Thyroid testing is one of the few places in healthcare where the price is set almost entirely by how many boxes get checked on the lab slip. One tube of blood can produce a $9 result or a $247 result, depending on whether the order says “TSH” or “comprehensive thyroid panel with antibodies.” Same needle, same vial, same courier, wildly different bill.
This guide covers 2026 cash prices for each version of the test: standalone TSH, TSH plus free T4, the full panel with free T3 and antibodies, at-home finger-prick kits, telehealth-adjacent bundles, and the thyroid ultrasound that often follows an abnormal result. For prices on other routine labs, our blood work cost guide is the general hub. This page goes deeper on the thyroid menu specifically, because that is where the panel-size decision quietly moves your bill by a factor of 25.
What Does a Thyroid Test Cost Without Insurance?
All prices below are published cash prices as of August 2026, taken directly from the labs that set them. Quest and Labcorp OnDemand sell to consumers without a doctor’s order; Marek Diagnostics lets you build a panel marker by marker, which is where the floor prices come from.
| Thyroid test or panel | Low | Average | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| TSH alone | $9 (Marek Diagnostics sale price, list $15) | $44 to $49 (Quest, Labcorp OnDemand) | $49 plus draw and facility fees at a hospital lab |
| TSH plus free T4 | $22 (Marek, built à la carte) | $89 (Labcorp Standard Thyroid Test) | $115 (Quest Thyroid Disorder Monitoring, initial) |
| Panel with TSH, free T4, free T3, TPO antibodies | $57 (Marek, built à la carte) | $119.20 on sale, $149 list (Quest Comprehensive) | $247 (Labcorp Custom Thyroid Test) |
| Full panel including thyroglobulin antibodies | $87 (Marek, built à la carte) | $119.20 to $149 (Quest Comprehensive, 5 markers) | $247 and up |
| At-home finger-prick kit | $119 (LetsGetChecked Thyroid Antibody Test) | $119 to $149 | $149 (Everlywell Thyroid Test) |
| Thyroid ultrasound (common follow-on) | $116 (MDsave) | $220 (MDsave national average) | $495 (MDsave high end) |
Quest adds a $6 physician service fee to every order. Marek adds a $10 venipuncture fee when you build a custom panel rather than buying one of its prebuilt bundles. MDsave’s estimated national average for a single-area ultrasound billed the conventional way is $401, roughly double its own prearranged cash average.
What each marker adds to the bill
The American Thyroid Association describes measuring TSH in a blood sample as the best way to initially test thyroid function, which is why TSH alone is both the cheapest thyroid test and the one most often ordered first. Everything else on the menu is an add-on, and each add-on is priced separately.
At Marek Diagnostics, the à la carte prices show the structure plainly: TSH is $9 on sale ($15 list), free T4 is $13, free T3 is $20, TPO antibodies are $15 on sale ($30 list), and thyroglobulin antibodies are $30. Buy all five and you are at $87 before the $10 draw fee. Buy only TSH and you are at $19 all in.
Labcorp OnDemand prices the same markers higher and sells them mostly as bundles: TSH alone is $49, the Standard Thyroid Test (TSH plus free T4) is $89, a standalone free T3 test is $89, a standalone TPO antibody test is $69, and the Custom Thyroid Test (TSH, free T4, free T3, TPO) is $247. Quest sits in between, with a $49 TSH test discounted to $44.10 and a five-marker Comprehensive Thyroid Test Panel at $149 discounted to $119.20.
Notice that Quest’s five-marker panel costs half of Labcorp’s four-marker panel. Two national labs, comparable menus, a $128 spread. That gap is the single most useful thing to know before you buy.
Monitoring panels and at-home kits
If you are already being followed for a thyroid condition, Quest sells narrower repeat panels: Thyroid Disorder Monitoring runs $115 list ($92 on sale) for the initial version and $72 for the ongoing version, which is cheaper than rebuying the full comprehensive panel every few months.
At-home kits price at the top of the market, not the bottom. Everlywell’s thyroid test is $149 and covers TSH, free T3, free T4, and TPO antibodies from a finger-prick sample you mail in. LetsGetChecked’s Thyroid Antibody Test is $119 and covers TSH, free T4, free T3, thyroglobulin antibodies, and TPO antibodies. Both are convenient and both cost more than assembling the same markers at a walk-in draw site. You are paying for the mailer, not for cheaper chemistry.
What Drives the Price
The number of markers on the slip
This is the whole game. Going from one marker to five multiplies the price roughly five to fifteen times depending on the seller. If a clinic hands you an order for a comprehensive panel, it is worth asking what the plan is for each marker, because you are paying per marker whether or not the result changes anything.
Antibody testing is the expensive add-on
TPO and thyroglobulin antibody tests are the priciest line items on most thyroid menus relative to what they cost to run. Labcorp charges $69 for a standalone TPO antibody test, while Marek sells the same test for $15 on sale. Antibodies are also the markers most often bundled into “comprehensive” panels, which is a large part of why those panels cost what they do.
Where the blood gets drawn
A hospital outpatient lab bills a facility fee and a list price on top of the test itself; a standalone Quest or Labcorp patient service center charges a menu price. If a doctor writes you a thyroid order, you can usually take that paper order to an independent draw site instead of the hospital lab attached to the clinic. Ask for the cash price before you sit down, and check your hospital’s posted rates using our guide to hospital price transparency files.
What Medicare pays, as a sanity check
The 2026 Medicare Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule, published by CMS, is the closest thing to a floor price for lab work in the United States. For calendar year 2026 it pays $16.80 for TSH (CPT 84443), $9.02 for free T4 (84439), $16.94 for free T3 (84481), $14.55 for thyroid microsomal antibodies (86376), and $15.91 for thyroglobulin antibodies (86800). Add those up and a complete five-marker thyroid panel is worth about $73 at Medicare rates. Anything a cash-pay seller charges well above that is convenience, marketing, and margin, which is exactly why the $247 version and the $87 version exist side by side. You can sanity-check any quote you get against our fair price tool.
The follow-on ultrasound
Thyroid testing has a common second act. If a clinician feels a nodule or an enlarged gland, the next order is usually a thyroid ultrasound, and that is an imaging bill, not a lab bill. On MDsave, an ultrasound of a single body area (thyroid and head/neck scans included) ranges from $116 to $495 with a national average of $220, against an estimated national average of $401 for the same scan billed conventionally. A nuclear medicine thyroid scan is a different and pricier test, ranging from $280 to $1,011 on MDsave. See our ultrasound cost guide before you book one.
Cash Price vs. Insurance
Thyroid labs are usually ordered to investigate symptoms, which makes them diagnostic rather than preventive. That matters: preventive labs are typically covered in full under an ACA plan, but diagnostic labs run against your deductible. On a high-deductible plan, a $149 thyroid panel billed through insurance can easily cost you more than the same panel bought outright for $119.20, because the negotiated rate at a hospital-affiliated lab is often higher than the direct-to-consumer sticker.
If you are uninsured or nowhere near your deductible, buying direct is almost always cheaper and always more predictable, since the price is shown before you pay. Direct-to-consumer thyroid testing is HSA and FSA eligible at Quest, Labcorp, and Marek. The tradeoff is workflow: results you buy yourself land in your own account, and while you can share them with any clinician, some prescribers will want to reorder a specific marker through their own system. Bring the results to the visit and ask before you buy twice.
How to Pay Less
- Start with TSH alone unless a clinician has told you otherwise. At $9 to $49, it is the cheapest entry point on the menu, and the ATA identifies it as the standard first-line measurement. You can always add markers to a second draw.
- Price the same panel at two labs before you buy. Quest’s five-marker comprehensive panel is $119.20 on sale; Labcorp’s four-marker custom panel is $247. Ten minutes of comparison shopping saves more here than almost any other tactic.
- Build the panel marker by marker if you know what you want. Marek Diagnostics’ à la carte pricing gets you TSH, free T4, free T3, and both antibodies for about $87 plus a $10 draw fee, which undercuts every bundled equivalent.
- Skip the mail-in kit if cost is the priority. At-home kits run $119 to $149 for what a walk-in draw delivers for less. Buy the kit for convenience or privacy, not to save money.
- Take a doctor’s lab order to an independent draw site. Do not let a thyroid panel default to a hospital outpatient lab. If a hospital bill already arrived, get it itemized and work it down using our guide to negotiating medical bills.
- Check sliding-scale options first if money is tight. Community health centers and free clinics run basic labs on income-based scales, and TSH is one of the most commonly included tests. Our guide to free clinics and sliding-scale care covers how to find one, and a primary care visit at one of those clinics can bundle the order and the draw.
Bottom Line
The thyroid test you buy matters more than where you buy it. A standalone TSH runs $9 to $49 in the cash market as of August 2026, a five-marker comprehensive panel runs $87 to $149 at the sane end and $247 at the expensive end, and at-home kits sit at $119 to $149 for the convenience. Medicare values the whole five-marker panel at about $73, which tells you how much headroom is priced into the retail versions.
Buy the smallest panel that answers your question, compare Quest against Labcorp before you check out, and keep $116 to $495 in reserve in case an ultrasound follows. If you are also pricing hormone testing, our testosterone test cost guide covers the same tradeoffs on the endocrine side.