Ultherapy vs Thermage in Korea: which costs what?

Start with the units, because they trip up almost every price comparison. A full-face Ultherapy plan in Korea is conventionally 300 shots; a full-face Thermage FLX plan is conventionally 600 shots, because the FLX tip delivers smaller pulses over a grid. Dividing either figure by its shot count produces a per-shot number that means nothing across devices — an ultrasound shot and an RF pulse are not the same quantum of treatment. Compare plan against plan: full face versus full face.

The machines also spend their energy differently. Ultherapy focuses ultrasound into precise points at depth, aiming at the layer surgeons tighten in a facelift; it is the sagging-and-contour tool. Thermage FLX heats the dermal layer broadly from above, and clinics reach for it when the complaint is laxity, crepiness, and skin quality across the surface. Korean doctors frequently describe the choice as lift versus tighten — an anatomical sorting, not a ranking.

Why does Thermage carry the higher band? Largely consumable economics: each FLX treatment uses a single-patient tip whose cost is baked into the quote, and the 600-shot full-face convention consumes it entirely. Ultherapy's wider ₩800,000–1,600,000 spread instead reflects intense clinic competition in Seoul — hundreds of practices run it, and district positioning moves the figure substantially within the band.

Let the examination decide the device. If a doctor sees descent along the jawline and under the chin — tissue that has moved — the conversation usually starts with Ultherapy; if the face holds its position but the skin itself has loosened and lost snap, Thermage enters the plan. Plenty of Seoul patients are told a blend over time serves them better than either machine alone, which is a budgeting conversation as much as a medical one given the two bands above.

Both are typically single-session treatments with effects building over two to three months and a maintenance rhythm measured in a year or more, so neither forces repeat trips to Korea on a short cycle. Bring both rows of this table to a free consultation, ask which anatomical problem is actually yours, and request the written quote for that plan — the itemized figure a KHIDI-registered clinic issues is the binding number, and Book Korea Medical adds nothing to it.

Every price above is VAT-inclusive: Korea's 10% value-added tax is already built into the standard self-pay rate.

The foreign-patient VAT refund on cosmetic and aesthetic procedures (Special Tax Treatment Control Act, Articles 107-3 and 107-4) expired on 31 December 2025 and was not extended for 2026. As of 2026 there is nothing to reclaim afterward on a procedure like this — the price you see is your effective, out-of-pocket cost. Be cautious of older listings that still promise a clinic VAT refund for cosmetic treatment.