Request a call back!
For any questions or to arrange a consultation appointment:
Please fill in our form and our colleague will call you back at the time you indicated!
Hair transplant price
Misconceptions About Hair Transplant Prices
If we look at the Hungarian market, we can see that most clinics performing hair transplants calculate the final amount payable after the procedure on a per-hair basis, but also offer per-graft pricing as an option. Understandably, this causes confusion for many people, since not everyone can be perfectly informed about the world of hair transplant pricing. It may seem simpler if a clinic approaches pricing in only one way, but whose interest does that actually serve?
Graft-based or hair-strand-based?
In order for our patient to make an informed decision in a healthcare field, it's important that they understand clearly how pricing per graft versus per hair works, before fully committing to a situation that will determine their aesthetic appearance for years after the procedure - not to mention the "surgical experience" itself, which matters a great deal in terms of how the person undergoing the hair transplant goes through it.
Every unit to be transplanted counts as one graft, regardless of how many hairs the patient wants. Creating a natural hair structure requires an adequate amount of every type of graft, not just grafts with more hairs.
What exactly is a Graft?
A graft refers to a piece of living tissue suitable for transplantation. The term "graft" is not limited to the field of hair transplantation, but it is most widely used in hair-restoration circles. Grafts are in fact the follicular units in which the hairs and the protective tissue units that produce them are found. One fact is important to know: for an average patient (in the case of Caucasian hair), one graft on average ~contains 2,4 hairs (rarely more or fewer) The number of these hairs varies by individual, and even by graft! So some grafts may contain just one hair, while others may contain up to four. After extraction, the grafts are carefully separated according to the number of hairs they contain (see image below), and this is what later determines how they are transplanted, so that the new look appears as natural as possible.
Which is the cheaper version? The real cost of hair transplantation
We have arrived at perhaps the most interesting part of the post. Calculating the price of a hair transplant is not exactly the simplest thing. Still, if someone sees on the prices page that they have the option to pay per hair (which looks much cheaper on paper than per graft), it doesn't even occur to them that there could be more to it.
In fact, both versions calculate based on the grafts; the key difference, however, is that while graft-based hair-transplant pricing shows a correct and transparent amount, with per-hair pricing the patient cannot know exactly what the clinic is basing its calculation on. Since the currently available modern FUE techniques also operate based on graft extraction, and pricing is based on this as well. However, the average number of hair strands that individual clinics charge per graft can vary greatly. The most advanced Trivellini FUE Mamba one of its great advantages, for example, is that it counts the extracted grafts in real time, so we guarantee our patients that they actually pay for exactly as many grafts as were transplanted.
The result of this uncertainty mentioned above is that either the amount the patient calculated in advance does not match, or the price of their hair transplant does match but the quality does not reach the desired level, resulting in a thinner-looking crown. As mentioned, 1 graft contains on average ~2,4 or at minimum more hairs; if a significantly larger deviation from this is seen in a patient, the reason is usually that a considerably larger number of grafts containing more hairs were removed than would have been justified in an average situation (when the goal is not only to densify the mid-scalp). To quantify it for the sake of example: the transplantation of 2000 hairs, if a clinic calculates with 2 hairs per graft, is carried out with from 1000 grafts, and if with 3-4, then from 500-667 grafts. It is clear that the result will not be the same.
The visual coverage and naturalness of a transplanted graft containing 1-2 or even 3 hairs depends on far more factors than can be summed up by claiming that a high hair-to-graft ratio will produce a good result. If someone is told during surgery that their donor area was very good and an extremely high hair count is determined, they will have to pay considerably more money for the same number of grafts, with no guarantee that the visual end result will actually look natural. This is because most of the human scalp cannot predominantly consist of grafts with 3-4 hairs if a natural look is the goal. In addition, when planning hair structure, we always have to think about the future. If hair loss continues, there may not be enough multi-hair grafts available for a possible later surgery to thicken the existing hair.
It could be said that per-hair pricing is a widely used marketing trick, so if you come across it, please treat it with caution. It is our medical-professional responsibility to keep to the pre-agreed hair transplant prices and next to it to represent at a high standard the science of aesthetic renewal.
By clicking the button below you can view our own all-inclusive pricing, with no beating around the bush!