Why won't clinics tell you the price?
I Have Questions is a monthly column. It puts questions to the industry's practices — never to any named clinic or practitioner. The only assertions in it are sourced facts.
Written by Taliha-Paige Maggs, reviewed [date pending] · AHPRA registration displayed on publish [TALIHA: registration number to display with the byline — this column publishes under your name only, and every word needs your sign-off] · Published: [date on publish] · Updated: [date on publish]
Because nothing makes them. Australian consumer law regulates how a price must be displayed — as a single total, not misleading, no fees dripped in later — but it does not force a clinic to display one at all. "Price on consultation" is legal. The question is who it works for.
One number for contrast. A first consultation at Glow Cosmetique in Springvale is $150 and runs 90 minutes, and every treatment price is published in full on the pricing page. That is not the industry norm. In this category, the norm is a menu with no numbers on it. This column exists to ask why.
Is it illegal for a clinic to keep its prices off the website?
Generally, no. The ACCC is clear that businesses in Australia can set their own prices. Consumer law takes an interest in how a price behaves once it is shown: a displayed price must be a single total figure, it must be the minimum a customer could pay including any unavoidable fees, and a business must not mislead people about what something costs. The ACCC calls the practice of advertising one number and adding fees along the way "drip pricing", and it acts on it.
Notice the shape of that. The law governs the price you can see. It says almost nothing about the price you can't. A clinic that publishes a number takes on legal obligations about that number. A clinic that publishes nothing takes on none.
So the honest starting point is this: quote-on-request is not a scandal, and it is not a breach. It is a choice. Which raises the only question worth asking about any industry-wide choice — who does it serve?
Who benefits when the price arrives after you're in the chair?
Hold the sequence in your head. You find a clinic. You enquire. You book. You drive there, fill in a form, sit down, and talk about your skin with a stranger for half an hour. Then — and only then — you get the number.
At which point in that sequence were you best placed to say "that's more than I wanted to spend"? At which point had you invested the least? And who designed the sequence?
Ask the comparison question too. The ACCC's own advice to consumers, on its price displays page, is to add up the total cost and "shop around to find a better final price from a competitor". That advice assumes prices can be compared. If every quote in a category sits behind a consultation, what does comparing three clinics actually cost — in fees, in appointments, in afternoons off work? And if comparison is that expensive, how would you ever know whether a quote was high?
I am not claiming any clinic sets out to trap anyone. I don't know their reasons, and this column does not guess at motives. I am asking what the practice does, regardless of why anyone adopts it.
What does "price on consultation" do to the person deciding?
It moves the decision into the room, and the room is not neutral ground.
Deciding at home, with a published number, you can check it against your budget, sleep on it, talk to someone, or close the tab. Deciding in the chair, you are face to face with the person who benefits if you say yes. Is it easier or harder to say no to someone's face? And is a decision made under those conditions the same decision you would have made at your kitchen table?
And ask a quieter question. If the price only ever arrives in conversation, is it the same for everyone? A published list is a commitment — the number on the page is the number, whoever you are. A quoted price is whatever is said in the room. I have no evidence anyone quotes differently to different people. But a published price makes that question unnecessary, and an unpublished one makes it unanswerable.
What can you ask any clinic before you book?
You do not need anyone's permission to ask for a number. Reasonable questions, at any clinic, including this one:
1. What is the total price, including anything unavoidable? 2. Is there a consultation fee, and is it credited against treatment? 3. Will the price quoted before I book be the price after the consultation? 4. Can I have the quote in writing, to take home?
A clinic can decline to answer. That is legal, and it is also an answer.
What does publishing every price actually change?
Less than a sales page would claim, which is worth saying plainly. Glow publishes its full price list — every treatment, no packages, no quotes on request. A glass skin facial is $250. A peptide infusion facial is $150. Microneedling with BioRePeel is $300–$350. The first consultation is $150 for 90 minutes, the fee is not credited against treatment, and you leave with a written plan that is yours whether or not you book anything further. The clinic is at 23 Ebony Cl, Springvale, open Monday to Saturday.
What a published price does not tell you is whether a treatment suits you. Only an assessment can, and sometimes the honest recommendation after an assessment is to wait, or to do nothing. Publishing prices is not a virtue. It just moves the decision out of the chair and back to your kitchen table, where it was always yours to make.
If it would help to talk your skin through with someone qualified, book a consultation.
The industry could answer this column's question any day it chooses, by putting the numbers on the page. Until it does, keep asking.
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References
1. Price displays — Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Accessed 30 July 2026. 2. Setting prices — Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Accessed 30 July 2026. 3. Pricing — Glow Cosmetique. The full published price list. 4. New guest consultation — Glow Cosmetique. $150, 90 minutes, written plan included.