Cost, without a price list

6.5.1Why no figures appear here

Three reasons. Prices vary by practitioner, product, area, number of sessions and region, so any figure would be either a wide range or misleading. A range published on a reference site immediately becomes a benchmark that clinics price against, which is a market effect we have no business creating. And this site deliberately links to no clinic, so publishing a price would be pointing you towards a market we are not prepared to point you into.

The article on why we publish no numbers sets out the general policy. This article gives you what a price would not.

6.5.2Working out the real figure

Ask for four numbers and do one calculation.

1. The cost of the entire initial course, not per session.
2. The proposed maintenance schedule, and the cost of each maintenance session.
3. Anything not included: consultation, top ups, follow up appointments, products you will be advised to buy.
4. What happens to money already paid if you stop partway.

Then work out the annual cost at the proposed maintenance rate, and multiply by the number of years you imagine continuing. That figure, rather than the session price, is the decision you are actually making. It is often several times larger than the number people have in their head when they agree.

6.5.3What is routinely outside the quoted price

• The consultation, where it is charged separately and not deducted.
• Follow up or review appointments.
• Any top up or additional session proposed once the course has begun.
• Treatment of the second area proposed at the appointment.
• Skincare recommended afterwards.
• Time off, cover, and rearranged plans if recovery is more visible than expected.
• The cost of managing a complication if the clinic charges for it, which is worth asking about directly.

That last one is asked rarely and deserves a clear answer before you pay for anything. Whether the practice charges to see you about a problem it may have caused is ordinary consumer information.

6.5.4Package pricing and what it does

Courses sold as a discounted package are standard and are not improper. What they do is ask you to pay in advance for treatments whose value you cannot yet assess, and the discount is the mechanism that makes committing feel rational rather than premature.

The protective questions are simple. Is any part refundable if I stop. Do the sessions expire. Is the discount available if I pay session by session. Get the answers in writing before money changes hands, and remember that consumer law gives you rights in relation to services not performed with reasonable care and skill, which Citizens Advice explains accessibly.

6.5.5Finance and instalments

Cosmetic treatment is increasingly sold with finance attached. Two things are worth stating plainly. Borrowing to pay for an elective cosmetic treatment converts a discretionary purchase into an obligation that outlives the treatment, and a treatment whose central claim is unproven is a poor candidate for that. And offering finance at the point of a decision, in a room where a discount expires, works directly against the time to consider that proper consent contemplates.

Nobody needs to be lectured about their own finances. The point is narrower: notice when a purchase decision and a credit decision are being made in the same conversation, because they are separate decisions and one of them is harder to undo.

6.5.6Value, which is a different question from price

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get, and in a category where the central claim is unresolved, the truthful position is that you do not know what you are getting and neither does the person selling it.

That does not make it a bad purchase. People buy things whose value is uncertain constantly and reasonably. What it means is that the comparison is not between this treatment and a proven alternative, but between this treatment and everything else you might do with the same money, made with the evidence position in view.

The one framing worth resisting is investment. Language about investing in your skin converts a consumption decision into something that sounds like it will return. It will not return. It is a purchase, like any other, and calling it what it is makes it easier to decide sensibly about.

6.5.7The cost questions

• What is the total cost of the entire proposed course?
• What is the maintenance schedule, and the annual cost of maintaining it?
• What is not included in the price you have quoted me?
• If I stop after the first session, what happens to money already paid?
• Do you charge to see me if there is a problem afterwards?
• Is the discount available if I pay session by session?