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This article summarizes published evidence — each company’s own published pricing pages, an FDA safety communication, and FDA-approved drug labeling, each cited below. It is written by journalists, not clinicians, and has not been reviewed by a physician. Talk to a doctor or a board-certified dermatologist before starting or stopping any treatment. Full medical disclaimer.
What the status labels on this page mean
- FDA-approved
- The FDA reviewed the evidence and approved this drug for pattern hair loss.
- Off-label
- An FDA-approved drug being prescribed for something other than what it was approved for. Legal and common, but the hair loss use has not been through FDA review.
- Compounded
- Mixed to order by a pharmacy. Not FDA-approved, and not reviewed by the FDA for safety, effectiveness or quality.
What this page found
- The five services sell two regulatory categories of product at wildly different prices: FDA-approved oral finasteride and minoxidil, and compounded topicals with no approved version.[10]
- Cheapest published 12-month plan among them: Ro finasteride at $192.[5] Most expensive: XYON topical gel at $1,308.[6] Same active molecule.
- None of them beats generic finasteride with a pharmacy coupon, listed from $9.75 — about $117 a year.[9]
- Fees that do not appear on the headline price: Keeps $5 per shipment[3], Strut $40 to transfer your prescription out[8], XYON $20 consultation on one-time orders[7].
- Hims’ money-back guarantee on the first 90 days of finasteride can only be claimed between day 90 and day 180 — not before.[1]
- Keeps does not publish per-product prices. You have to complete a quiz to see them, which is why several cells in our table say so rather than guessing.[3]
The distinction nobody puts in the comparison
Every roundup of these services compares price, packaging and app design. Almost none of them tell you the single most consequential difference between the products on offer, which is whether the FDA has approved the thing you are buying.
Oral finasteride FDA-approved and topical minoxidil FDA-approved are FDA-approved for pattern hair loss and have generic versions. Topical finasteride Compounded and multi-ingredient compounded sprays and gels are not approved products at all — they are compounded, mixed to order by a pharmacy against an individual prescription. The FDA’s position is that there is currently no FDA-approved topical formulation of finasteride, and it issued a safety alert on 22 April 2025 after 32 adverse event reports received between 2019 and 2024.[10]
That matters here because the compounded products are consistently the expensive ones. If you sort the table below by price, you are largely sorting by regulatory status.
What the five services publish
| Service & product | Published price | Billing | 12-month cost | Can you stop? | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ro — finasteride | $16/month on the 12-month plan[5] | Ships quarterly | $192 | The 12-month rate requires the 12-month plan[5] | FDA-approved |
| Ro — topical minoxidil | $13/month, 12-month plan[5] | Ships quarterly | $156 | As above[5] | FDA-approved |
| Keeps — entry plan | from $10/month[3] | Billed & shipped quarterly, $5/shipment | about $140 including shipping | Cancellation terms not published without completing the quiz[3] | FDA-approved |
| Hims — Hair Power Pack | $22/month prepaid 12 months; $26/month quarterly[1] | Prepaid year or quarterly, 3-month minimum | $264 prepaid, $312 quarterly | 3-month minimum. Refunds on the first 90 days of finasteride only between day 90 and day 180[1] | FDA-approved |
| Keeps — oral minoxidil | $20/month for 3 months, then $30[4] | Quarterly, $5/shipment | $350 | Not published[3] | Off-label |
| Ro — oral minoxidil | $24/month, 12-month plan[5] | Ships quarterly | $288 | The 12-month rate requires the 12-month plan[5] | Off-label |
| Hims — topical fin + min spray | from $35/month[2] | Not stated on page | about $420 | Billing terms not stated on the product page[2] | Compounded |
| XYON — oral finasteride | $105 per 90 days on subscription[7] | Every 90 days | $420 | No minimum term — pause or cancel any time[7] | FDA-approved |
| Ro — Mane Spray (fin + min) | $50/month quarterly, $43/month at 6 months[5] | Quarterly | $516–$600 | Lower rate requires the 6-month commitment[5] | Compounded |
| Strut — Hairfect Rx topical | from $59/month[8] | Monthly, cancel anytime | about $708 | No minimum term — but $40 to transfer the prescription out[8] | Compounded |
| XYON — topical finasteride gel | $109/month subscription[6] | Monthly | $1,308 | No minimum term — pause or cancel any time[6] | Compounded |
Prices are each company’s own published list price, checked 8 September 2026. They change, and promotional pricing is common. Verify before you buy.
Twelve months of finasteride, by route
FDA-approved Compounded
The fees that sit below the headline price
These are all published by the companies themselves. They are just published somewhere other than the price you see first.
| Service | Fee or condition | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Keeps | $5 per shipment[3] | Billing is quarterly, so that is $20 a year on top of a plan advertised from $10 a month. |
| Strut | $40 prescription transfer fee[8] | Applies if you want the prescription filled outside its preferred pharmacy network. It is the cost of leaving. |
| XYON | $20 consultation fee on one-time purchases[7] | Waived on subscription. The fee is structured to make the recurring plan the cheaper choice. |
| Hims | Refunds on the first 90 days of finasteride can be requested only between day 90 and day 180[1] | You cannot claim a refund in month one or two, which is before most people can judge whether it is working. |
| Keeps | Per-product prices are not published without completing a quiz[3] | You cannot compare its finasteride or topical prices against anyone else’s without giving up your details first. |
The route none of these five sell you
Finasteride is a prescription drug, and it has been generic for years.[11] That means the subscription is a convenience layer over two separable things: a prescriber, and a pharmacy.
Unbundled, GoodRx lists generic finasteride from $9.75, against an average retail price without a coupon of $52.12.[9] At the coupon price that is roughly $117 for twelve months — less than the cheapest subscription plan in the table above, for the identical FDA-approved molecule.
One insurance detail worth knowing: GoodRx notes that generic finasteride is covered by most insurance and Medicare for benign prostatic hyperplasia, but not for hair loss.[9] So for a hair loss indication, a pharmacy coupon is frequently cheaper than running it through insurance.
The unbundled route still needs a prescriber
The cheap generic route requires a prescription, which is the part the subscription services bundle into their monthly fee. Sesame Care is a US marketplace that lists what a consultation costs upfront in cash, including hair loss visits, so you can price that piece separately and decide whether the bundle is worth it.
Sesame Care is a US telehealth marketplace that lists upfront cash prices for appointments. The link below is an affiliate link: if you book, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
See hair loss consultation prices →What each service is actually for
| Service | The case for it | The case against |
|---|---|---|
| Ro | Cheapest published telehealth pricing in this comparison, with transparent per-product prices and a 12-month tier that materially lowers the monthly rate.[5] | Billing and shipping are quarterly, so the monthly figure is not what leaves your account. Its Mane Spray and oral minoxidil products are compounded, or an approved drug used off-label. |
| Hims | Publishes a flat annual price for its Hair Power Pack and includes a choice of second product.[1] | The prepaid year is the only way to get the advertised $22 rate, there is a three-month minimum, and the refund window does not open until day 90. |
| Keeps | Lowest advertised entry price of the five.[3] | You cannot see per-product prices without completing a quiz, and the $5 per-shipment fee is not in the headline number. |
| XYON | Publishes its prices clearly, waives the consultation fee on subscription, and does not lock you into a term.[6][7] | Its flagship topical gel is the most expensive product in this entire comparison at $1,308 a year, and it is a compounded product with no FDA-approved equivalent. |
| Strut | Free online visit, free shipping, monthly billing and no minimum term.[8] | The product is a compounded multi-ingredient topical at about $708 a year, and leaving costs $40 if you want the prescription transferred out. |
What we could not verify
Keeps per-product pricing. Keeps does not display prices for its finasteride, topical minoxidil, topical combination or foam products without completing an on-site quiz.[3] We have left those cells out rather than quoting a figure from a third-party blog.
Happy Head. We intended to include it. The entire happyhead.com domain blocks automated retrieval through its robots.txt, so we could not read a single product or pricing page. We will not repeat prices we have not seen on the seller’s own page, so the service is absent from this comparison rather than described from hearsay.
Efficacy comparisons between services. There are none, because no trial has ever compared these companies against each other. They dispense the same handful of molecules. Any page ranking them by results is ranking marketing.
How to choose without overthinking it
Sensible ways to pick
- You want the cheapest documented route and do not mind arranging a prescriber and pharmacy separately — generic finasteride with a coupon
- You want a single recurring charge with no logistics and transparent per-product pricing — Ro’s 12-month plan
- You want a fixed annual price with a bundled second product — Hims’ prepaid Hair Power Pack
- You have specifically been advised to try a topical formulation by a prescriber who knows your history
Ways people overpay
- You are choosing a compounded topical because a page told you it has no side effects — the FDA named that exact claim as false[10]
- You are paying $1,308 a year rather than $192 for the same molecule without having been told why
- You are picking a service on branding, app quality or packaging rather than on what is in the bottle
- You are signing up for a prepaid year before you know whether the drug suits you
One disclosure about how this page is written: we earn a commission if you book a consultation through the link above. We do not earn anything from any of the five subscription services compared here, which is why the comparison can say that the cheapest route is the one none of them sell. US advertising rules place responsibility for claims on affiliates as well as advertisers[12], and we would rather be governed by that than tempted by it.
Where to go next
Frequently asked questions
Which hair loss service is cheapest?
On published list prices checked 8 September 2026, Ro’s 12-month finasteride plan at $192 a year is the cheapest of the five for oral finasteride, and Keeps’ entry plan works out at roughly $140 a year including its $5 per-shipment fee. But none of them beats a generic prescription filled with a pharmacy coupon, which GoodRx lists from $9.75 – roughly $117 a year for the same molecule.
Is Hims or Keeps better?
They sell overlapping products, so the honest comparison is on billing structure rather than quality. Hims publishes a fixed Hair Power Pack price of $264 prepaid for twelve months, or $312 billed quarterly, with a three-month minimum. Keeps bills and ships quarterly with a $5 fee per shipment and does not publish per-product prices without completing a quiz. Hims’ refund window on the first 90 days of finasteride opens only between day 90 and day 180 after delivery, which means you cannot request one earlier.
Is XYON topical finasteride worth $109 a month?
That is a judgement about your own tolerance and budget, not something a website can settle. What we can tell you is what you are paying for: a compounded topical finasteride gel, which is not an FDA-approved product. Over twelve months it costs $1,308, against $192 for Ro’s oral finasteride plan or about $117 for a generic filled with a coupon. The FDA issued a safety alert about compounded topical finasteride on 22 April 2025.
Do any of these services have hidden fees?
Some published fees are easy to miss. Keeps charges $5 per shipment on top of the plan price. Strut charges a $40 transfer fee if you want the prescription sent to a pharmacy outside its preferred network. XYON charges a $20 consultation fee on one-time purchases, waived on subscription. Hims’ money-back guarantee is time-boxed to the day 90 to day 180 window.
Do I need a subscription to get finasteride?
No. Finasteride is a prescription medicine, so you need a prescriber – but the prescription can be filled at any pharmacy. The subscription services bundle the consultation and the fulfilment into one recurring charge. Getting a prescription and filling it with a pharmacy coupon is the cheapest documented route to the same FDA-approved drug.
Sources
- Hims. Hair Power Pack. hims.com (checked 8 September 2026)
- Hims. Topical finasteride & minoxidil spray. hims.com (checked 8 September 2026)
- Keeps. How much does Keeps cost? keeps.com (checked 8 September 2026)
- Keeps. Low-dose oral minoxidil. buy.keeps.com (checked 8 September 2026)
- Ro. Pricing. ro.co (checked 8 September 2026)
- XYON Health. Topical finasteride SiloxysSystem gel. xyonhealth.com (checked 8 September 2026)
- XYON Health. Oral finasteride. xyonhealth.com (checked 8 September 2026)
- Strut Health. Hairfect Rx topical formula. struthealth.com (checked 8 September 2026)
- GoodRx. Finasteride prices and coupons. goodrx.com (checked 8 September 2026)
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA alerts health care providers, compounders and consumers of potential risks associated with compounded topical finasteride products. 22 April 2025. fda.gov
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. PROPECIA (finasteride) tablets, prescribing information. 2022. accessdata.fda.gov
- Federal Trade Commission. Health Products Compliance Guidance. December 2022. ftc.gov
Affiliate disclosure: this page contains affiliate links. We may earn a commission when you buy through them, at no additional cost to you. Commissions never determine what we cover or what the evidence sections say. Read our full affiliate disclosure.
How we researched this: every figure on this page is sourced to a numbered reference below. For this article those sources are each company’s own published pricing pages, an FDA safety communication, FDA-approved drug labeling, a pharmacy price aggregator, and FTC advertising guidance. Where a figure could not be verified from a primary source, we say so in the text rather than estimating. Prices were checked on the date shown at the top of this page and change frequently. We do not test products and we do not practice medicine. See our review methodology.
