I need a new hearing aid. But how much I need it depends in part on how much it’s going to cost. This is surprisingly difficult information to obtain.
I have an Advanced Bionics cochlear implant and a Phonak hearing aid, made by the same parent company, Sonova. It makes sense to stick with Sonova, because the two devices are paired. My Phonak hearing aid, bought in 2023, still works well for me. But I have trouble understanding speech in noise, and Phonak has a new hearing-aid line with much more sophisticated AI-driven speech-in-noise technology. But before I make an appointment with my audiologist, Megan, I want to get a rough idea of what I’m in for financially. So I consulted the Internet. It was a pretty wild ride.
My experiences – while they are mine and mine alone – point to the widespread difficulties in finding prices for hearing aids. Even with my expertise, this information is very hard to find.
The Phonak comes in several variations on the same name, a jumble of Audeos and Infinios. The one I’m looking at is the Phonak Audeo Infinio Ultra Sphere. HearingTracker, a reliable site for all kinds of hearing aid information, ranked it the “best overall” hearing aid in its 2026 review. It was also chosen by the makers of the new Fortell hearing aid as the control aid when they were testing their own product. (I wrote about the Fortell on my blog a few weeks ago. That post linked to a more detailed story I wrote for ClearHealthCosts.com. The Fortell pricing is refreshingly transparent. It’s $6,800 per pair. That’s possible because it sells directly to the consumer, not through audiologists or hearing-aid specialists.)
The Sphere is part of Phonak’s Infinio series. The Infinio Ultra R and the Virto R Infinio feature Autosense, Phonak’s self-adjusting program for everyday use. It’s the Sphere that includes Phonak’s AI speech-in-noise program Spheric Speech Clarity 2.0 run on its DEEPSONIC™ DNN chip. I’ve attached a screen shot from Phonak’s Website. It would be so helpful if it gave a price range for each of these.
$3,500 or $10,000?
Here’s what I found in my web search, in order of appearance at the time I did the search:
ZipHearing will sell you the Audeo Infinio Ultra Sphere 90 for $4,898 a pair, including “local care.” How local is local? When I filled in my zip code, it found four providers within 50 miles of 10024, the Upper West Side of New York. I had to call if I wanted the audiologists’ names and location. Since I am not planning to leave Megan, I clicked on No Thanks.
Next up was FitHearing. To get a price, I needed to call or text or Add to Cart and then they’d tell me. No thanks, I get enough email. The reason they can’t tell me the price, according to a box on the site, is that “Per Phonak policy, our price is too low to show.”
The Google AI summary, on its face unreliable, tells me that the Infinio 90 is typically priced between $5,000-$6,000+ per pair. But it also says that Phonak hearing aids “generally cost between $3,500 and $10,000 per pair.” The Infinio 90 is their most expensive hearing aid. What costs $10,000?
Dr. Cliff Olson is entertaining and reliable. His YouTube videos and HearingUp website offer a lot of good information, including, for instance, that the behind-the-ear component on the Sphere is large and might bother people with glasses – like me. And like Dr. Cliff: he only reviews hearing aids he’s tried. He reviewed the Sphere series in August 2024, and he refers to it as the Audeo Sphere Line. Infinio is a newer iteration. He liked the hearing aid, especially the AI speech-in-loud-noise program: “When I switched from a Calm Situation Program or even a Speech in Noise program to the Spheric Speech in Loud Noise program, it was the most dramatic difference I have ever experienced with a hearing aid.” Dr. Cliff doesn’t sell hearing aids online (he does sell them in his Phoenix clinic), and he doesn’t mention price. He also talks very fast. The website summary is helpful.
HearingAidForum, a user-website connected to HearingTracker, has a good rundown of user experience with the Sphere dating from December 2024. One user paid 4,000 Euros for it.
Hearing Life will tell you the range of prices on a range of hearing aids at different levels and with different features, but it won’t give you brand names.
$2,000 or $13,000?
Hear USA says hearing aids cost $6,000-$13,000 per pair. The headline is tantalizing “How do I find out the actual cost of my hearing aids?” Surprise. You have to contact Hear USA.
Good Rx, a prescription savings app, cites cost ranging from $2,000 to $7,000. It also reminds you that Medicare doesn’t cover hearing aids, although some Medicare Advantage plans do. The Veterans Administration provides hearing aids for free. Under Federal law, Medicaid pays for hearing aids for children.
Why are hearing-aid prices so elusive? HearingTracker’s “How Much Do Hearing Aids Cost in 2026?” offers some explanations. Hearing aid companies have never published Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Prices, largely because the companies don’t sell direct to consumers, they sell to audiologists and hearing aid specialists. A second reason you won’t see the price is that it varies significantly by where you buy your hearing aid. At a traditional clinic, the Hearing Tracker survey found, the average price of a pair of hearing aids without insurance is $4,727. With insurance it’s $2,567. The median price without insurance is $5,000, which is a good indication of how high the cost might go. HearingTracker’s Abram Bailey says the price can vary from $20 (don’t buy this hearing aid – it’s way too cheap) to $8,500. HearingTracker’s article won’t tell you what your next hearing aid will cost.
What the HearingTracker article will tell you is that hearing aid prices have dropped 42 percent since 2018. That’s great news for consumers. Two primary factors in the drop are Costco and over-the-counter hearing aids. The average price of a hearing aid at Costco is $1,674, according to HearingTracker. OTC hearing aid prices are far lower, averaging $502 per pair. Better insurance coverage also contributes to a drop in consumer prices.
Insurance … and Costco
Unfortunately, that price drop includes but may not represent what you, the consumer, will pay for high end hearing aids. And although some health plans, including some Medicare Advantage plans, are now covering hearing aids, at least partially, Medicare itself does not, nor do Medicare Supplement plans. Costco sells quality brand-name hearing aids at a discount, but they don’t sell Phonak.
If I had mild-to-moderate, age-related hearing loss, the answer would be easy. I’d Google over-the-counter hearing aids. Or I’d go to Costco. Or I’d read my own comprehensive look at OTC aids, published at ClearHealthCosts.com, and on my blog, OTC Hearing Aids: A Primer.
I guess I’ll be calling Megan, which is what I probably should have done in the first place.
Katherine Bouton is the author of the memoir Shouting Won’t Help, as well as Smart Hearing, a guide to living with hearing loss. Her blog Smart Hearing covers all aspects of hearing loss. She is a former editor at The New York Times.
