You can get red light therapy at medical spas, dermatology offices, chiropractic clinics, tanning salons, certain gym chains, and at home with your own device. The options range from a $25 single session at a salon to a one-time purchase of a home panel you use daily. Where you go depends on your budget, what you’re treating, and how often you plan to use it.
Medical Spas and Skin Care Clinics
Medical spas are one of the most common places to find professional red light therapy. These facilities typically use full-body beds or large panel systems that deliver light across a broad wavelength range, usually between 600 and 850 nanometers. Estheticians use these devices for skin concerns like fine lines, acne, and uneven tone, while some clinics pair red light sessions with other treatments like facials or microneedling for a combined effect.
Dermatology offices also offer red light therapy, though it’s more commonly available at cosmetic or integrative dermatology practices than at general medical dermatology clinics. The advantage here is that a dermatologist can evaluate your skin condition first and recommend a treatment plan with specific session frequency and duration.
Chiropractic and Physical Therapy Offices
Chiropractors and physical therapists frequently use red and near-infrared light as part of pain management and recovery protocols. In these settings, the light is typically applied with handheld devices or targeted panels focused on a specific joint or muscle group rather than the whole body. The goal is reducing inflammation and speeding tissue repair after injury. If you’re dealing with joint pain, back pain, or a sports injury, this is often where red light therapy gets integrated into a broader treatment plan.
Gyms and Tanning Salons
Several national gym chains now include red light therapy equipment as a membership perk. Planet Fitness, for example, offers a machine called Total Body Enhancement that combines red light with vibration therapy. It’s available to members with a higher-tier membership (the Black Card), and you can use it before or after workouts. Other boutique fitness studios and recovery-focused facilities like cryotherapy centers increasingly include red light booths as well.
Tanning salons have also added red light therapy beds alongside their UV equipment. These tend to be full-body units, and pricing is often structured as either single sessions or unlimited monthly memberships. A single session typically costs between $25 and $100, with the lower end at gyms and salons using smaller panels and the higher end at facilities with medical-grade full-body beds. Unlimited monthly memberships at dedicated wellness spas run around $65 per month, making them cost-effective if you plan on going several times a week.
Home Devices
Home red light therapy has exploded in the last few years, and the devices now come in several form factors depending on what you want to treat.
- Panels: These are the most versatile home option. They mount on a door or stand and cover large areas like your back, legs, or full torso. Panels deliver strong, even light and appeal to people who want to treat multiple body areas in one session.
- Face masks: LED masks fit closely over your face and target skin concerns like wrinkles, acne, and dull tone. The snug fit ensures even light delivery across your skin.
- Bed mats: Full-body mats let you lie down and receive red and near-infrared light across your entire body at once. Sessions of 15 to 30 minutes can target muscle soreness, joint stiffness, and general recovery.
- Handheld wands and caps: Smaller devices designed for spot treatments on specific areas, or scalp caps marketed for hair growth.
Home devices vary widely in power output. Professional units deliver higher irradiance (the intensity of light reaching your skin), which means shorter sessions for the same dose. A quality home panel can still be effective, but sessions may take longer to deliver comparable energy to what you’d get at a clinic. When shopping, look for devices that specify their irradiance in milliwatts per square centimeter and list their exact wavelengths, ideally in the 630 to 660 nm range for red light and 810 to 850 nm for near-infrared.
Professional vs. Home: What You Trade Off
The core difference between a professional session and a home device isn’t the light itself. Both use the same wavelengths. It’s the power, coverage area, and guidance you get. A clinic with a full-body bed can treat your entire body evenly in 10 to 15 minutes. Achieving the same coverage at home with a single panel means repositioning it multiple times during a session.
On the other hand, home devices pay for themselves quickly. If you’re spending $45 per session three times a week, you’d spend over $500 a month. A mid-range home panel costs $300 to $600 as a one-time purchase. For someone who plans to use red light therapy consistently over months, buying a device is almost always cheaper in the long run. If you’re unsure whether red light therapy will help your particular concern, starting with a few professional sessions before committing to a home device makes sense.
How Often and How Long Per Session
Most clinical protocols call for 5 to 20 minutes per treatment area per session. If you’re just starting, 5 to 10 minutes is a reasonable baseline. You can increase from there as your body adjusts. Frequency matters more than session length: 3 to 5 days per week is the standard recommendation. Daily use is fine for most people, but starting at three days per week lets you gauge how your body responds.
Don’t expect overnight results. Consistent use over 2 to 4 weeks is typically needed before changes become noticeable, whether that’s skin improvement, reduced joint stiffness, or better muscle recovery. Red light therapy is cumulative, so the key is sticking with a regular schedule rather than doing occasional marathon sessions.
Who Should Avoid Red Light Therapy
Red light therapy is considered low-risk for most people, but a few situations call for caution. Anyone with an active cancer diagnosis should avoid it, since red and near-infrared light stimulate cellular activity and blood flow, which could theoretically promote tumor growth. Multiple lab studies have shown faster cancer cell proliferation after exposure to low-level light, so professional guidelines advise against treating over or near a known malignancy.
Pregnancy is another common contraindication listed by most device manufacturers. Research on red light therapy during pregnancy is limited, and fetal exposure hasn’t been studied enough to rule out risks. Some people taking medications that increase light sensitivity (certain antibiotics, retinoids, or anti-inflammatory drugs) may also want to check with their doctor, since photosensitizing medications can make skin react more strongly to light exposure. If you have a pain condition, getting a proper diagnosis before masking symptoms with red light therapy is important so you don’t overlook something that needs direct treatment.