Arena: Market Conditions Before Hims & Hers
U.S. adults with hair loss, erectile dysfunction and skin conditions · 2017 · United States
Barriers to participationRegulatory constraints
In 2017 a man losing his hair or dealing with erectile dysfunction usually had to find a local clinician, book an appointment, describe the problem face to face and then take a prescription to a pharmacy HH1. Each step meant waiting, an awkward conversation and a price he could not see in advance, and many people put off asking at all HH1. Online pharmacies and subscription primary care existed, but joining evaluation, prescribing and repeat delivery into one service still meant working through state rules for clinicians and pharmacies HH1 HH2.
How each step happened
Step 1 of 5 · 2017
Discreet cash-pay online care for stigmatized conditions
What was new was the whole path to treatment in one online flow. Hims launched on November 1, 2017 with hair-loss treatment and added erectile dysfunction (ED) two weeks later HHX-1. A customer answered an online questionnaire, a licensed physician reviewed it and prescribed when appropriate, and the medicine arrived at home, paid in cash at roughly $20 to $40 a month without insurance HHX-6 HH1. Consumers no longer had to arrange a doctor's visit and a pharmacy trip for a request they found embarrassing HH1. Against Ro the design gave no advantage: Ro had launched it days earlier.
Hims ran the service as a technology company around doctors it did not employ. The law bars it from owning medical practices, so affiliated medical groups, set up with Hims's help, employ the clinicians, and Hims manages the non-clinical work HH1. A consumer company could design the whole experience while clinicians kept the prescribing decision. Critics such as Georgetown's Adriane Fugh-Berman called it 'selling drugs to consumers' HH2, and clinical rules still limited what Hims could offer.
Rivals Roman, later Ro, launched on October 31, 2017 with the same flow: physicians reviewing questionnaires, a pharmacy network shipping discreetly and free, and automatic monthly or quarterly refills HHX-2. The innovation created the category; the steps that follow explain why Hims pulled ahead in it.
End-to-End WorkflowTech-Enabled Services
Step 2 of 5 · 2017–25
A mass lifestyle brand that makes the condition normal
The brand was built alongside the service from launch. Hims hired the design agency Partners & Spade and chose a peach palette, lowercase type and cardboard boxes instead of the look of a pharmacy HHX-1. Its brand team, mostly women, used humor and a warm but direct tone so men would talk about hair loss and ED; within a year men were discussing it in Hims's Instagram comments HHX-3. The aim was to make the condition feel ordinary, because the customer's main obstacle was embarrassment.
Hims then bought reach on a mass consumer scale: cactus ads in the subway and a TV spot narrated by Snoop Dogg by 2020 HHX-5, then a Super Bowl campaign in 2025 meant to build 'brand awareness with consumers in order to normalize health and wellness challenges' HH1. The Hers brand reused the method for women, with a landing page and ads for each condition HH1. Marketing was $446 million, 51% of revenue, in 2023 and $919 million, 39% of revenue, in 2025 HHX-8 HHX-9. Brand spend stayed a recurring cost; it paid off because the customers it won kept buying.
Rivals Ro built its brand on its founder's story: Zachariah Reitano had had ED since he was 17 HHX-2, and Ro leaned on health-guide content to attract patients HHX-19. Its first Super Bowl ad, with Serena Williams, ran in February 2026, a year after Hims's HHX-13.
Brand Marketing
Step 3 of 5 · 2018–25
Refill subscriptions turn brand spend into profit
Subscriptions were what made the marketing pay. Hair loss and ED are treated month after month, so Hims sold treatment as a recurring delivery; 90% of customers set one up, and by June 2020 it had about 260,000 subscriptions HHX-5. Each customer won by an ad paid for many months, so as repeat customers accumulated, the same ad budget supported more revenue: from 2019 to 2020 revenue rose from $82.6 million to $148.8 million while marketing fell from 76.5% to 39.7% of revenue, gross margin rose from 54% to 74% and the net loss shrank from $72.1 million to $18.1 million HHX-17.
Hims chose efficiency before size. It raised about $158 million privately HHX-18 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in January 2021 through a merger with a listed acquisition company (a SPAC), with about $279.5 million of gross proceeds HHX-16. Dudum said then that burning money ever faster to grow is not a good business HHX-18. From then on Hims paid for its advertising largely out of subscription gross margin, which let it keep spending in step 2 and still earn $128.4 million of net income in 2025 HHX-9. The design also drew a 2026 FTC lawsuit alleging enrollment without real consent and hard cancellation, which Hims denies HHX-15.
Rivals Ro sold automatic refills from launch HHX-2 but raised much more: $376 million by July 2020, when it reported $250 million in annual sales and no profit HHX-19, and $876 million by March 2021 HHX-10. It reached a $7 billion valuation in February 2022 and cut 18% of its staff four months later HHX-11.
Subscription Pricing
Step 4 of 5 · 2019–25
Own pharmacies and compounding facilities
Hims began bringing fulfillment in-house in 2019, alongside the subscription work. It built its own pharmacy in Columbus, Ohio, to ship faster nationwide and depend less on third-party pharmacies, while keeping partners HHX-4. Those partner contracts carry no exclusivity or minimum orders, so Hims can route prescriptions to its own pharmacies when it chooses HH1.
The larger step was compounding, mixing custom formulations in its own facilities. By 2024 Hims's affiliated compounding pharmacies in Arizona and Ohio employed more than 70 pharmacists and about 150 technicians HHX-7. It then bought a 503B outsourcing facility, which may compound without individual prescriptions under FDA manufacturing rules HHX-14 HH1, and added peptide manufacturing and a testing laboratory HH1. Owning formulation and fulfillment kept more of each sale and let Hims make products no partner pharmacy stocked. It also brought a drug maker's obligations: the FDA sent the outsourcing facility a warning letter over adverse-event reporting HH1.
Rivals Ro grew its own pharmacy business, with Ro Pharmacy revenue up 150% in 2021 HHX-11, and spent part of its 2021 raise on in-home care HHX-10. For weight loss it sold Eli Lilly's branded Zepbound vials from December 2024 alongside compounded semaglutide HHX-12.
Vertical Integration Strategy
Step 5 of 5 · 2024–25
Personalized compounded plans raise revenue per subscriber
Its own compounding pharmacies let Hims sell plans no standard product matched. Providers prescribe tailored doses and combinations, for example an ED treatment combined with a statin in one product, filled in the company's pharmacies HHX-7. Personalized offerings grew from about half of U.S. revenue in 2024 to over 70% in 2025 HH1. GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, launched at scale in 2024, added a large category, but most 2025 U.S. revenue still came from other treatments HH1.
Revenue grew faster than the customer base. Monthly revenue per average subscriber rose from $54 in 2023 to $65 in 2024 and $83 in 2025, mainly from uptake of personalized offerings HHX-8 HH1. Subscribers grew from 1.5 million to 2.5 million over those two years, only 13% in 2025, while revenue went from $872 million to $2.35 billion HHX-8 HHX-9 HH1. Hims's 2024 revenue of $1.48 billion was about two and a half times Ro's estimated annualized rate of $598 million HHX-14.
What made Hims win
Hims won by combining steps 2 to 4: profitable subscriptions paid for a louder brand, and owned pharmacies turned its customers into higher-value personalized plans. Nothing in that system keeps Ro out. Ro sells the same model, has branded GLP-1 supply from Lilly HHX-12 and now advertises at the Super Bowl HHX-13. Hims's compounded products also rest on shifting legal ground: Novo Nordisk sued over compounded semaglutide in February 2026 HH1, and after the suit was dropped Hims limited its compounded GLP-1 sales HHX-15.
Rivals Ro offered compounded semaglutide next to branded GLP-1s but has disclosed no personalized share of revenue HHX-12. Outside estimates put it at $598 million annualized, growing 66%, in late 2024, against Hims's $1.48 billion for the year HHX-14.
Personalization