What Is the True Cost of AlignerCo?

Between the time, energy and money involved, straightening your teeth can sometimes feel like an intimidating process. Fortunately, at-home clear aligner services like AlignerCo have made this process a whole lot easier — and much less expensive.

AlignerCo’s sticker price is just $1,145, compared to the $5,000 average cost of Invisalign. But still, spending over a thousand dollars is a significant investment, and you may be wondering what your actual cost will be at the end of the day. This can be somewhat difficult to calculate on your own between discounts, financing, add-ons and aftercare.

That’s what we’re here to clear up. In this guide, we’ll lay out all the factors that play a role in your total treatment cost, and give you a better idea of the amount you can expect to spend on AlignerCo treatment.

Sticker Price

AlignerCo’s sticker price is $1,145 for their SmileAdvantage package, their traditional clear aligner package that requires 20-22 hours of wear per day. With this package, the $1,145 must be paid upfront, and it includes your dental impression kit, 3D treatment plan, aligners, and one set of retainers (for after your treatment is complete).

Their nighttime aligner plan, NightAdvantage (8-10 hours of wear a day), comes with all the bells and whistles of the daytime plan as well. If you pay upfront, the price of NightAdvantage is $1,345.

If possible, paying upfront for your AlignerCo treatment will end up costing you less in the long run. However, if you’re not someone with an extra $1,000 laying around, then AlignerCo does offer several financing options, which we will explore in greater detail later on!

Additional Costs

Impression Kit

When you pay for one of AlignerCo’s treatment plans package upfront there is an impression kit included in your package. If you are later determined by their team not to be a good candidate for treatment you will be refunded in full.

If you want to avoid that by doing the impression kit first before buying the $1145 treatment plan, you can buy the impression kit on its own for $75 (but there are often sales bringing the cost down to $40). If you live on Long Island in New York, you could visit AlignerCo’s singular brick and mortar location to have your impressions done, which will cost you $40.

Whitening

AlignerCo’s whitening kit is an additional option if you want to make your smile shine even brighter. This kit comes with a thermoform mouth tray, an LED light, and 3 containers of whitening gel. Unfortunately, AlignerCo does not offer refills of their whitening gel, so if you like this product you will have to buy the whole thing all over again anytime you want more whitening gel.

Sometimes their sale prices on their full packages will include the perk of a complimentary whitening kit, so keep your eye out for that if you’re someone who likes their pearly white extra pearly.

Pull tool

This $15 tool is used to help take out aligners. It may ease the process of aligner removal for you, but perhaps the simple joy of not having to shove your fingers into your mouth is enough to deem this a priority.

Chewies

Chewies are little soft cylinders made of a soft spongy plastic-like material that help you get your aligners into position. This $15 product is not absolutely essential for the aligners to work, but certainly a helpful add-on.

Retainers

The industry-wide recommendation is that after the completion of your teeth straightening treatment (whether it be at-home aligners, Invisalign, or braces), one should wear a nightly retainer in perpetuity to keep your smile in place. Each clear aligner company has a different system and price point for their retainers, so it’s important to know ahead of time which one will work best for you.

AlignerCo offers a post treatment package called Worryfree Protection. For $599, they will mail you a new retainer every six months, for six years (twelve retainers total). This puts the cost of each retainer in the Worryfree package at $49.

With Worryfree Protection your retainers will already be made and in stock, so if you lose a retainer you won’t have to wait for a new one to be produced and shipped to you, sometimes taking 3-4 weeks—a length of time that could provide a window for your teeth try to sneak out of their new positions.

Your initial aligner package comes with your first set of retainers (upper and lower). After that, starting the Worryfree package for $599 (though we have seen it marked down to $499 on sale) for a six year period will be a good way to ensure you preserve the smile you’ve worked so hard for.

Discounts and Promotions

AlignerCo often runs significant sales. If you are interested in AlignerCo, a sale is likely to happen soon to help decrease their already low price, often by as much as $200. That’s a pretty notable discount when you consider how low their prices already are compared to their competitors.

Their sales don’t always correspond with major holidays, so if you are someone with a discount alarm set to go off Memorial Day weekend and Memorial Day weekend alone, it may behoove you to check their site for sales on a more regular basis instead.

AlignerCo offers discounts for folks currently enlisted or who have previously served in the military. They also offer the same discount to teens. If you are a veteran or a teen, you can receive an additional $50 off your total, even off of a sale price. This means that if, as a veteran or teen, you happened to catch the sale with $200 off, your daytime aligner plan would end up being just $895.

Refinements

If you follow your treatment plan, and at the end of your treatment you do not think that your smile matches the Smile Projection outlined for you by AlignerCo’s techs, then you can apply for refinements to adjust your smile further. AlignerCo’s reviews suggest that this process is relatively simple, as long as you have followed your treatment plan.

If you didn’t follow your treatment plan — or AlignerCo decides that your smile does match your Smile Projection presented at the beginning of treatment — then your refinements will cost around $200. With at-home aligners it’s relatively common to need a little refinement after treatment is completed — so we wouldn’t panic too much about this occurrence (as long as you stick to your treatment plan).

Financing Options

AlignerCo offers financing options through two different third-party companies, Affirm and partial.ly. Each of these lenders charge fees, so the particulars of each company are definitely something to consider when choosing which financing option works best for you.

Affirm requires a soft credit check. This won’t affect your credit score, but means not everyone will be approved. The options for monthly payment amounts will vary based on your credit score. So if your credit score is on the lower side, Affirm may end up charging you more in fees than if your score were higher.

With partial.ly there is no credit check, so everyone is approved. The fees with this lender do not vary, you will just put $275 down (for the day aligner package), and then pay $95 a month for 11 months. This brings your grand total to $1,320, which is $175 more than paying for the package upfront, about a 15% fee.

Insurance

AlignerCo does not accept insurance, however if you have a Health Savings Account (HSA) or a Flexible Spending Account (FSA), AlignerCo accepts payments from either. These tax-free funds – which may receive contributions from your employer – could be more convenient than paying out of pocket.

How Does The Cost Compare to Other Treatment Options?

At-home clear aligners have made teeth straightening significantly more affordable than traditional in-office options like braces or Invisalign (which average around $5,000 for treatment). The average cost of at-home clear aligner treatment is $2,000—which makes AlignerCo’s remarkably low price of $1,145 all the more impressive.

Sometimes when goods and services have a significantly lower price than their competitors, it can feel as though there must be some inherent sacrifice in quality. But according to our research, it doesn’t appear that with AlignerCo you are making a large sacrifice to get this deal.

That said, there are some perks to paying a few hundred dollars more to get treatment through a competitor like byte—whose price tag includes their HyperByte device, which cuts treatment down to only 3 months (the fastest in the industry). Byte also offers a lifetime guarantee on your smile, so if your teeth ever shift away from their new position you will have a free way to get your smile back, which is a major perk.

All in all, when comparing the overall value of these brands, AlignerCo comes up a bit shorter than the competition. However, we think they more than make up for this with their super-low prices.

Final Thoughts

Impossible is a big word to throw around, but it actually is impossible to find a teeth-straightening treatment option that costs less than AlignerCo! That being said, it’s important to take a look at your priorities before moving forward with AlignerCo treatment.

If you are looking to straighten your teeth as fast as possible, due to a special event or perhaps just your own eagerness, then maybe AlignerCo isn’t the best match for you. However, if budget is your primary focus in the pursuit of a new smile, AlignerCo could very well be the right path forward for you!