Last updated 4 July 2026. This page merges three earlier Tune Clinic articles on lifting-device comparison into one reference and replaces them.
Ultherapy and Thermage solve different problems, in Korea and everywhere else. Ultherapy is micro-focused ultrasound that creates lift at the SMAS layer, the same plane a surgeon tightens during a facelift. Thermage FLX is monopolar radiofrequency that remodels collagen in the dermis, the skin itself. In Seoul you will also be offered Oligio, AllTite, and Shurink, usually at lower prices, and the quotes will be difficult to compare because they describe different amounts of work at different depths. This page gives you the comparison we walk patients through in the consultation room: what each device physically does, what it costs here, who suits which, and the situations where we advise choosing neither.
What each device does, and at which depth
The single most useful fact in this entire category: these machines are not versions of each other. Each one deposits heat at a different layer of the face, and the layer determines what kind of change is possible.
| Device | Energy type | Target layer | What it is actually for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ultherapy | Micro-focused ultrasound (HIFU) | SMAS at 4.5 mm, dermis at 3.0 and 1.5 mm | Structural lift: jawline, under-chin, brow |
| Thermage FLX | Monopolar radiofrequency, bulk heating | Dermis and subdermis | Skin tightening, texture, mild laxity |
| Oligio | Monopolar radiofrequency | Dermis, broad coverage | Overall firming with a gentler session |
| AllTite | Monopolar radiofrequency, depth-selective | SMAS, reticular dermis, superficial dermis | Multi-layer treatment in one session; partial responders to prior lifting |
Ultherapy was the first energy device to earn FDA clearances for non-surgical lift of the brow, under-chin, and neck (its brow-lift clearance dates to 2009), and it remains one of the reference platforms for SMAS-level treatment. Its transducers place small coagulation points at exact depths under ultrasound imaging, which is why it can reach the SMAS and why it hurts more than surface treatments. Thermage FLX does not reach the SMAS; it heats a broad column of dermis, which is precisely what you want when the problem is skin that no longer snaps back rather than a structure that has descended. Oligio spreads monopolar RF over larger zones at moderate depth, trading precision for comfort and coverage. AllTite is the newer entrant in our lineup: monopolar RF like Thermage, but with applicator settings that let us treat the SMAS and two dermal depths within one session, which matters for a specific group of patients described below.
A patient asking “which is better” is usually asking the wrong question a step too early. The right sequence is: which layer is causing your change, then which device reaches that layer. When the sagging comes from the deep structural plane, a dermal device will disappoint no matter how well it is performed, and the reverse is equally true. Individual results vary with anatomy, age, and skin quality even when the device is correctly matched.
Pain, downtime, timeline, and maintenance
| Ultherapy | Thermage FLX | Oligio | AllTite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Session pain | The most intense of the four; managed with a targeted comfort block, optional IV sedation | Moderate; vibration and cooling built into the tip | The mildest of the four | Intense but tolerable; topical anaesthesia applied in advance |
| Downtime | Minimal; redness and mild swelling for 24 to 72 hours | Minimal; same pattern | Minimal | Minimal; warmth for several hours |
| First visible change | Typically 1 to 3 months as collagen builds | Same window | Same window | Typically 6 to 12 weeks |
| When to judge the result | 3 to 6 months | 3 to 6 months | 3 to 6 months | 3 to 6 months |
| Typical maintenance interval | Commonly 12 to 18 months | Commonly 12 to 18 months | Usually repeated sooner | Reassessed several months after the first session |
| Sessions | One per cycle | One per cycle | One per cycle | Most start with one |
Two honest notes on this table. First, the result you see in the mirror two weeks after any of these treatments is not the result; it is acute thermal contraction plus a little swelling. Patients who evaluate at week two almost always call the treatment a disappointment, and the same patients at month four often reverse that verdict. Second, the maintenance intervals are patterns from clinical experience, not promises. Age, baseline laxity, and skin quality move them in both directions, and no clinic can tell you in advance exactly how long your collagen response will hold. No one can honestly guarantee a duration in advance; a fixed promise is a marketing claim, not a clinical assessment. If you are flying home after treatment, the practical logistics are covered in flying after aesthetic treatment in Korea; for these devices the constraint is comfort, not safety, and most patients can fly the same or next day.
What it costs in Korea: published prices, not quotes
These are our current published starting prices, taken from the same menu our booking system uses. We publish them because price opacity is the single biggest source of bad decisions in this category. Every figure below is a starting price as of July 2026; the exact protocol and final price are confirmed after an in-person consultation, because shot counts and depth combinations are set to your anatomy, not to a package.
| Treatment | Published starting price at Tune |
|---|---|
| Ultherapy (U.S. version), 300 shots | KRW 900,000 |
| Ultherapy (U.S. version), 600 shots | KRW 1,750,000 |
| Ultherapy Prime, 300 shots | KRW 1,200,000 |
| Ultherapy Prime, 600 shots | KRW 2,400,000 |
| Thermage FLX, face, 600 shots | KRW 1,870,000 |
| Oligio, 300 shots | From KRW 430,000 |
| AllTite, 400 shots | KRW 750,000 |
| Shurink, 300 shots | From KRW 119,000 |
The full menu, including eye protocols and combination programs, is on our price desk, and current program pricing for our physician-led 300-shot Ultherapy protocol is on The Tuning page.
Reading Korean lifting quotes takes three checks. Check the device version: “Ultherapy” on a Seoul price list can mean the U.S. version or Prime, and the two are priced differently everywhere. Check the shot count: a quote that looks half the price is very often half the shots, which is not the same treatment. And check that the device is genuine: authentic Ultherapy uses transducers certified through Merz’s network, and a clinic using genuine equipment will show you the packaging without finding the question strange. Shurink appears on the same menus at roughly one-eighth of Ultherapy’s price because it is a different Korean HIFU platform, not a discounted Ultherapy; it has a real place for lighter indications and budget-conscious maintenance, but the two are not interchangeable, and a price that looks like a discounted Ultherapy is usually a different platform entirely, which is worth clarifying before you compare. Why the cheapest quote is so often the most expensive decision is a longer argument we make in our pricing essay.
Who suits which device
Age bands are a starting point, not a diagnosis. What we actually assess is which layer is failing: skin elasticity, fat compartment position, or structural support at the SMAS and ligament level. These drivers coexist in different proportions in every face, which is why the same device produces dramatic change in one patient and nearly nothing in another. That said, the patterns below hold often enough to be useful before you get on a plane.
Late 20s to mid 30s. True structural descent is rare here. If the complaint is texture, pores, or early firmness loss, the appropriate conversation is usually skin quality, not lifting: lighter RF, or the regenerative work covered in The Foundation. Buying Ultherapy at 28 for prevention is buying a stimulus your tissue mostly does not need yet.
Late 30s to mid 40s. The classic Ultherapy window. Early jawline softening and under-chin laxity with reasonable skin quality respond well to SMAS-level work, because the structural problem is genuinely at that depth and the skin can still follow the lift.
Mid 40s to late 50s. Laxity is usually mixed by now: structural descent plus dermal looseness. This is where staged combinations earn their keep, deep layer first and surface second, and where single-device thinking most often produces the “I did Thermage and nothing changed” story. The problem was not Thermage; it was that half the problem was never addressed.
60s and beyond. Energy devices still help selected patients, and we treat many. But there is a ceiling: when jowls are heavy and neck banding is deep, no non-surgical device produces a surgical result, and we say so in the consultation rather than after three sessions.
Skin thickness modifies all of the above. Very thin skin with little subcutaneous tissue makes focal-point ultrasound less predictable and argues for dermal RF at conservative settings. Thick, heavy lower faces need depth, and dermal-only treatment reliably underwhelms them. And for patients who had Ultherapy or Thermage elsewhere with partial results, the reflex to simply repeat at a higher dose is usually wrong; in many of these faces the first treatment targeted the wrong layer, and this is the specific group where AllTite’s ability to treat the SMAS and two dermal depths in one session is genuinely useful, rather than a novelty. AllTite is one option in that assessment, not a default; where a single layer is the whole problem, a single-layer device remains the more efficient choice.
The patients we tell to get neither
A meaningful share of lifting consultations at Tune end with us recommending no lifting device at all. This is not a marketing posture; it is what an assessment is for.
The consultation exists to find the cases where the answer is no. If a face needs volume, an energy device will tighten it into a thinner version of the same problem. I would rather lose that booking than own that outcome.
The recurring cases:
- Volume-dominant faces. Mid-face hollowing that reads as sagging is a deflation problem. Heating it does not refill it; it needs volume work, which we cover in when filler helps and when lifting is better.
- Surface-quality problems wearing a lifting costume. Dullness, pores, and fine lines make a face look tired, and tired reads as droopy in the mirror. Skin boosters and regenerative treatment fix that; a SMAS lift does not.
- Laxity beyond the device ceiling. Advanced jowling and deep neck banding deserve a candid conversation about surgery, not a fourth energy session.
- Medical exclusions. Pregnancy, active skin infection in the field, metal implants in the treatment area, and, for radiofrequency devices, an implanted electronic device such as a pacemaker or defibrillator defer or exclude treatment regardless of enthusiasm.
- Budget-driven underdosing. If the budget covers 100 shots of a treatment whose indication needs 500, we advise waiting and saving rather than delivering a homeopathic dose of an expensive device. A focal 100-shot protocol has legitimate uses; pretending it is a full-face treatment is not one of them.
How this rule operates in practice, including why we decline treatments patients arrive asking for, is described in the assessment-first rule.
The shot-count question: 300, 500, 800
Shot count is where Korean Ultherapy pricing and outcomes actually get decided, and it deserves its own article; the short version belongs here. Our published full face plus under-chin protocol is 300 shots, vector-mapped by the physician to your bony structure and laxity direction rather than spread evenly. For moderate-to-deep laxity, denser coverage in the 500 to 800 range across multiple transducer depths may be recommended after assessment, and that recommendation should come with a written count and depth plan, not a slogan. When you compare quotes between clinics, ask for the number of shots and the depths in writing; a clinic planning around your anatomy can give you those numbers directly, and a written shot-and-depth plan is the thing worth comparing. The broader questions international patients should verify before booking, including physician operation and genuine-device checks, are in our Ultherapy in Korea guide.
Risks, stated plainly
Every entry in this comparison is a controlled thermal injury, and it is dishonest to describe any of them as risk-free. With Ultherapy, expect real discomfort during the session; afterwards, transient numbness or tingling along treated zones can persist for days to weeks, small linear welts and bruising occasionally appear and resolve, blistering or a superficial burn is uncommon and technique-dependent, and temporary irritation of a marginal nerve branch is rare but documented, recovering over weeks to months. With Thermage and other monopolar RF platforms, the FLX generation has engineered out most of the surface-irregularity risk associated with older devices, but heat is heat and operator technique still matters; the more common practical risk is simply a muted response in tissue that was never the right target. None of these devices replaces a facelift for advanced laxity, none produces permanent results, and the response to a collagen stimulus differs from person to person. A physician who examines your face before recommending a device is not a luxury in this category; it is the mechanism by which most of these risks are avoided. For the clinical evidence base, the PubMed literature on microfocused ultrasound and the SMAS layer and on ultrasound versus radiofrequency for facial laxity are useful starting points.
FAQ
Is Ultherapy or Thermage better for jowls and a sagging jawline?
Neither is universally better, because they act on different layers: Ultherapy delivers focused ultrasound to the deep SMAS plane, while Thermage remodels collagen in the dermis. Jowls driven by structural descent point toward Ultherapy; softness driven by skin laxity points toward Thermage; many faces over 45 have both drivers and do better with a staged combination. The device choice should come out of a physical assessment, not out of the comparison itself.
How much does Ultherapy cost in Korea?
At Tune Clinic the published starting price is KRW 900,000 for a 300-shot U.S.-version protocol and KRW 1,200,000 for 300 shots on Ultherapy Prime, with 600-shot protocols at KRW 1,750,000 and KRW 2,400,000 respectively. Quotes vary across Seoul mainly with device version, true shot count, and who operates the handpiece, so compare shot-for-shot rather than headline-for-headline. Final protocols and prices are confirmed after consultation because the shot map is set to your anatomy.
Why is Ultherapy cheaper in Korea than in the US?
Volume and market structure, not a different machine. High-volume Seoul clinics perform SMAS-level protocols daily, competition is dense, and pricing is typically per shot count rather than bundled into a fixed package, so the same genuine Merz platform is quoted lower than in most Western markets. The device and transducers are the same platform worldwide; what you should verify is that the machine is certified through Merz Korea’s network and that a physician runs your session.
Is Shurink the same as Ultherapy?
No. Shurink is a Korean HIFU platform that appears on menus at a fraction of Ultherapy’s price, and it is a legitimate device for lighter indications and maintenance. It is not a discounted Ultherapy: the imaging guidance, energy characteristics, and evidence base differ. If a clinic quotes “HIFU lifting” without naming the platform, ask which machine it is before comparing prices.
Can I get Ultherapy and Thermage on the same trip to Seoul?
Yes, and combining them is common when the assessment shows problems at both the SMAS and dermal layers. The sequencing matters: deep structural work first, surface tightening second, either in one session or staged across a few days. This fits within a normal one-to-two-week Seoul trip, and neither device stops you from flying; see our note on flight timing above.
How many Ultherapy shots do I actually need: 300, 500, or 800?
A 300-shot protocol covers the full face and under-chin for early-to-moderate laxity when the shots are placed by vector rather than spread evenly. Moderate-to-deep laxity, or meaningful upper-face work, pushes protocols into the 500 to 800 range across multiple depths. There is no virtue in a bigger number for its own sake; there is considerable harm in paying for 800 shots your face did not need, or in believing 100 shots treated a whole face.
I already had Ultherapy and saw nothing. Should I try Thermage instead?
Sometimes, but not by reflex. A partial or absent response usually means the treated layer was not the layer causing your change, so the useful step is a reassessment of which plane is actually loose, not an automatic switch of brands. In some of these cases Thermage is the right answer; in others a depth-selective RF platform such as AllTite, a combination plan, or no device at all is the honest recommendation.
This article reflects the clinical perspective of Dr. Jee Hoon Ju, International Director, and Dr. Seung Yeon Cha, Representative Director, at Tune Clinic Apgujeong. It is educational material for patients researching lifting treatment in Korea and does not replace a physician consultation; treatment decisions are individualized after direct assessment, and individual results vary.
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