King of youth-recapturing cosmetic treatments, the facelift’s price tag reflects its gold-standard status. And rightfully so: no other procedure can so swiftly and dramatically restore aging faces to their former composition—redirecting southbound cheeks, straightening jawlines interrupted by jowls, and freeing necks from bands and wattle.
In recent years, much of the stigma surrounding facelifts—long misjudged as hush-hush vanity projects for rich old ladies—has fallen away. Plastic surgeons routinely perform the procedure on forty- and fiftysomethings—and this unabashed new generation of patients, rather than hiding out for weeks after, is more apt to broadcast their recoveries and results on social media.
One aspect of facelift surgery remains somewhat shrouded, however: its price. Unless you book a surgical consultation or know someone personally who’s gone under the knife, it can be difficult to get a real sense of how much a facelift might set you back. You can dig up the stats—plastic surgery societies give a ballpark of $7,500 as the national average for physician fees—and look to sites like RealSelf, of course, where members report spending just over $12,000 for the operation. But with plastic pricing being so layered and individualized, these numbers are rarely bull’s-eye predictions for what you’ll actually wind up paying.
Aiming for greater transparency, we asked plastic surgeons from across the country to help us deconstruct the total cost of a facelift so that you can accurately gauge whether this royal treatment fits your budget.
Facility fee: $900 to $1,500 per hour
Whether you have your facelift done in a hospital operating room, an accredited surgical center (ASC), or a private OR, you’ll be paying an hourly fee for the facility. And facelifts, depending on the complexity of the case, usually run two to four hours (though revisions can take up to six, says Dr. Sarmela Sunder, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California).
“The fee includes the actual space plus all the things we need to operate—the sutures, the instruments, and all the sterile equipment as well as a nurse and a scrub tech,” explains Dr. Lesley Rabach, a board-certified facial plastic surgeon in New York City.
Dr. Rabach regularly rents out private ORs, noting that in New York City, “surgery centers tend to be more for insurance-based surgeries and hospital facility fees are just astronomical.” Dr. Susan MacLennan, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Colchester, Vermont, finds this to be true in her area too. “It would definitely be cost-prohibitive for me to do a cosmetic case at the local university hospital here in Burlington,” she says. “Hospitals and ASCs typically make more from insurance cases, so they would prefer to do these types of cases.”
This isn’t the norm everywhere, it seems. Board-certified facial plastic surgeon Dr. Jason Bloom, who performs about 90% of his facelift surgeries at Bryn Mawr Hospital, just outside Philadelphia, finds that hospital pricing is comparable to surgical centers in the area.
Facility fees undoubtedly vary with geography. “In Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, the Bay Area, and certain parts of Texas, prices will be much higher,” says Dr. Sunder. “Even in L.A., prices in Beverly Hills are going to be significantly more than in, say, the Valley, solely because surgery center rents are higher and clinic space is more expensive.”
Related: 10 Doctors Give Their Best Facelift Advice, in 10 Words or Less
Anesthesia fee: $300 to $750 per hour
Full facelifts are ordinarily performed under general anesthesia or twilight sedation—both of which are, ideally, administered and monitored by a board-certified anesthesiologist or a registered nurse anesthetist, who is “paid to make sure you are asleep and comfortable and that all your vitals are within normal range,” explains Dr. Bloom. (Some surgeons will perform mini lifts under local anesthesia, with patients awake; those cases don’t require an anesthesiologist.)
Your surgeon and your medical history will determine the type of anesthesia you receive. Regardless of what’s chosen, the fee should be relatively the same, says Dr. Sunder, since “you’re paying for the physician, not necessarily the specific supplies being used.” Nurse anesthetists may charge a little less than doctors, she adds.
As with facility owners, anesthesiologists charge by the hour (and again, location influences cost). The ones Dr. Rabach works with commonly charge a certain amount for the first hour of surgery—in her experience, $400 to $750—and a somewhat reduced fee for subsequent hours, each of which is broken down into 15-minute segments so that you’re not paying for unused time.
Physician fee: $7,000 to $40,000+
Yeah, this is frustrating. Such an absurdly expansive price range is rather worthless to someone trying to calculate the affordability of a facelift, we realize. But by breaking down the many factors contributing to the average surgeon’s fee, we can perhaps give you a better idea of where your doctor falls on this spectrum.
The surgeon’s name and notoriety
Facelift legends used to be made of Ivy League education, impeccable training, board certification, and decades of experience operating—often at a Park Avenue address.
Nowadays, “a lot of people place more value on social media presence,” says Dr. Sunder. “It’s shocking to me that doctors who aren’t board-certified yet have a ton of followers can command higher prices. But the status of the surgeon definitely plays a role in price.”
Justified or not, notoriety breeds demand—and covetable waitlists. “There’s definitely a supply-and-demand curve,” confirms Dr. Bloom. “Some facelift surgeons can charge whatever they want, because they have big names and huge waiting lists.”
CV highlights and Insta fame aside, established surgeons who consistently turn out good results, generating impressive before-and-afters and generous word-of-mouth in the process, tend to attract patients from all over the world—and “they can really command a hefty fee,” says Dr. Rabach.
And hefty gets heftier when said surgeon is based in a sexy city.
How the surgeon defines a facelift
This is a biggie, so bear with us.
“There are a variety of things that doctors define as a facelift,” Dr. Rabach says. What most modern surgeons call a facelift is more precisely a lower face and neck lift—and physician fees traditionally cover corrections to both areas. Still, some surgeons may charge extra for neck work, notes Dr. Bloom, especially if they’re opening the neck under the chin rather than addressing it through the same ear-adjacent incisions made to manipulate the facial structures.
As a general rule, a facelift does not include tweaks to the upper face. Brow lifts, eyelid surgery, and lip lifts are often performed at the same time as a facelift, for an additional charge (figure $5,000 to $7,000 each). Fat grafting and skin-resurfacing treatments, like peels and lasers, can also be tacked on, but again, these separate fixes will hike up your physician fee. They also prolong surgery, thereby increasing OR and anesthesia expenses.
There are always exceptions, Dr. Sunder points out: “There’s someone in L.A. who charges over $100,000 for facelifts, but he includes brows, upper and lower eyes, facial implants, everything.”
While surgeons tend to have a preferred facelift technique based on their training and experience—with general plastic surgeons customarily performing SMAS lifts and facial plastic surgeons frequently favoring the deep plane lift—Dr. Bloom tells us that doctors “don’t usually charge differently based on their facelift technique.” (The two approaches are compared here; their risks and benefits are hotly debated.) That said, certain surgeons do believe the deep plane lift gives a more natural and long-lasting result—that you’re essentially “getting more bang for your buck,” says Dr. Rabach—and they may factor this into their facelift fee.
More universally, time is money, so the extent and complexity of work required will invariably affect your cost. “A simple mini lift on someone in her 30s who doesn’t have severe sun damage or jowling may take only a couple of hours,” says Dr. Sunder. This surgery would be considerably less pricey than Dr. Sunder’s full-blown facelift—a deep plane face and neck lift, involving extensive dissection for a more powerful and durable result.
But what qualifies as “mini”? This too varies by surgeon, since there aren’t recognized criteria—a mini lift is merely a less invasive version of a surgeon’s conventional facelift. “I’ve had doctors observe me [in the OR] and say, ‘Oh, that’s your mini lift? That’s what I do for my standard facelift,’” Dr. Sunder adds. In some cases, a doctor’s “true facelift may be a SMASectomy [trimming and tightening the connective-tissue layer atop the muscles], so their mini is just skin excision.”
During consultations, ask surgeons what exactly distinguishes their mini lift from their classic facelift and how well each historically holds up—skin-only lifts are notoriously short-lived, FYI—so you know precisely what you’ll be paying for.
Finally, anything that complicates surgery will boost the price. “If it’s a secondary lift, there’s going to be a lot of scar tissue and I’m going to need to spend more time on this person than [on] the typical first-time facelift patient,” says Dr. Sunder. (Scarring obscures the normal planes of dissection, making surgery less predictable and upping the degree of difficulty.) Likewise, if someone has undergone multiple noninvasive or minimally invasive treatments—Ultherapy, thread lifts, Kybella—prior to having a facelift, they too could have scar tissue as a result and may require more time and care in the OR. Hypertension and the potential for bleeding can also lengthen surgery. With all of the above, Dr. Sunder says, “I’ll have a discussion with the patient saying, ‘I anticipate your price is going to be different because of this reason.’”
Related: Lower Facelift vs. Neck Lift: What’s the Difference?
The so-called concierge experience
Certain physicians build posh perks into their prices. Dr. Sunder’s facelift fee, for instance, reflects not only time and expertise in the OR but a one-night stay at an aftercare center plus an entire year of follow-up visits; any scar treatments one may need following surgery (including lasers and microneedling); and a selection of skin care, to help maintain results.
Dr. Rabach’s fee similarly encompasses follow-ups and medical-grade skin care to minimize scarring. Dr. Bloom’s includes several days of post-op house calls from his team of trusted nurses (available to those who live somewhat locally). While he personally sees patients the day after facelift surgery, his nurses are subsequently available to help change dressings, clean incision lines, and reassure patients that their recovery is on track.
Overnight nursing care: $1,000 to $1,500
When post-op accommodations don’t come standard, patients can procure them for a price. “One-on-one nursing is a really nice luxury following a facelift—having someone there to get you food, help you to the bathroom, bring you pain medication when you need it, change your ice packs every hour, check your vital signs,” says Dr. Rabach. “Patients who elect to have that service definitely have a much easier first night.” Her nurses pick up patients at discharge, stay with them overnight, and accompany them to their follow-up appointment the next day.
