A Facelift Costs Over Eight Thread Lifts. In One Study the Lift Was Gone Within a Year

A facelift costs just over eight thread lifts

At Going Rate's prices, a facelift ($25,000) costs 8.33 times as much as a thread lift ($3,000). The same money would buy a little over eight thread lifts. A facelift ($25,000) also costs about four and a half times eyelid surgery ($5,500) and nearly eleven times cheek filler ($2,300).

The Medical Board of Australia puts thread lifts in a different category from a facelift. Its cosmetic guidelines, issued on 1 July 2023, list thread lifts and dermal fillers as non-surgical procedures, which do not involve cutting beneath the skin but may involve piercing it. The same guidelines list surgical face lifts as cosmetic surgery.

The Victorian Government's Better Health Channel says cosmetic procedures do not usually qualify for rebates from Medicare or private health insurance, so the buyer usually pays the full amount.

How long a PDO thread lift lasts

The two absorbable lift thread entries we checked on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods are Silhouette Soft and a polydioxanone (PDO) thread. The closest study to those products is Bertossi and colleagues, published in Aesthetic Surgery Journal in 2019. It followed 160 consecutive patients treated with barbed PDO threads. The authors reported that the result declined noticeably by 6 months and was absent by 1 year.

In that study, the best case was 12 months. As our illustration at Going Rate's prices, a thread lift ($3,000) spread over a full year works out at $250 a month. Counted only to the 6 month point, where Bertossi found the result had declined noticeably, it comes to $500 a month.

Older studies used different threads and should be read separately. Garvey and colleagues, publishing in 2009, reviewed 72 patients of one surgeon who had barbed polypropylene threads, a permanent material. Of those patients, 31% needed revisional surgery for cosmetic reasons an average of 8.7 months after the threadlift, and 11% eventually had palpable threads removed. Those findings apply to permanent threads, and the threads in the ARTG entries we checked are listed as absorbable.

How long a facelift lasts

Jones and Lo assessed 50 primary facelift patients 5.5 years after surgery using standardised photographs, publishing in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in 2012. Their scoring suggested 76% of patients would still look younger 5.5 years after the facelift than before it. The jowl lift had relapsed by 21% at 5.5 years. Looking younger than before surgery is a lower bar than keeping the full result.

Beale, Rasko and Rohrich reviewed 811 facelifts from one practice over 20 years, of which 60 were second facelifts. Those patients came back an average of 9.0 years after the first. That figure describes only the patients who returned, and it does not show how long a facelift lasts for anyone else.

As our illustration at Going Rate's prices, a facelift ($25,000) spread over the 5.5 years Jones and Lo measured comes to about $4,500 a year, or about $380 a month.

Thread lift vs facelift cost per year of result

Set side by side, the facelift at 5.5 years costs about one and a half times as much per year as a thread lift ($3,000) counted over Bertossi's full 12 months. That compares the facelift's measured point with the thread lift's best case in one study. Counting the thread lift only to 6 months would make the facelift the cheaper of the two per year.

Because a facelift costs 8.33 thread lifts, it has to hold its result for more than 8.33 years to cost less per year than a 12 month thread lift. If the thread lift is counted to 6 months, that break-even point falls to about 4.17 years. Both are our calculations from Going Rate's prices and the study durations, and the two studies measured different things: Bertossi whether a lift was still visible, Jones and Lo whether patients looked younger than before.

Cost per year leaves out recovery time, surgical risk and the type of result, and these figures compare prices only.

Where cheek filler and dermal filler fit

Filler adds volume, while threads lift tissue, so the two do different jobs. At Going Rate's prices cheek filler ($2,300) costs about three quarters of a thread lift ($3,000), and dermal filler ($1,300) costs under half.

The pivotal trial of Juvederm Voluma for midface volume loss, published in Dermatologic Surgery in 2013, treated 235 subjects aged 35 to 65. It reported that 85.6% responded at 6 months and nearly half kept their correction for 24 months. For that group, cheek filler ($2,300) works out at about $1,150 a year, or about $96 a month, in our illustration at Going Rate's prices. On the same basis, a 12 month thread lift costs about 2.6 times as much per year. The rest of the subjects, just over half, did not keep their correction that long.

A 2008 Restylane study found nasolabial fold correction lasted up to 18 months with one retreatment at 4.5 or 9 months, so that duration covers two treatments. For a smaller comparison, a thread lift ($3,000) costs nearly eight times an anti-wrinkle injection treatment ($380) at Going Rate's prices.

The rules: Class III devices, cooling-off and consultations

The two absorbable lift thread entries we checked on the ARTG are Class III medical devices, the highest risk class. Silhouette Soft has been on the register since 27 March 2014, and a PDO thread listing dates from 25 August 2017.

Under the Medical Board's guidelines, a facelift needs a referral, preferably from the patient's usual GP, and at least two consultations, at least one of them in person with the doctor who will operate. There must then be a cooling-off period of at least seven days after the two consultations and signed consent before the surgery can be booked or a deposit paid. The guidelines set no cooling-off period for adults having a non-surgical procedure such as a thread lift ($3,000). For under-18s, cosmetic surgery needs a cooling-off period of at least three months and non-surgical procedures need at least seven days, and the Board says toxin and dermal fillers should not be prescribed to under-18s for cosmetic purposes.

For dermal filler ($1,300) and other Schedule 4 injectables, the Medical Board requires the doctor to consult the patient, in person or by video, each time they prescribe them. Ahpra guidelines for non-surgical cosmetic procedures, covering all regulated health professions, took effect on 2 September 2025, requiring real images in advertising and a warning that results may vary in ads that use images. Legislation protecting the title surgeon passed on 13 September 2023.

Complication rates in the thread lift and facelift studies

In Bertossi's 160 PDO patients, 34% (55 of 160) had early complications, including superficial thread displacement in 11.2% and infection in 6.2%. A 2026 meta-analysis by Zhou and Zhuang pooled 26 studies covering 2,827 patients and found swelling in 34%, bruising in 26% and visible or palpable threads in 10%. A 2026 Japanese cohort of 2,000 PDO cases across 105 clinics reported an overall complication rate of 12.4%, with an odds ratio for complications of 5.08 in patients aged 60 and over.

Age also shows up in the 2021 Niu meta-analysis of 26 studies. Patients older than 50 had a pooled dimpling rate of 16% against 5.6% for younger patients, and infection in 5.9% against 0.7%. Pooled satisfaction fell from 98% immediately after the procedure to 88% at longer-term follow-up, which the authors' methods set at six months.

Threads can affect later surgery. Yordanov reported in 2025 that 7 of the 10 patients he operated on for a facelift after two or more absorbable thread lifts had suboptimal skin redraping or dimpling. For facelifts, a 2019 meta-analysis of 183 studies put major hematoma after deep plane facelifts at 1.22%. ISAPS estimated 4,463 facelifts by Australian plastic surgeons in 2024, against an estimated 525 plastic surgeons in Australia, and its survey has no thread lift category at all.

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