As Gen Z's interest in medical treatments, particularly preventative aesthetics, continues to climb, the younger generation is becoming more comfortable with and eager to participate in self-care procedures, injectables, and treatments.
A new report from the medical aesthetics data and intelligence provider Guidepoint Qsight delved into how Gen Z interacts with medical aesthetics, using the company’s proprietary patient spending data to analyze clients' spending patterns and preferences.
Designed to give practitioners a clearer picture of Gen Z behavior, Needle First: How Gen Z is Rewriting the Aesthetic Patient Journey analyzes the consumer cohort’s patterns.
“We’ve known for some time that Gen Z patients are already coming in for treatments,” said Erik Haines, Managing Director of Guidepoint Qsight, in a press release. “The kind of specifics that are less easy for practitioners and brands to come by is granular data on what happens once they’re there: how they enter, what they return for, how much they spend, and where the real revenue opportunity is within the cohort.”
The data suggests that Gen Z often goes straight to injectable appointments as its entry point, skipping consultation appointments, unlike older generations who tend to be more hesitant. Neurotoxins like Botox generate the most revenue, making the quality of the first appointment especially important for retention rates.
“Gen Z patients usually arrive at the aesthetic practice with their minds already made up,” said Haines. “While older patients moved to injectables through lower-commitment services, this generation is skipping that progression and going straight to the needle.”
Yet neurotoxin popularity isn’t indicative of the nation as a whole, as spending varies significantly by geography, with injectables more concentrated in some markets than others. In South Carolina, for example, younger patients account for 10.5% of total neurotoxin spending in the state.
Among the top treatments Gen Z receives, neurotoxins lead the category, while laser hair removal generates the most return visits. Compounded semaglutide and weight-loss medications, Dysport, and Hydrafacial are also included in the top five treatments by frequency and dollars spent. In 2025 specifically, compounded GLP-1s emerged as a growing treatment category within aesthetic practices. According to the report, this signals that weight loss medications could become a gateway to other aesthetic services, depending on how practitioners position and bundle them over the next few years.
Guidepoint Qsight also found that Gen Z typically has a median invoice of $275 and visits aesthetic practices twice per year. However, smaller, high-frequency segments of the demographic spend considerably more, bringing the average annual non-surgical spend to $940 and the average invoice size to $420. Per the report, patients making more than two visits per year are the ones worth investing in through loyalty programs or proactive rebooking, as they make Gen Z a more commercially appealing demographic.
“Understanding where Gen Z activity is highest in your specific region and how your practice’s Gen Z patient volume compares to the broader market, will prove increasingly useful information for practices’ service mix decisions, marketing investment, and competitive positioning,” said Erika Sheyn, Senior Vice President of Aesthetics at Guidepoint Qsight, in the release.
The report is intended to help practices and manufacturers stay ahead of shifting patient behaviors, highlighting that those able to adapt to changing preferences will be better positioned to understand and serve their patients.