Cherry angiomas, milia, seborrheic keratoses and birthmarks have almost nothing in common medically. They share one thing that decides their price: insurance treats nearly all of them as cosmetic, so removing them is a retail purchase with a posted number rather than a claim.
That is actually good news for a cash payer. Cosmetic dermatology price lists are among the most transparent documents in American healthcare, because practices have to publish them to sell the service. This guide collects real posted prices from dermatology groups and med spas as of September 2026, sets them against Medicare’s own 2026 rates for the same procedure codes, and covers each of the four growths separately. If what you are trying to price is a mole, a skin tag or a wart, those live in our mole removal cost guide instead.
What Does Removing These Growths Cost Without Insurance?
Medicare rates below come from the June 30, 2026 release of the CMS Physician Fee Schedule relative value file (RVU26C), calculated nationally at the 2026 conversion factor of $33.4009 for a non-facility (office) setting. Cash prices are posted prices read in September 2026.
| Service | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electrocautery of one benign lesion, posted flat price | $50 | $50 | $50 |
| Cosmetic shave removal, one lesion (trunk to face) | $150 | n/a | $200 |
| Cosmetic punch removal, one lesion (trunk to face) | $200 | n/a | $260 |
| Milia extraction, up to 5 lesions | $90 | n/a | $115 |
| Milia extraction, 5 to 10 lesions | n/a | $180 | n/a |
| Milia extraction, more than 10 lesions | n/a | $250 | n/a |
| Cryotherapy, up to 5 lesions (bundled minor procedure) | n/a | $90 | n/a |
| Liquid nitrogen, up to 10 lesions | n/a | $350 | n/a |
| Liquid nitrogen, 11 to 20 lesions | n/a | $580 | n/a |
| Pulsed dye laser, per treatment: small (chin) / medium (cheeks) / large (full face) | $300 | $500 | $700 |
| Pulsed dye laser, face, neck and chest | n/a | $900 | n/a |
| Port-wine stain laser, per session | $275 | n/a | $550 |
| Benign lesion destruction, 1 to 14 (CPT 17110), NH self-pay | $211 | $702 | $786 |
| Medicare 2026 office rate, CPT 17110 and 17111 | $111.22 | n/a | $129.93 |
| Medicare 2026 office rate, vascular lesion laser (17106 to 17108) | $342.03 | $442.90 | $632.28 |
| Pathology, one specimen (cash fee, Medicare 88305) | $70.14 | $75 | n/a |
Cherry angiomas
These are the small bright-red dots that multiply with age. They are destroyed with electrocautery, a shave, or a vascular laser, and the price tracks the tool.
The cheapest published route is electrocautery priced per lesion. The Spa in Lubbock, Texas posts a flat $50 per lesion for a fine heated tip on cherry angiomas, skin tags, milia and sebaceous hyperplasia, with no consultation fee. A shave removal at a dermatology office costs more per spot: Kittridge Dermatology lists $150 per lesion for a cosmetic shave on the trunk and $200 on the face, with punch removal at $200 and $260 respectively.
Laser flips the pricing model from per lesion to per area. The Oregon Clinic’s dermatology practice charges $300 for a small area such as the chin, $500 for the cheeks, $700 for the full face and $900 for face, neck and chest per pulsed dye laser treatment, and lists angiomas and hemangiomas among what that laser treats. For one or two spots, per-lesion pricing wins. For a scattered crop across the chest, the per-area price is usually the cheaper unit.
Milia
Milia are keratin trapped under the surface, most often around the eyes. They are lanced and extracted rather than burned or frozen, and they are almost always priced as a batch.
The Oregon Clinic posts $115 for up to five extractions, $180 for five to ten, and $250 for more than ten. Kittridge Dermatology folds milia extraction of up to five lesions into a flat $90 minor-procedure fee, the same fee that covers a single shave biopsy or cryotherapy of up to five lesions.
Medicare’s closest code is 10040, acne surgery, which covers marsupialization and opening of milia. Its 2026 national office rate is $113.23, and in CMS’s 2024 claims data providers submitted an average charge of $236.75 for it against an average allowed amount of $108.46. Posted cash prices sit squarely inside that gap.
Seborrheic keratoses
These are the waxy, stuck-on brown or tan growths that show up in quantity after middle age, and quantity is the whole pricing story. They are removed by cryotherapy, shave, or curettage.
Cryotherapy is sold in blocks. The Oregon Clinic posts $350 for liquid nitrogen on up to ten lesions in a 30-minute appointment and $580 for 11 to 20 lesions. Kittridge Dermatology’s $90 minor-procedure fee covers destruction with liquid nitrogen on up to five lesions. Shave removal is priced per lesion, so a dozen keratoses on the back get expensive fast at $150 apiece.
New Hampshire’s state price transparency site is a useful sanity check here because it publishes what people actually pay. Across 23 providers listed for CPT 17110, destruction of 1 to 14 benign growths, the estimated procedure charge averages $702 statewide, and the self-pay amount after each provider’s uninsured discount runs from $211 at Monadnock Community Hospital to $786 at a Massachusetts dermatology group. Medicare pays $111.22 for the same code in an office in 2026, and $129.93 for 17111 when 15 or more lesions are treated.
One product worth knowing about is gone. Eskata, the 40 percent hydrogen peroxide topical solution FDA-approved in December 2017 as the first and only topical treatment for raised seborrheic keratoses, is listed in the FDA’s Drugs@FDA database (NDA 209305, Aclaris) with a marketing status of Discontinued. If you find a price for it online, it is not a route you can actually buy.
Birthmarks and port-wine stains
This is the one group here that is sometimes a covered medical service rather than a cosmetic one, and it is also the most expensive, because it takes a series.
Pulsed dye laser is the standard tool. Celibre Medical, a California laser practice that does not bill insurance, posts $275 to $550 per session for port-wine stain treatment with its Cynosure and Candela lasers. The Oregon Clinic’s per-area pulsed dye laser pricing of $300 to $900 per treatment covers port-wine stains explicitly. Sessions are spaced weeks apart and a stain typically needs many of them, so the number that matters is the session price multiplied by a course, not the single-visit price.
Medicare’s codes for destruction of cutaneous vascular proliferative lesions give the medical-side benchmark: $342.03 for under 10 square centimeters, $442.90 for 10 to 50, and $632.28 for over 50 in a 2026 office setting. The billed side is much higher. In CMS’s 2024 national claims data, office providers submitted an average charge of $715.33 for 17106 and $1,227.52 for 17107 against allowed amounts of $341.53 and $446.43.
What Drives the Price
The unit the practice sells
Per lesion, per batch, or per treated area. These are not comparable and the same patient can get quotes hundreds of dollars apart purely on unit choice. Count your spots before you call, then ask each practice what its quote covers and what an overage costs.
Method
Freezing and burning are cheap. Cutting is more expensive because it takes longer and may generate a specimen. Laser is the most expensive per visit and is usually the only option for a vascular birthmark, because nothing else reaches the vessels without scarring.
Whether tissue goes to a lab
Any removal that produces a specimen can generate a pathology bill from a completely separate business. Medicare’s 2026 national rate for CPT 88305 is $70.14 per specimen, and in 2024 labs submitted an average charge of $185.12 for it. Kittridge Dermatology posts a $75 cash pathology fee for patients who do not want it run through insurance, which is a useful benchmark for what to ask for. Each specimen bills separately, so three lesions can mean three line items.
The office visit underneath
None of the prices above include the visit that generated them. Kittridge’s fee schedule prices a 20-minute dermatology visit at $140 and a 30-minute visit at $190, separate from any procedure fee. Our dermatologist cost guide covers what the visit itself runs nationally.
Where you go
A med spa, a dermatology group and a hospital-affiliated clinic price the same destruction very differently. The New Hampshire data shows it plainly: three Dartmouth Health locations each list an estimated charge of $1,021 for CPT 17110, while free-standing New Hampshire dermatology practices list $368 to $458 for the same code.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
For cherry angiomas, milia and asymptomatic seborrheic keratoses, there is no insurance angle to work. The Cureus editorial published through PubMed Central states directly that most private insurers, Medicaid and Medicare do not pay for removal of seborrheic keratoses done only for cosmetic reasons, and lists the narrow set of covered medical reasons: bleeding, intense itching, inflammation, sudden growth, purulent drainage, ulceration, obstruction of an orifice, interference with vision, repeated trauma, or a need to biopsy to rule out skin cancer. Whether a given growth meets any of those is a clinical question for a clinician, not something to argue on a price list.
That is why this vertical is unusually easy to shop. When nobody is billing insurance, the practice has to post a number and stand behind it, and you can compare four practices in an afternoon.
Birthmarks are the exception. Because 17106 through 17108 are real medical codes with Medicare rates attached, laser treatment of a port-wine stain or hemangioma can be covered when a plan’s policy and the documentation line up. The complication is that many of the practices with the best lasers are cash-only cosmetic centers that do not bill insurance at all. If coverage matters to you, ask whether the practice bills, and ask your plan what it requires, before the first session rather than after the sixth.
How to Pay Less
Count your lesions and match the pricing model. With two spots, a $50-per-lesion electrocautery price is the cheapest thing on this page. With fifteen, a $350 liquid nitrogen block for up to ten lesions or a $700 full-face laser session is far cheaper per spot. Run any quote through our fair price checker before you agree to it.
Batch everything into one visit. Every practice above prices in bands, and the marginal cost of the sixth lesion is much lower than the first. The Oregon Clinic’s jump from $115 to $180 covers five extra extractions. Do not book three visits for three spots.
Ask for the cash pathology price up front. If tissue is going to a lab, ask whether the practice has a self-pay pathology fee. Kittridge posts $75 against an average submitted lab charge of $185.12 nationally, and you only get that price by asking before the specimen ships.
Get the visit fee separated from the procedure fee in writing. A quote that omits the office visit is not a quote. Under the No Surprises Act you can request a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost when you are not using insurance, and Kittridge’s own page notes that a bill $400 or more above that estimate can be disputed.
Use a community clinic for the diagnosis if you are unsure. You should not pay a cosmetic center to tell you whether a spot is benign. Federally funded health centers and sliding-scale clinics can evaluate a lesion cheaply, and our guide to free clinics and sliding-scale care explains how to find one.
Negotiate, especially at hospital-affiliated practices. The New Hampshire data shows hospital systems giving self-pay discounts of 33 to 69 percent off their own estimated charge for the same code, while free-standing dermatology offices give zero. If you are being quoted a hospital-level charge, the approach in our guide to negotiating medical bills applies to the quote, not just the bill.
The Bottom Line
Budget $50 to $300 per lesion for cherry angiomas, $90 to $250 for a milia session, $90 to $580 for seborrheic keratoses depending on how many you have, and $275 to $900 per session for a birthmark laser course as of September 2026. If a practice quotes you well above $786 for destruction of a handful of benign growths, you are above the top of what any of the 23 New Hampshire providers charge a self-pay patient for the same code.
The single biggest lever is not which practice, it is how you buy. These growths are almost always cosmetic, which means the price is set by the seller and negotiable in a way a hospital bill is not. Count your lesions, get three posted prices, and make sure the quote includes the visit. If you are pricing other cash-only skin work at the same time, our guides to laser scar removal and IPL photofacials use the same session-count math.