Hims is a legitimate telehealth platform that sells FDA-approved medications for hair loss, erectile dysfunction, and other common health concerns. Whether it’s a “good” product depends on what you’re buying and what you expect. The core prescription medications it offers, like finasteride for hair loss and sildenafil for ED, have decades of clinical evidence behind them. But Hims is also a subscription service with no insurance coverage, a mixed customer service record, and some product categories where the regulatory picture is murkier.
What Hims Actually Sells
Hims isn’t a single product. It’s a platform that connects you with a licensed provider through an online consultation, then ships medications or over-the-counter products to your door. The most popular categories are hair loss treatments (finasteride, minoxidil, or a combination), erectile dysfunction medications (sildenafil, tadalafil), skincare prescriptions, and mental health medications. Most of these are well-established generic drugs that any doctor could prescribe.
Hims fulfills orders through a network of licensed pharmacies, including its own dedicated mail-order pharmacies in multiple states, plus partner pharmacies for compounding and distribution. For standard generics, this is straightforward. Where it gets more complicated is with compounded medications, which are custom-mixed versions of drugs that haven’t gone through the same FDA approval process as their brand-name counterparts. Hims drew attention from the FDA in 2024 for marketing compounded GLP-1 weight loss injections, with the agency stating that companies cannot claim compounded products are the same as FDA-approved drugs or that they’re clinically proven to produce the same results.
Hair Loss: The Strongest Case
Hair loss treatment is probably where Hims delivers the most consistent value, because the underlying medications genuinely work for most men. Finasteride blocks the hormone responsible for male pattern baldness, and minoxidil stimulates blood flow to hair follicles. Used individually, each has solid evidence. Used together, the results are notably better.
A meta-analysis published in Frontiers in Medicine compared men using a combined finasteride-minoxidil solution to those using minoxidil alone. About 53% of men on the combination showed marked improvement in photographs, compared to roughly 25% on minoxidil by itself. When you include moderate improvement, around 70% of combination users saw meaningful regrowth. Only about 18% of combination users showed no change at all, versus 28% of those on minoxidil alone. These aren’t Hims-specific numbers, but Hims’ hair loss products use these same active ingredients, so the efficacy data translates directly.
The catch is that hair loss treatment is a long game. You typically need three to six months before seeing visible results, and stopping treatment means the hair loss resumes. That makes the subscription model a genuine commitment, not just a billing convenience.
Erectile Dysfunction Medications
Hims’ ED offerings are generic versions of well-known drugs. Sildenafil (the active ingredient in Viagra) and tadalafil (the active ingredient in Cialis) are both FDA-approved and widely prescribed. The medications themselves are effective for the majority of men with ED.
Common side effects of sildenafil occur in more than 1 in 100 users and include headaches, flushing, indigestion, a stuffy nose, nausea, and dizziness. Serious side effects are rare, affecting fewer than 1 in 1,000 people, but can include sudden vision changes, chest pain, or a prolonged erection lasting more than two hours, which requires immediate medical attention.
The telehealth consultation Hims provides is real, conducted by licensed providers, but it’s typically asynchronous (you fill out a questionnaire and a provider reviews it). For straightforward cases, this is fine. If you have underlying cardiovascular issues or take medications that interact with ED drugs, an in-person visit with your own doctor is a better starting point.
What It Costs Without Insurance
Hims does not accept health insurance. The company states this is due to specific reimbursement requirements it hasn’t met. It positions itself as an affordable alternative anyway, claiming discounts of 50% to 80% off retail prices. For weight loss treatments specifically, you can use FSA or HSA funds for reimbursement, but that’s the extent of any coverage.
Whether the pricing is actually a good deal depends on your situation. If you have insurance with prescription coverage, you can often get generic finasteride or sildenafil from a local pharmacy for a comparable or lower copay. Hims’ value proposition is convenience and privacy: no in-person appointment, discreet shipping, automatic refills. If those matter to you and you’d otherwise avoid seeking treatment, the premium may be worth it. If you already have a doctor and a pharmacy you use, you’re mostly paying for packaging and delivery.
Customer Complaints Are Worth Knowing About
Hims has accumulated 3,913 complaints with the Better Business Bureau over the past three years, with over 1,100 in the most recent 12 months alone. The breakdown is telling: 1,625 complaints involved product issues, 1,104 were about service or repair problems, and 438 related to delivery. That pattern suggests the most common frustrations are around the products themselves (wrong items, ineffective results, unwanted shipments) and difficulty resolving problems with customer service.
The company does respond to BBB complaints with a standard follow-up offering to resolve the issue via email, and many complaints are eventually marked as resolved. Still, the volume is significant for a consumer health company, and a recurring theme in negative reviews across platforms is difficulty canceling subscriptions or getting refunds for auto-shipped products. If you sign up, pay attention to the subscription terms and cancellation process before your first order ships.
Compounded Products: A Different Category
Some of what Hims sells isn’t a standard generic filled at a traditional pharmacy. Compounded products, like certain topical hair loss solutions that combine multiple ingredients into one formula, are mixed by compounding pharmacies. These products haven’t individually gone through FDA approval. Compounding is legal and common in medicine, but it means you’re relying on the compounding pharmacy’s quality controls rather than the extensive testing required for FDA-approved drugs.
This distinction became especially important with Hims’ weight loss offerings. The FDA specifically called out Hims & Hers for mass-marketing compounded GLP-1 drugs (the same class as Ozempic and Wegovy) and stated its intent to restrict these products. If you’re considering Hims for weight loss, the regulatory landscape is actively shifting, and compounded versions may not remain available.
Who Gets the Most Value From Hims
Hims works best for people who want a low-friction way to access common, well-studied medications they might otherwise avoid getting. A 28-year-old noticing hair thinning who doesn’t want to schedule a dermatology appointment and wait six weeks for a slot is the ideal Hims customer. The same goes for someone who finds it easier to handle an ED prescription through an app than through an in-person conversation. The medications are real, the providers are licensed, and the pharmacies are regulated.
It works less well if you have complex health conditions, want insurance to cover your prescriptions, need personalized medical guidance beyond a questionnaire, or are looking at their compounded or newer product lines where the evidence and regulatory footing are less established. The subscription model also means you need to actively manage your account, since auto-renewal and auto-shipping are the default, and based on complaint data, that’s where a meaningful number of customers run into trouble.