We Asked How Much People Spend on Peptides—and the Answer Surprised Us

Peptides might be the most talked-about ingredient that only the most devoted formula nerds can actually explain. They’ve been in our facial serums and firming moisturizers for years, signaling skin to build collagen and repair itself. But over the last two years, they’ve turned into something else entirely: a full-blown wellness obsession that spans supplements, prescriptions and injections. And it’s gotten expensive to keep up.

How expensive? Well, NewBeauty’s State of Aesthetics 2026 report, powered by BeautyEngine, asked the most engaged corner of the beauty community what they’re spending. Among peptide users, 47.9 percent put $1,000 or more a year toward peptide therapies or weight-loss medications (the survey grouped the two). The context makes that stranger: 51.5 percent say they’re being more careful with money than they were six months ago. They’re cutting back—and peptides aren’t what’s on the chopping block.

Here’s the thing, though: The people spending that money are a small slice of the survey (163 of 1,090 respondents). Widen out to everyone and the picture gets shakier. Sixty percent say they’re at least “somewhat familiar” with peptide therapies; only 17.3 percent say “very.” And familiarity drops off fast outside the weight-loss aisle: 81.4 percent have heard of semaglutide and 73.2 percent of tirzepatide, while just 27 percent recognize GHK-Cu, the copper peptide that’s been in skin care for decades—and 12.3 percent know BPC-157, an unapproved injectable marketed for gut and tendon repair.

So, a quick peptide refresher. “Peptide just means a short chain of amino acids, so the word by itself tells you nothing about whether something works,” says Omaha board-certified dermatologist Joel Schlessinger, MD. Basically, think of each peptide as a key cut to fit one specific lock on a cell. When it fits, something happens. For example, GHK-Cu opens a lock in skin that starts firming and healing, or semaglutide and tirzepatide open the one that tells your body it’s full.

And not every “key” is equally well made. In skin care, Dr. Joel Schlessinger says signal peptides have the strongest support, often lending a modest but real improvement in the look of fine lines. (On a label, those are the palmitoyl peptides: palmitoyl pentapeptide-4, sold as Matrixyl, and palmitoyl tripeptide-1.)

Copper peptides earn their place too, with data behind their antioxidant activity. Where the marketing outruns the science, he says, is the standalone “topical Botox” peptide. “The mechanism may look promising in a dish, but the studies tend to be small.” On a label, that’s usually acetyl hexapeptide-8, sold as Argireline.

BPC-157 and the wellness peptides that followed it—prescribed at longevity clinics, or controversially ordered straight off a website—are sold as keys to virtually…everything. None of them is FDA-approved for any use, but that might be changing. On July 23 and 24, an FDA advisory committee voted to recommend BPC-157 and five others for the list that governs what compounding pharmacies can legally prepare—overriding the agency’s own scientists, who had recommended against all seven. (The votes are advisory and change nothing yet.)

That’s the part that worries Dr. Joel Schlessinger. “The problem with injecting peptides isn’t necessarily that they won’t do anything as much as that they may actually do something, and it may not be good,” he says, pointing to unanswered questions about how compounds that tell cells to proliferate might behave over time. “I personally would not have it injected without more evidence of safety.”

His son and practice partner, Daniel Schlessinger, MD, raises a second problem: what’s in the vial. Injectable wellness peptides are largely produced outside regulated channels, and lab analyses of counterfeit versions sold online have turned up arsenic and lead above pharmaceutical safety limits.

All of which is to say: The data is clear that people will pay for peptides. Less clear is how many of them could say what they’re paying for—a question worth taking to your health-care providers before you take it to a checkout page.