, faith-based) are smaller in volume but often higher in intent and value.

| Audience segment | Keywords | Monthly volume | Avg CPC |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Luxury / executive | 165 | 32,530 | $56.66 |
| Women | 26 | 18,470 | $22.25 |
| Men | 29 | 14,720 | $21.62 |
| Teen / adolescent | 24 | 6,050 | $23.08 |
| Faith-based | 44 | 4,560 | $20.38 |
| Veterans | 12 | 700 | $30.38 |

## 9. Geographic landscape

Treatment demand is measurable across all 50 states. The states below show the most keyword coverage in our dataset; average CPC varies with market competitiveness and payer mix.

| State | Keywords | Monthly volume | Avg CPC |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ME | 517 | 562,130 | $31.97 |
| IN | 456 | 114,520 | $31.83 |
| NJ | 43 | 48,710 | $56.63 |
| TX | 120 | 43,320 | $26.18 |
| CA | 107 | 38,410 | $37.01 |
| FL | 138 | 34,090 | $31.81 |
| NY | 58 | 20,200 | $28.04 |
| CO | 66 | 20,140 | $46.69 |
| OH | 69 | 19,240 | $16.55 |
| AZ | 44 | 19,200 | $22.43 |
| VA | 78 | 18,330 | $26.90 |
| GA | 54 | 17,700 | $30.19 |
| TN | 61 | 14,590 | $27.72 |
| NC | 72 | 14,190 | $30.27 |
| KY | 76 | 13,500 | $30.26 |

Top 15 states by keyword coverage.

**What it means:** national rankings are a vanity metric here. Admissions are won market by market, which is why one-client-per-area focus and city-level content outperform broad national plays.

## 10. The AI-search shift: the defining story of 2026

### The headline

AI Overviews have already transformed adjacent health search but have **barely arrived in addiction treatment**. In our data, **97% of consumer-health and wellness queries** (the "detox", "gut health", "how to lose weight" world) now return a Google AI Overview, versus just **7% of addiction-treatment queries**.

That gap is the single biggest strategic opportunity in this report. The centers that earn answer-engine authority now will be the cited sources when AI reaches the money terms, and the data shows exactly where it will land first.

Consumer health / wellness

97%

Addiction treatment

7%

AI Overview prevalence: adjacent consumer-health (n=30) vs addiction treatment (n=4,234).

### Where AI Overviews appear in treatment today

AI Overviews in treatment are not random. They concentrate in **informational and behavioral** queries and are almost entirely absent from transactional, local "near me" and "[city] rehab" searches. By search intent:

informational

10%

commercial

6%

transactional

5%

navigational

2%

AI Overview prevalence by primary intent.

By substance and behavior, AI Overviews skew heavily toward behavioral addictions (gambling, sex, pornography) and general informational questions, the queries Google feels safest summarizing:

Behavioral (gambling/sex/etc.)

27%

Prescription drugs

25%

General / unspecified

8%

Alcohol

6%

Marijuana

4%

Opioids

2%

Benzodiazepines

0%

Stimulants (meth/cocaine)

0%

AI Overview prevalence by substance category.

### The transactional blind spot

The queries that actually produce admissions, geographic and "near me" searches, are an AI blind spot. AI Overview prevalence on non-geographic queries is **9%**, but on geographic city/state queries it is effectively **1%**. Google still hands those to the local pack and organic results, not an AI summary.

Non-geographic queries

9%

Geographic (city/state) queries

1%

AI Overview prevalence: non-geographic vs geographic queries.

### Treatment queries already triggering AI Overviews

These are the leading edge, the higher-volume treatment-adjacent terms where Google already shows an AI answer. They are the queries to optimize for citation first.

| Query already showing an AI Overview | Monthly volume | Substance | Intent |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| what a halfway house | 12,100 | General / unspecified | informational |
| what is a halfway house | 12,100 | General / unspecified | informational |
| intensive outpatient program therapy | 3,600 | General / unspecified | informational |
| define halfway house | 2,900 | General / unspecified | informational |
| halfway house meaning | 2,900 | General / unspecified | informational |
| definition of halfway house | 2,900 | General / unspecified | informational |
| halfway house def | 2,900 | General / unspecified | informational |
| what is a methadone clinic | 1,900 | Opioids | informational |
| how much does drug rehab cost | 1,600 | General / unspecified | informational |
| how much does addiction treatment cost | 1,600 | General / unspecified | informational |
| dual diagnosis and treatment | 1,600 | General / unspecified | informational |
| how long is drug rehab | 1,000 | General / unspecified | informational |
| cost of addiction treatment | 1,000 | General / unspecified | informational |
| sober living house dallas | 1,000 | General / unspecified | navigational |

### What this means, and what wins AI citations

The window is open but closing. As Google grows confident summarizing higher-stakes health topics, AI Overviews will move down the funnel toward "[city] drug rehab" and "alcohol detox near me." Centers that wait will find the answer already written, and themselves uncited.

**What wins AI citations:** clinically reviewed, genuinely authoritative content; explicit, structured answers to the questions patients and families ask; schema and entity clarity; consistent NAP and local signals; and third-party corroboration (reviews, directories, citations). This is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), and 2026 is the year to build it, while the SERPs are still uncrowded by AI.

## 11. Ranking difficulty

Organic difficulty across the universe is more attainable than operators assume, because so much volume sits in specific, local and long-tail terms rather than a few hyper-competitive heads. Distribution of keyword difficulty:

Very easy (0–10)

2,182

Easy (11–20)

590

Medium (21–40)

909

Hard (41–70)

577

Very hard (71+)

48

Keywords by difficulty band (n=4,306).

## 12. What it means for operators

**Win local first.** With 64% of searches showing a local pack, Google Business Profile and local SEO are the highest-return investments available.

**Do not rely on paid alone.** At $31 per high-intent click, paid search is a tax you pay forever; compounding organic and content assets lower blended cost per admission.

**Cover the matrix.** Demand is fragmented across modalities, substances, audiences and cities. Systematic coverage beats chasing a few head terms.

**Build AEO now.** AI Overviews are coming to transactional treatment search. Structured, authoritative, citable content is the cheapest insurance you can buy this year, and the clearest finding in this report.

## 13. Methodology

We built the keyword universe with keyword-suggestion expansion across 43 seed terms spanning treatment modalities (detox, inpatient, outpatient, IOP, PHP, MAT, residential, sober living, halfway house), substances (alcohol, opioids, heroin, fentanyl, meth, cocaine, benzodiazepines, marijuana, prescription drugs), specialty audiences (teen, adolescent, veterans, men, women, executive, faith-based, luxury) and geography (city and state). Each term was enriched with search volume, cost-per-click and live SERP features for the United States, retrieved June 2026. We removed non-treatment "rehab" meanings (physical and cardiac rehabilitation, wildlife rehab, retail) and collapsed word-order and synonym duplicate clusters, leaving 5,973 distinct terms. Prevalence figures are computed over the 4,234 terms with live SERP-feature data; CPC figures over the 3,599 terms with cost data; difficulty over 4,306 terms. The healthcare comparison (section 5) and the consumer-health AI-Overview contrast (section 10, n=30) were measured with the same methodology over benchmark keyword sets. Because search engines group near-identical variants under shared volume estimates, total-search figures are directional; we deliberately report distributions and prevalences rather than a single market-size number. Treatment-gap context is from SAMHSA's 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. All figures are point-in-time and will change; this is the v1 baseline.

**Sources:**

- DataForSEO Labs (keyword suggestions, search volume, CPC, SERP features), United States, June 2026.
- SAMHSA, 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).
- Analysis, segmentation and benchmarking by Addiction Marketing Agency.

## 14. How to cite this report

**Citation:** Addiction Marketing Agency. *The State of Addiction Treatment Search 2026.* https://addictionmarketingagency.com/state-of-addiction-treatment-search-2026/

Journalists, researchers and treatment operators are welcome to cite these statistics with attribution and a link to this page. For the underlying data, a specific cut, or commentary, [contact us](/contact/).

## What is next (v2)

The 2027 edition adds two original datasets: an **operator survey** on budgets, channel mix and cost-per-admission, and a first-of-its-kind **response-time study** measuring how quickly treatment centers actually answer and follow up with inquiries. To take part, or to benchmark your center privately, get in touch.

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Source: https://addictionmarketingagency.com/state-of-addiction-treatment-search-2026/
Agency: Addiction Marketing Agency — https://addictionmarketingagency.com/