Clear Health Costs
ClearHealthCosts is a non-profit healthcare price transparency platform founded in 2011 that combines crowdsourced consumer pricing data with Medicare rate benchmarks to help consumers, newsrooms, employers, and uninsured patients compare and reduce medical costs across the United States.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2011
- HeadquartersPelham, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Clear Health Costs does
ClearHealthCosts, founded in 2011 by former New York Times reporter/editor Jeanne Pinder, is a healthcare price transparency platform headquartered in Pelham, New York. Its core product is a searchable database of medical procedure costs that combines crowdsourced consumer-submitted prices with Medicare reimbursement rate benchmarks, allowing users to find and compare healthcare prices within a configurable 5–500 mile radius. The company serves four primary customer segments: individual healthcare consumers researching procedure costs; newsrooms and media organizations (CBS News, WNYC-Gothamist, NOLA.com, WVUE Fox 8, KXAN Austin, KPCC, KQED, WHYY, Philadelphia Inquirer, 6ABC, MedPage Today, and others) that license pricing data for investigative journalism; employers, CFOs, and HR executives seeking solutions to manage employee healthcare expenditures; and uninsured/underinsured patients seeking information on charity care and financial aid.
The underlying technology stack includes a consumer-facing web platform at clearhealthcosts.com, a crowdsourced price-collection form ("Share Your Prices"), an enterprise API at api.clearhealthcosts.com for programmatic data access, and an extensive educational blog covering billing, insurance, prescriptions, and financial aid. Notable technical differentiators are the proprietary aggregated pricing dataset, Medicare rate benchmarking, and the API integration layer, supported by integrations with Mailchimp (newsletters), Clicky (analytics), and Patreon (community subscriptions).
The business model is hybrid and non-profit in orientation. Consumer access is freemium/free; recurring revenue derives from Patreon community memberships, quote-based API and enterprise licensing, custom multi-year contracts for employer/CFO solutions, and media partnership arrangements. GTM motions include community-led growth (consumer price contributions), sales-led outreach to newsrooms and employers, and API-first distribution for developers and partners. The company maintains a P.O. Box in Pelham, NY, runs a small founder-led team, and shows no disclosed funding rounds, institutional investment, or M&A activity.
Clear Health Costs firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Clear Health Costs
- Legal name
- ClearHealthCosts
- Website
- https://clearhealthcosts.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2011
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- ClearHealthCosts is a non-profit healthcare price transparency platform founded in 2011 that combines crowdsourced consumer pricing data with Medicare rate benchmarks to help consumers, newsrooms, employers, and uninsured patients compare and reduce medical costs across the United States.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where Clear Health Costs is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Pelham
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Clear Health Costs business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- API Access and Enterprise Licensing: Revenue from providing API access to healthcare pricing data for enterprise customers, partners, and developers. Businesses, healthcare organizations, and other entities can license access to the pricing database.
- Business Solutions for Employers: Offering solutions to businesses and CFOs to help them save on healthcare costs. This includes providing data and insights to help employers understand and manage their healthcare expenditure.
- Media Partnership Licensing: Licensing data and co-developing content with newsrooms for healthcare cost reporting projects. News organizations pay for or partner on access to pricing data for investigative journalism.
- Patreon Community Support: Community subscription through Patreon where supporters contribute monthly to support the organization's mission. Members receive benefits including extra information and opportunities to contribute.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Free Consumer Access |
| Subscription | Monthly | Patreon Community Membership |
| Subscription | Annual | API Access - Enterprise |
| Other | Multi-year contract | Business/Corporate Solutions |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels8 records
Clear Health Costs product offering
Product offeringCore offering
ClearHealthCosts operates a healthcare price transparency platform that allows consumers to search and compare prices for medical procedures by location and radius, using a database that combines crowdsourced consumer prices with Medicare reimbursement rates. The organization also offers programmatic API access to its pricing data for enterprise customers, newsrooms, and developers, and partners with media outlets to distribute healthcare cost reporting.
Product overview
ClearHealthCosts is a healthcare price transparency platform offering a core Price Check tool for searching and comparing medical procedure costs, a Share Form for crowdsourcing price data, business solutions for employers, and educational blog resources covering billing, insurance, prescriptions, and financial aid. The company operates primarily through its website and maintains media partnerships with news organizations for wider distribution of pricing data.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- ClearHealthCosts Price Check A free price transparency search tool that allows consumers to find and compare healthcare procedure costs by location, with adjustable radius search from 5 to 500 miles and filtering to help users locate prices for medical procedures in their area.
- Business Solutions for Employers A B2B offering providing healthcare cost data and insights to CFOs and HR executives at businesses to help them manage and reduce employee healthcare expenditure.
- Healthcare Pricing API A programmatic API providing access to healthcare pricing data for business customers, partners, and developers, enabling integration of pricing information into enterprise systems, partner applications, and developer tools.
- Patreon Community Membership A subscription-based community membership program via Patreon offering supporters extra information, opportunities to contribute, and benefits supporting the organization's healthcare transparency mission.
Quantifiable outcome
- Individual consumers have documented savings of $3,786 on MRI, $2,010 on CT scan, and various other savings by using price comparison and negotiation strategies promoted by the platform.
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use Clear Health Costs
Customer profileNamed customers4 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Clear Health Costs technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration3 records
Feature4 records
Clear Health Costs partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
15 partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- CBS NewscoreNational media partnership with CBS News for healthcare cost reporting and data journalism. ClearHealthCosts supplies pricing data for investigative stories broadcast nationally.
- WNYC-GothamistcorePartnership with New York public radio station WNYC and Gothamist for local healthcare cost reporting in the New York City area.
- NOLA.com | The Times PicayunecoreAward-winning partnership with New Orleans newspaper and digital news outlet for healthcare cost investigative journalism, including the 'Cracking the Code' series.
- WVUE Fox 8 LivecorePartnership with Fox 8 Live in New Orleans for investigative healthcare cost reporting by anchor Lee Zurik, recognized for award-winning journalism.
- KXAN AustincorePartnership with NBC affiliate KXAN in Austin, Texas for local healthcare cost coverage.
- KPCC (Southern California Public Radio)corePartnership with KPCC in Los Angeles for Southern California healthcare cost reporting.
- KQED Public MediacorePartnership with KQED in San Francisco for Northern California healthcare cost coverage.
- WHYY PhiladelphiacorePartnership with WHYY, the NPR affiliate in Philadelphia, for Delaware Valley healthcare cost reporting.
- The Philadelphia InquirercorePartnership with Philadelphia's major newspaper for healthcare cost journalism.
- inewsourcecorePartnership with inewsource, a nonprofit investigative news organization, for healthcare cost investigations.
- WUSF/Health News FloridacorePartnership with WUSF and Health News Florida for Florida healthcare cost coverage.
- WLRN Public MediacorePartnership with WLRN in South Florida for Miami-Dade healthcare cost reporting.
- 6ABC PhiladelphiacorePartnership with ABC affiliate 6ABC in Philadelphia for local healthcare cost coverage.
- MedPage TodaycorePartnership with MedPage Today for healthcare cost content related to medical news.
- New York City (Government)corePartnership with New York City government for a vaccine cost and availability partnership to help residents find vaccine pricing information.
Scale indicators2 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Clear Health Costs competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- FAIR Health: National, independent non-profit that maintains a large database of healthcare charges and allowed amounts and offers consumer cost-estimation tools. Highly comparable as a transparency-focused data organization with both consumer and licensed data products.
- Healthcare Bluebook: Consumer and employer-facing tool that benchmarks 'fair prices' for healthcare services using claims data. Closely comparable in mission (price transparency for consumers/employers) and product surface (searchable procedure cost comparisons).
- Guroo: Consumer-facing site that shows typical prices for common healthcare services by metro area using aggregated claims data. Directly comparable mission and product to ClearHealthCosts' consumer price comparison.
- Turquoise Health: Healthcare price transparency platform that aggregates payer and provider rate data into a marketplace and analytics suite. Most directly comparable for-pay competitor to ClearHealthCosts, targeting similar employers, payers, and providers with structured pricing data.
- Castlight Health: Enterprise healthcare navigation and transparency platform sold primarily to self-insured employers. Comparable to ClearHealthCosts' business solutions arm (employer/CFO outreach) and the broader price-transparency-for-employees use case.
Emerging players
- Health Cost Labs: Earlier-stage company focused on making healthcare prices understandable to consumers. Comparable mission and product surface to ClearHealthCosts but with narrower geographic and procedure coverage.
- Amino Health: Healthcare navigation platform that provides cost and quality estimates for procedures. Directly comparable on employer/consumer cost transparency, though historically focused more on booking than pure price comparison.
Broad incumbents
- Komodo Health: Enterprise healthcare data and analytics company that maps patient journeys and provider/payer interactions. Overlaps with ClearHealthCosts' enterprise/API go-to-market for healthcare cost and utilization data, but operates at a much larger scale and broader scope.
- GoodRx: Large consumer healthcare pricing platform focused on prescription drug costs and telehealth. Comparable on consumer-facing healthcare cost transparency and adjacent to ClearHealthCosts' prescription savings content, though significantly broader in scope.
Others
- CMS Hospital Price Transparency Public Use Files: The federal government publishes machine-readable hospital pricing files under the Hospital Price Transparency Rule. These mandated disclosures form the upstream data layer that ClearHealthCosts and other transparency players build consumer and enterprise products on top of, and represent both an enabler and a potential substitute.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Clear Health Costs social profiles
Digital presenceClear Health Costs financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Clear Health Costs leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Clear Health Costs funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Clear Health Costs M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Clear Health Costs
What does Clear Health Costs do?
ClearHealthCosts operates a healthcare price transparency platform that allows consumers to search and compare prices for medical procedures by location and radius, using a database that combines crowdsourced consumer prices with Medicare reimbursement rates. The organization also offers programmatic API access to its pricing data for enterprise customers, newsrooms, and developers, and partners with media outlets to distribute healthcare cost reporting.
Is Clear Health Costs a public or private company?
Clear Health Costs is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Clear Health Costs founded?
Clear Health Costs was founded in 2011. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Clear Health Costs based?
Clear Health Costs is headquartered in Pelham, United States, in the North America region.
How does Clear Health Costs make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. API Access and Enterprise Licensing is the primary driver. The others are business Solutions for Employers, media Partnership Licensing and patreon Community Support.
Who are Clear Health Costs's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are FAIR Health, Healthcare Bluebook, Guroo, Turquoise Health and Castlight Health. Emerging players are Health Cost Labs and Amino Health. Broad incumbents are Komodo Health and GoodRx. CMS Hospital Price Transparency Public Use Files is listed as an others.
Does Clear Health Costs have an API?
Yes. ClearHealthCosts offers an API for accessing healthcare pricing data. The site includes a 'Request API Access' link at https://api.clearhealthcosts.com, indicating a partner/public API exists. Specific API type (REST/GraphQL), authentication method, rate limits, and versioning are not detailed in the available source material. Developer documentation is at api.clearhealthcosts.com.