Two Pricing Models, One Real Difference
Every laser clinic in London sells the same physical process. Where they differ enormously is in who carries the risk that your tattoo needs more sessions than anyone predicted.
Under per-session billing, you carry it. You are quoted a price per visit, given an estimate of how many visits, and you pay for every one. If the estimate was optimistic — and estimates in this industry are systematically optimistic, because the low number wins the booking — the extra sessions are extra invoices.
Under a fixed complete-removal price, the clinic carries it. One price is agreed before you start, covering however many sessions it takes to clear all removable ink. If your tattoo turns out to be stubborn, that is the clinic’s problem to solve.
That is the whole comparison. Everything else in this guide is detail about how the second model works in practice, which is what our fixed-price complete removal packages are built on.
How Per-Session Costs Accumulate
The arithmetic is not complicated, but it is rarely laid out for you before you book.
A clinic quotes a per-session price and suggests six to eight sessions. You do the mental multiplication against the lower number, because that is how people read estimates. Six sessions at the quoted rate feels manageable.
Then reality intervenes. Your tattoo is denser than it looked, or it has green in it, or it sits on your ankle where circulation is poor, or you have deeper skin and need lower energy with longer gaps. Any one of those things can push a six-session estimate to eleven. Now you have paid nearly double, and — this is the part that really stings — you are eight sessions in with visible ink left, so stopping means having paid a lot of money for a partially removed tattoo.
That last dynamic is the real cost of per-session pricing. It is not just that the total is higher. It is that you make the decision to continue under sunk-cost pressure, one session at a time, with no idea where the finish line is.
The question worth asking any clinic
“What happens if it takes more sessions than you estimated?” The answer tells you which model you are actually buying, regardless of how the price list is presented.
How the Fixed Complete-Removal Price Works
You come in for a free consultation. We assess the tattoo properly: size, density, depth, colour, age, body location, and your skin type. We run a patch test to see how your specific ink actually responds.
From that, we quote one price. It covers unlimited sessions on that tattoo until all removable ink is cleared. Whether that takes six sessions or sixteen, the figure does not change.
Three things are worth being precise about, because vague promises are how this model gets abused elsewhere.
“That tattoo.” The price covers the piece you were quoted for. It does not roll over to other tattoos or to work added later.
“All removable ink.” A small number of pigments — white and some light cosmetic inks in particular — may not clear completely regardless of how many sessions you have. We assess that at consultation and tell you before you commit, rather than discovering it together at session twelve.
“Fixed.” Not “starting from”. Not “subject to review”. The number you are given is the number you pay.
The reason we can offer this is PicoWay. Because picosecond pulses clear ink in up to 50% fewer sessions than nanosecond lasers, our average session count is low enough that the model works. On older equipment it would not.
Where Bundles and Finance Fit
Not every job is complete removal, and the pricing reflects that.
Fading for a cover-up is sold as a 3- or 6-session bundle rather than an unlimited package. That is deliberate: fading has a defined end point — light enough for your artist to work — so it is genuinely predictable in a way that full clearance is not. Selling an unlimited package for a job that reliably takes four sessions would just be charging you for certainty you do not need.
11-month 0% APR finance is available on either. The package price is divided across eleven monthly payments with no interest added, subject to status and approval by our finance provider. An optional deposit reduces the monthly figure. Nothing about the total changes — you are spreading the same number, not paying for the privilege.
The mechanics are worth spelling out because “0% APR” gets used loosely elsewhere. Take the quoted package price, subtract any deposit you choose to put down, and divide what is left by the term. That monthly figure is what you pay, every month, for eleven months. There is no balloon payment at the end, no interest that kicks in after a promotional window, and no fee for settling early. The total you pay across the plan is identical to the total you would pay in one go.
Where finance genuinely changes the decision is on larger pieces. A full sleeve quoted as a single figure can look out of reach; the same figure across eleven months usually does not. That is also the point at which the fixed-price structure matters most, because a large piece is exactly the kind of job where a per-session estimate is most likely to be optimistic.
| Pay-per-session | Fixed complete removal | |
|---|---|---|
| Price certainty | None until you finish | Known before you start |
| Who carries session-count risk | You | The clinic |
| Cost if it takes longer | Rises with every visit | Unchanged |
| Incentive on the clinic | More sessions, more revenue | Clear it efficiently |
| Pressure to continue | Sunk cost, session by session | None |
| Finance | Rarely offered | 11-month 0% APR |
What Sets Your Number
Fixed does not mean flat. Your price is specific to your tattoo, because the work genuinely varies.
Size is the obvious driver, but density matters more than area — a small block of solid black holds more pigment than a large piece of fine line work. Colour affects it, since multi-colour pieces need more wavelength switching and more passes. Body location plays in, because poor-circulation areas like hands, feet and lower legs clear more slowly. And skin type shapes the protocol, since conservative settings and longer intervals mean more visits.
One thing that does not change your price is how long the course turns out to run. That is the entire point of the model, and it is the single most useful question to put to any clinic you are comparing: not “what does a session cost”, but “what does clearing this tattoo cost, and what happens if you are wrong about how long it takes”.
None of that is assessable from a photo, which is why we do not quote over the phone. The consultation is thirty minutes, it is free, and nothing is booked or paid for on the day. You can read more about how many sessions to expect before you come in, but the number that matters to you personally comes from having someone look at the actual tattoo.
When you are ready, get a free estimate and we will give you a figure you can plan your year around.