How do new med spa patients split spending on laser and injectables?

Who this is for

This is for the physician or medical professional who owns a med spa or an aesthetic practice that offers laser treatments or is weighing a laser purchase, and for the operations lead who decides which services the practice puts in front of new patients.

That decision turns on two questions: which services bring a new patient in, and what that patient buys afterward. The revenue data, the procedure counts and the consumer surveys we read answer the first question differently, and none of them answers the second.

The trade magazine American Spa told med spa owners that laser treatments "may be an important entry point among new patients."¹

What do new med spa patients spend on, compared with returning ones?

New patients put a larger share of their spending into laser and energy treatments than existing patients do. Both groups put a much larger share into injectables.

The data comes from CorralData's Q3 2026 benchmark, which covers July 1 to September 30. It is built from operators' own practice management systems, "not from a survey," in CorralData's words, and covers 150+ brands, 500+ locations and $250M+ of revenue in the quarter. CorralData publishes medians and the 25th and 75th percentiles, names no operator, and splits revenue between new and existing patients without saying how long a patient counts as new.²

At the median operator, laser and energy treatments made up 13.3% of the revenue from new patients and 8.3% of the revenue from existing patients. Injectables made up 39.9% and 43.4%. Wellness made up 3.7% and 10.6%.²

New patients brought in 17.7% of revenue at the median operator.² Laser's higher share among new patients is a share of that smaller part of the business.

CorralData explains the wellness gap itself: "Wellness is mostly something patients add once they're already coming in."² The injectables share also runs a little higher among existing patients, 43.4% against 39.9%, and CorralData does not comment on that gap.

American Spa's article on the benchmark said laser treatments "generated more interest than injectables or wellness services according to the report."¹ The CorralData page reports shares of recorded revenue and has no measure of interest. In those shares, injectables were still the larger part of new patients' spending, 39.9% against 13.3% for laser and energy.²

American Spa also reported that injectables "represented 44% of revenue" at the median operator, the largest category in the report, without saying which patients the 44% covers. The CorralData page splits the same category by patient type, at 39.9% and 43.4%.^1,2

Do other revenue and procedure counts also put injectables first?

Every other count we read put injectables ahead of laser and energy work. Each used a different measure.

AmSpa, the American Med Spa Association, summarized the American Society of Plastic Surgeons' 2025 statistics. In that summary, neuromodulators accounted for 50% of all minimally invasive procedures and hyaluronic acid fillers for 30%, 80% together.³

MedspaGuide, a vendor site, gives revenue ranges of 45 to 60% for injectables and 15 to 25% for energy-based devices, a group it defines as laser, IPL (intense pulsed light), radiofrequency and microneedling. It credits the ranges to an AmSpa report and passes along AmSpa's own caution that the survey sample "skews toward member clinics and may overrepresent established operators."⁴

That makes three methods: transactions pulled from practice systems, procedures reported through a surgeon society, and survey ranges passed along by a third party. A procedure count ignores price, so a dollar measure and a count can rank two categories differently. All three put injectables first.

Do consumers and cosmetic patients rank laser work and injectables the same way?

Two national consumer surveys put laser and energy treatments ahead of injectable wrinkle relaxers. A 2018 study of patients seeking cosmetic procedures found the reverse.

The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (ASDS) fielded a blind online survey through PureSpectrum from May 11 to 30, 2023, and received 3,503 responses nationwide. The five procedures people were most often considering were:

- laser hair removal, 65% - laser or energy-based devices for skin tightening and wrinkles, 53% - body sculpting, 52% - injectable wrinkle relaxers, 49% - laser or energy-based devices for skin tone, facial redness and scars, 44%

⁵

The society's 2021 survey collected answers from 3,527 consumers, also through a blind online survey. It put laser, light, ultrasound and radiofrequency treatments to tighten skin or smooth wrinkles at 52%. Laser and light treatments for facial redness, skin tone or scars came in at 48%, as did injectable wrinkle relaxers. Body sculpting was at 47%.⁶

Energy-based tightening edged out injectable wrinkle relaxers in both surveys, by a few points each time. The releases give too little method detail to read the change between 2021 and 2023 as a trend.

"Considering" is the share of respondents who said they were considering a procedure. A person can consider several procedures and buy none, and the rankings cover all respondents, including people who have never visited a practice.^5,6 That is how a laser treatment can lead what consumers consider while injectables lead what practices record as revenue.

JAMA Dermatology published a prospective multicenter study in 2018 of patients seeking cosmetic procedures, people already at a practice. Its measure was which procedure they were most interested in. Interest was greatest for:

- botulinum toxin injections, 165 patients (32.3%) - soft-tissue fillers, 94 (18.4%) - lasers for brown spots or melasma, 85 (16.6%)

⁷

The ASDS surveys and the JAMA Dermatology study disagree on the order, and they asked different people: the surveys asked consumers on an online panel in 2021 and 2023, the study asked patients at cosmetic practices in a 2018 paper.

Which treatment did aesthetic patients in five countries have first?

In four of five countries, a laser, light or energy-based treatment was the most common first aesthetic procedure.⁸

A 2020 study in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology reports the first aesthetic procedure of 30 users in each of five countries: Colombia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Russia and Turkey. The study puts laser, light and energy-based procedures in one category.⁸

In Lebanon, 7 of 30 users had a laser, light or energy treatment first, and another category was more common there. The samples are small, 30 people per country, and the United States was not one of the five.

This is the only source here that records which procedure came first, the closest any of them comes to the entry-point question in 1.2. It counts first procedures for 30 people in each of five countries outside the United States. CorralData splits one quarter of 2026 revenue between new and existing patients, and the 2018 JAMA Dermatology study measured interest, where botulinum toxin led at 32.3%.^8,2,7

What would show whether laser work brings patients back?

AmSpa's 2024 state of the industry report counted 8,899 med spas in 2022 and 10,488 in 2023, and reported average annual revenue per med spa rising from $1,307,587 to $1,398,833.⁹ More practices means more places a new patient can go for a first treatment.

A 2021 study in Clinical, Cosmetic and Investigational Dermatology asked patients seeking minimally invasive cosmetic procedures what encouraged them. Rejuvenation came first, at 39.2%, and friends' suggestions next, at 21.6%.¹⁰ Friends' suggestions are referrals, which a practice can count in its own intake records.

CorralData's split raises a cross-sell question: whether a patient who first books laser work comes back for injectables or wellness, and how often. None of the sources we read follows individual patients that way. A practice's own booking records hold that answer for that practice.

In those records, the numbers we would look at are the service each new patient booked first, how many laser-first patients rebook and for what, and the lifetime value of those patients set against what the laser cost the practice.

About this review

We read 10 sources in October 2026: one vendor benchmark built from operators' practice management systems, one trade article reporting on it, three peer-reviewed patient studies, two ASDS consumer surveys, two AmSpa pages and one vendor guide. Where publishers measured different things or disagreed, each number is given under its own publisher's name, and no gap or ratio is computed between them.

The CorralData page gives medians for broad categories and does not split laser and energy work into hair removal, resurfacing or tightening. The AmSpa report that MedspaGuide credits for its revenue ranges was not among the sources read. None of the sources follows individual patients from a first laser visit to later purchases, and none gives a payback period for a laser.

Fractional Aesthetics is a growth strategy practice for aesthetic medical businesses.