Everyone loves a bargain. £2,000 – £3,500 hair transplants with “unlimited” grafts in the UK. Yes please! Why should I pay these “premium” prices (£4,000 – £10,000) when I can get a hair transplant cheaper ?
Does this ring a bell? A lot of people base their initial decision on having a hair transplant on price and getting it as cheap as possible. This makes sense as it is human nature after all. We tend to feel hard done by if we pay a higher price for something that someone else got, or is offering cheaper. Well, the devil is in the detail as they say. Lets take a quick deep dive into the true costs of a hair transplant and why it’s more expensive at some clinics (including ours – see our hair transplant prices here) vs others and that there is a reason behind the higher pricing vs the lower pricing.
Contents
Overview
The prices vary because of 3 factors:
- A doctor lead surgery is the most expensive but yields the best results because the doctor performs 1 surgery per day so their sole focus is on that 1 patient. Pricing typically starts from £3,000 and can go to £15,000.
- A technician lead surgery is the cheapest because the doctor can see multiple patients per day and so the cost per surgery goes down a lot. Pricing typically starts at £2,000 and can go to £3,500.
- There are hair transplant brokers that can re-sell packages to patients with their margin on top and a commission from the clinic. Pricing typically starts at £2,500 and can go to £3,500.
Surgical Staff Costs for a Doctor Lead Surgery
Hair Transplant Doctor Salary in the UK: varies from £100,000 all the way up to £444,168 as reported by Salary Expert. If we were to look at how much a locum GP makes per hour, it ranges from £80 to £150 per hour. Lets call it roughly £100 per hour (see think work force) for ease of maths. Hair transplant doctors are more specialised than a locum GP and thus will make more per hour (more along the lines of £150+ per hour but lets take the £150 per hour as a base level). Meaning that an 8 hour shift will total £1,200.
Hair Transplant Technician Salary in the UK: varies from £26,000 to £32,000. An average salary is £30,000 according to talent.com, meaning it’s around £15,38 per hour or around £123 per 8 hour shift. This isn’t taking into account any employer costs such as the tax and NI that are paid so the true cost to business is more along the lines of £33,145
A lot of clinics also use freelance/locum technicians. The cost of these is typically £200 – £250 per day.
During a hair transplant surgery you will typically see 1 doctor and 2-3 technicians depending on the case size. If it’s a small to medium case (typically up to 2,000 grafts) there will be 2 technicians. If it is a larger case (typically from 2,200 grafts to 3,000 grafts) there will typically be 3 technicians.
Total Clinical Staff Costs: £1,200 + £200 + 200 (+ 200) = £1,600 – £1,800.
Hair Transplant Equipment, Medication and Consumables
There are a lot of consumables that are used during a hair transplant including:
- Gauze
- Micropore tape
- Galipots
- Drapes
- Inco sheets (Incontinence sheets to cover up the bed)
- Gloves
- Face Masks
as well as more.
There are various meds that are used (or what we class as meds) such as:
- Saline solution
- Lidocaine
- Adrenaline
- Hibiscrub
- Antibiocs
and some others.
There are various pieces of equipment used such as:
- Forceps (different kinds for extracting, counting and implanting) when performing FUE hair transplants.
- “Punch” machine
- “Punches” (these are used to extract hair follicles from the back and sides of the head)
- Blades for incisions
- Blade holders
as well as some others.
Consumables, Equipment, Meds Total Costs = roughly £200 per surgery.
Clinic Costs
All in all the clinic building costs, insurance, staff, CQC fees etc works out at roughly £350 per surgery.
Total Cost of Clinical Staff, Equipment, Medication, Consumables = £2,350 roughly. (It can go up to £2,500+)
The above is assuming a doctor lead surgery. As you can see, we are at already a cost of £2,350 – £2,500 for the surgical, clinical staff as well as all the consumables, equipment and medication. We haven’t taken into account any of the admin staff, patient advisors or any of the software a clinic uses, phone costs, insurance etc.
All in all the costs are roughly £3,000 – £4,000 per surgery depending on the size of the surgery as well as the amount of surgeries done per month. We are assuming a 1 surgery per day approach as a doctor lead surgery typically means that the doctor doesn’t have enough time to perform another surgery in the day.
We then have a profit margin left over of which 19-25% will go to the government for corporation tax and a % (typically between 10-20%) will go towards marketing and advertising costs.
Surgical Staff Costs for a Technician Lead Surgery
Without going into too much detail, as if you see the surgical staff costs for a doctor lead surgery above, in essence the doctor can perform multiple surgeries as the technicians will perform most parts of the surgery which frees up the doctor to see more patients on the day. Couple that with a lower amount paid to the doctor because they aren’t performing all the necessary parts of surgery and will make a similar amount to a doctor lead surgery purely from the number of patients per day that they see, means a much lower cost per surgery.
The way that this works is that the doctor will see the patient in the morning to do the consultation and hairline design (sometimes the anaesthetic injections also but not always) and will then leave the patient to the technicians which will proceed in beginning the punching and extraction of the hair transplant. This frees up the doctor to see another patient for the consultation and hairline design and before you know it, there are 2-3 patients that the doctor has seen for the initial part.
After this, the doctor will then follow up with the first patient and perform the incisions and will then again leave the patient to the technicians as the doctor will need to see the 2nd patient to perform the incisions and then the 3rd.
As you can see, the costs of the doctor are straight away split between 2-3 patients bringing the costs down a lot. This is known as the volume approach (or “conveyor belt” system also known as a “hair mill”).
The costs for this per surgery really decreases and can be around £1,000 – £1,200 per surgery, which is why they can offer a price point of £2,000 – £3,500.
Hair Transplant Brokers
Keep in mind there are various hair transplant brokers on the market that are in essence sales agents that will pass you to one of these technician lead clinics because they also want to make a margin on top as well as commission from the clinic. There is nothing wrong with this approach if the broker offers you something extra on top of added value in order to pay the higher price. Again, it all comes down to what you, as a patient, value the most.
Summary
We advocate for a doctor lead approach because in our experience it yields the best results. We have broken down the 3 available ways currently to have a hair transplant:
- A doctor lead approach
- A technician lead approach
- A broker lead approach that typically send you to a technician lead clinic
You are of course free to choose the route that suits you the best.
