How to Find the Right Medspa Equipment for Your New Business

Keep your new medical spa pointed toward its business goals

You’re starting a medspa, and you need the right medspa equipment to make your business a success. Right now, you have a few questions to answer.

Are you trying to start with affordable equipment and build up from there, or jump right into top-of-the-line models? This will determine how much you’ll need to invest right away. Are you planning to focus on massage treatments, or perhaps skin services like microdermabrasion? The planning you’ve already done for your medspa’s menu of services will be key to finding the right mix of massage tables, skincare tools, and other equipment you should buy before opening your doors.

There’s no shortcut to finding and purchasing the equipment and tools you need, but this guide will make the process of identifying and purchasing necessary equipment much easier for new medspa owners.

Consider your budget

Before you decide what medspa equipment you’ll need, make sure you’re caught up on how to open a medical spa in your state. With the costs of simply creating a business accounted for, it's time to decide what you can afford to spend. This is all part of arriving at your medical spa start up costs, and will help determine the services you can plan to provide on day one.

Websites such as Spa Source and Spa & Equipment, as well as secondhand sale and trade groups, offer many potential avenues to owning medspa equipment. But wherever you look, make sure you inquire about payment options before filling out your cart. Some of these tools can cost thousands of dollars, and multiple payments could go a long way toward easing upfront costs. Options such as leasing, financing, or even renting tools could also allow you to try different machines without fully committing before you know how your clientele will respond.

Before purchasing new or previously owned equipment, consider its long-term role in your business. Ultimately, you’ll need to decide whether the known higher cost of buying new outweighs the unknown potential issues (such as higher maintenance expenses and a shorter overall operational lifetime) that come from buying used. Naturally, any disposable components such as syringes and hygienic covers will need to be purchased new, and used equipment should be thoroughly cleaned before going into use.

Target this medspa equipment first

Ready to get started? Here are some types of medical spa equipment to look for first.

Medical spa chairs and facial beds

Medical spa chairs and facial beds are a necessity for any business in your industry, so don’t be surprised if they take up a good portion of your initial medical equipment costs. Even smaller medspa businesses will need multiple chairs in order to reliably take appointments for more than one client at a time. One of the first things to consider when purchasing a medical spa chair is comfort — clients are going to be spending a lot of time in these chairs while your staff performs desired procedures.

Other important elements to look for include the quality of the materials used to make the chair, the ease of use of the chair, and how many different positions it can accommodate. That last point could be the difference between one type of chair serving you through years worth of menu updates or needing an upgrade to support your ambitions.

Microdermabrasion machines

One of the more expensive machines you can buy for your medspa business is a microdermabrasion machine. These machines exfoliate dead skin cells and encourage skin rejuvenation, helping to repair sun damage, acne scars, aging, or even skin pigmentation on a patient's face. Medspas are offering this service to potential customers more frequently, so this might be a significant part of your business.

Injectable tools

Whether your customers are looking for Botox, Dysport, Platelet-rich plasma (PRP), or Platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) injections, you’ll need the right medical spa equipment to make that happen — in this case, it often means equipment as fundamental as syringes or cannulas. Syringes come in lots of shapes and sizes for different purposes, while cannulas make injectable therapies that need to be delivered over an extended period of time possible. But be careful when you’re bargain hunting: Sterile equipment such as syringes and cannulas typically comes with expiration dates, so it’s best not to over-order.

Vein finders

Getting an injection site right the first time makes a massive difference in comfort levels for clients, especially those who may be a little squeamish around needles. While finding a good spot for an injection used to be a matter of look, feel, and hard-earned phlebotomical experience, modern tools such as vein finders make it exponentially easier to track down the perfect spot for treatments that require access to the bloodstream — or, conversely, to ensure injectable treatments that should not be administered intravenously, such as fillers, remain far from potentially dangerous territory.

Specialized equipment

We’ve covered the basics for a medspa, but you should also account early for the extra pieces that will push your offerings and customer service beyond anything else clients can find in your area. You may wish to look into touchless spa treatments that extend your menu while minimizing additional demands on employees. You should also start thinking about your choice of medical spa software, and prioritize services that provide solutions tailor-made to your type of business rather than bloated feature sets and generic templates.

Don’t forget non-medspa-specific essentials

It’s easy to overlook office supplies when purchasing medspa equipment, but these tools are vital to making each stage of your work easier and more efficient. 

• Storage equipment: You might already have storage closets, but more mobile means of storage can make a massive difference for efficient setups. Look for carts that have locking drawers to ensure all that carefully selected equipment never ends up spilling onto the floor.

• Ergonomic seating: Whether for clients or staff, your medspa will need comfortable places to rest. Look for chairs, stools, and couches that make ergonomic seating easy, showing your commitment to clients’ health even extends to the way they wait for service.

• Extra touches: Choosing just the right essential oil to place in diffusers around your business can give your medspa a signature scent — and a shortcut to creating stronger memories of your business. Equipping your front office with a towel warmer means clients will always have this simple yet pleasantly comforting sensation to look forward to after treatment. These kinds of smaller purchases can quickly add up to a uniquely compelling business identity.