Hims & Hers: the telehealth brand that made men talk about hair loss and ED on Instagram
Andrew Dudum launched Hims in 2017 with prescription hair-loss and erectile-dysfunction products sold through a telehealth subscription model. Hers launched 2018 for women. The company normalized direct-to-consumer prescription marketing through Instagram and TikTok in ways that prescription pharmacies hadn't tried. Hims & Hers went public via SPAC in January 2021 at $1.6B valuation. By 2024, the company had over 2M subscribers and was profitable. The case is studied as the defining DTC telehealth playbook.
- Story: Andrew Dudum launched Hims in 2017 with prescription hair-loss and ED products via telehealth subscription. Hers launched 2018. The brand normalized DTC prescription marketing through Instagram and TikTok. Went public via SPAC January 2021 at $1.6B. By 2024, ~2M+ subscribers, $1B+ revenue.
- Why it matters: Hims & Hers is the defining DTC telehealth playbook. The brand created the prescription-DTC category in stigmatized men's-health conditions.
- Takeaway: Stigmatized health conditions are ripe for DTC because customers don't want to discuss them with traditional providers.
- Takeaway: Subscription mechanics produce LTV that supports paid-acquisition CAC.
- Takeaway: Regulatory permissiveness can shift; model the business under multiple scenarios.
Hims & Hers — the four-step story
Hims & Hers at a glance
Quick facts
Where prescription telehealth was in 2016
By 2016, telehealth had been growing in fits and starts. Teladoc (founded 2002) was the dominant general telehealth provider but the experience was clinical and the products mostly health-insurance-affiliated. Online pharmacies existed but mainly fulfilled prescriptions written by traditional doctors. Direct-to-consumer prescription marketing was rare; men's-health-specific (hair loss, ED) DTC barely existed at scale.
Andrew Dudum and the Atomic team (a venture studio) launched Hims in 2017 with a specific positioning: prescription hair-loss and erectile-dysfunction products for men, delivered through a simple telehealth-and-subscription model. The brand voice was conscientiously casual and Instagram-friendly — nothing like the clinical positioning of traditional pharmacy or telehealth competitors.
The DTC telehealth playbook
Hims & Hers' structural choices:
- Instagram-native brand voice. Pastel colors, minimalist packaging, casual product photography. The brand looked like a DTC beauty company, not a pharmacy.
- Telehealth-and-prescription flow built into the product. Customers complete an asynchronous medical questionnaire, a state-licensed physician reviews it, and prescriptions get fulfilled to the customer. The full flow takes minutes, not weeks.
- Subscription model. Most products are sold as monthly or quarterly subscriptions. Predictable recurring revenue, low marginal cost per refill once the prescription is established.
- Stigmatized-conditions positioning. Hair loss and ED are conditions men historically didn't discuss publicly or with doctors. Hims' brand voice (humor, normalization, casualness) made the topics approachable in a way traditional clinical marketing didn't.
- Aggressive paid acquisition. Hims spent heavily on paid acquisition through Instagram, Facebook, and search in the early years. The CAC was high but the LTV (recurring subscription revenue) supported it.
What grew
Hims & Hers scaled through 2017-2024. The product line expanded from hair-loss and ED into mental health (anti-anxiety and antidepressants in 2020), skincare, weight management (GLP-1 compounded medications starting 2024), and sexual health. Hers extended the model to women in 2018. The company went public via SPAC in January 2021 at $1.6B valuation. By 2024, Hims & Hers had over 2 million subscribers and over $1B in annual revenue, with positive operating cash flow.
The GLP-1 era (Ozempic, Wegovy) starting 2023-2024 was a major growth accelerator. Hims & Hers' compounded-GLP-1 offering (semaglutide produced by compounding pharmacies rather than Novo Nordisk's branded formulations) became a significant revenue line. The compounded-medication business is subject to FDA enforcement actions and regulatory shifts — the durability of that revenue is the major open question for the company going into 2025-2026.
How RGM thinks about DTC telehealth
When clients ask about DTC telehealth opportunities, the Hims & Hers case is the defining example. The conditions: identify stigmatized health conditions consumers don't want to discuss with traditional providers, build a brand voice that makes the topic approachable, integrate prescription fulfillment into the customer experience (not a separate referral to a pharmacy), and use subscription mechanics to support paid-acquisition CAC.
The harder lesson is that DTC telehealth depends on regulatory permissiveness that can shift. State-level prescription rules, FDA enforcement on compounded medications, telehealth-prescription rules — all are subject to change. We tell clients in regulated DTC categories to model the business under multiple regulatory scenarios. Hims & Hers' 2024-2025 chapter shows what happens when a meaningful revenue line depends on regulatory situations that can shift quickly.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hims actually safe?
Hims uses state-licensed US physicians to review patient questionnaires before issuing prescriptions. The model is FDA-compliant for the prescription medications offered. Specific compounded-medication offerings (particularly compounded GLP-1s in 2024-2025) face more regulatory scrutiny, but the core prescription telehealth model has been operating within US regulatory frameworks since 2017.
How much do products cost?
Pricing varies by product. Hair-loss finasteride subscriptions are typically $20-30/month. ED medications range from ~$20-$80+/month depending on product and dose. Mental health prescriptions are typically $80-100/month for the medication alone plus separate fees for psychiatric consultations. The pricing is generally below brand-name retail pharmacy but higher than insurance copays for the same generic medications.
What about GLP-1 medications?
Hims & Hers began offering compounded semaglutide (the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy) in 2024. The offering was enabled by FDA shortage declarations that allowed compounding pharmacies to produce versions while supply was limited. As FDA shortage declarations have been revised, the compounded-GLP-1 business has faced regulatory uncertainty. The company has been working to maintain access to GLP-1 offerings under evolving rules.
Sources & references
- Hims & Hers investor relations (HIMS) — SEC filings and quarterly reports.
- Hims & Hers (company site) — Product reference.
- Atomic venture studio — Atomic is the venture studio that incubated Hims.