Here’s a number that should temper how you read your next biological age test result: Eric Verdin, president of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging — one of the most respected aging research institutions in the world — has publicly said that when he ran his own DNA through multiple epigenetic clocks, his biological age came back anywhere from 40 to 67. Same person, same week, different clocks, a 27-year spread.
That’s the backdrop against which four companies are currently selling you a single, tidy number for $129 to $549: TruDiagnostic, Elysium Health, GlycanAge, and Tally Health. This is a real, independent comparison of what each actually costs, what technology each uses, and — the part their marketing pages gloss over — what the scientists who study this field say about how much you should trust the result.
TL;DR
- Biological age tests in 2026 range from $129 (Tally Health’s cheapest subscription tier) to roughly $549 (GlycanAge’s single test).
- Longevity researcher Matt Kaeberlein says repeat tests from the same company, on the same day’s blood sample, can differ by 20 years — and doesn’t recommend the tests for consumers “unless you just want it for entertainment value.”
- Buck Institute president Eric Verdin ran his own DNA through several methylation clocks and got results 27 years apart.
- Three of the four companies compared here (TruDiagnostic, Elysium, Tally Health) use DNA methylation; GlycanAge uses a different biological signal (blood sugar molecules linked to inflammation) that some reporting suggests is more reproducible, though not independently verified head-to-head.
- A December 2025 study in Epigenomics concluded the “fundamental technical and biological properties” of these algorithms “prohibit their current use at the individual level.”
Quick Verdict
- Most scientifically established methylation clock: Elysium Health’s Index — built with Yale researcher Morgan Levine, one of the field’s most cited scientists.
- Most comprehensive single test: TruDiagnostic’s TruAge Complete — over 900,000 DNA methylation sites, multiple clock scores, and organ-specific age estimates.
- Most reproducible technology, on current reporting: GlycanAge — a fundamentally different biological signal that some researchers say responds more consistently to lifestyle changes than methylation clocks.
- Cheapest way to track a number over time: Tally Health’s TallyAge, especially on a longer subscription — though it’s bundled with a supplement business.
- Who should skip all four: anyone hoping for a medically precise, individually reliable number. Even the scientists who invented this field don’t trust a single result that much.
Comparison Table
| Company | Price (2026) | Technology | Sample type | What’s included | Founded / backing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TruDiagnostic (TruAge Complete) | $499 one-time, $249 with subscribe-and-save | DNA methylation (900,000+ sites) | Blood (finger-prick device) | Multiple clock scores, 11 organ-specific ages, pace-of-aging metric | Founded 2020, Lexington, KY |
| Elysium Health (Index) | $299–$499 depending on subscription | DNA methylation | Saliva | Biological age plus 10 system-level aging scores | Developed with Yale researcher Morgan Levine |
| GlycanAge | ~$499–$549 single test (regional pricing varies) | IgG glycan analysis (inflammation-linked, not DNA methylation) | Blood | “Inflammaging” score, used in some clinical settings internationally | UK-based; has raised roughly $15.5M across funding rounds |
| Tally Health (TallyAge) | $129–$229/month depending on subscription length | DNA methylation | Cheek swab | Quarterly biological age testing, personalized recommendations, bundled longevity supplement | Co-founded with Harvard’s David Sinclair; raised $10M in early funding |
Prices reflect publicly available information as of mid-2026 and are cited individually in the Sources section. Subscription pricing structures change often — confirm current rates directly with each company before buying.
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TruDiagnostic (TruAge Complete)
TruDiagnostic is the most comprehensive single product in this comparison by raw data volume, analyzing more than 900,000 sites on your DNA from a blood sample collected with an at-home finger-prick device.
Pricing. $499 for a one-time TruAge Complete test, or $249 per test with a subscribe-and-save plan, plus roughly $30 for the collection device on your first order.
What’s included. Multiple methylation-based clock scores (not just one number), 11 organ-specific age estimates (brain, heart, liver, and others), a pace-of-aging metric, telomere length estimates, and disease risk scores, run through what the company describes as peer-reviewed published algorithms.
What they publish. TruDiagnostic runs its analysis using published, academically developed clock algorithms (including versions of GrimAge and DunedinPACE, both of which have real population-level peer-reviewed validation, as we’ve covered in our broader evidence review of preventive scans). What hasn’t been independently published is head-to-head data on how reliably TruDiagnostic’s specific consumer product reproduces the same result on repeat testing of the same person.
ScanGlean evidence grade: Grade B for the underlying clock science it draws on (genuinely peer-reviewed, population-validated algorithms). Grade C for the claim that a single consumer test result is precise enough for individual decision-making — the same limitation that applies to every methylation-based product in this comparison.
Elysium Health (Index)
Elysium’s pitch rests heavily on its scientific pedigree: Index was developed in partnership with Morgan Levine, the Yale researcher whose work helped produce PhenoAge and other widely cited academic methylation clocks.
Pricing. A single kit runs up to $499, with subscription pricing (annual or semi-annual testing) bringing the effective per-test price down to around $299.
What’s included. A saliva-based test measuring global methylation patterns, reported as a biological age plus scores across 10 different aging-related systems.
What they publish. The scientific pedigree here is real — Levine’s academic work is genuinely well-cited and population-validated. That’s a meaningfully different claim than saying Elysium’s specific consumer product has been independently validated for individual-level accuracy or test-retest consistency, which we did not find published data on.
ScanGlean evidence grade: Grade B for the underlying science (strong academic pedigree via Levine’s published work). Grade C for individual-level reliability of the consumer product, unestablished for the same reason as every other methylation-based test here.
GlycanAge
GlycanAge is the outlier in this comparison, and worth understanding on its own terms rather than folding it into “just another biological age test.”
Pricing. Roughly $499 to $549 for a single test in the US, with regional pricing in the UK around £449 to £499; two-test bundles run higher.
The technology is genuinely different. Instead of DNA methylation, GlycanAge measures IgG glycans — sugar molecules attached to a key immune-system antibody — as a marker of chronic, low-grade inflammation (“inflammaging”). The company says this approach is already used in hundreds of preventive and longevity clinics internationally to track how patients respond to interventions over time.
What they publish. GlycanAge has raised roughly $15.5 million across multiple funding rounds specifically to advance clinical development of the technology, and a 2026 Forbes market analysis noted that glycan-based testing appeared to offer a stronger combination of reproducibility and measurable response to lifestyle change compared with methylation clocks. That’s a genuinely interesting signal — but it comes from company-funded development and market reporting, not an independent, peer-reviewed head-to-head trial against its methylation-based competitors.
ScanGlean evidence grade: Grade B for a real, biologically distinct signal (inflammation via glycosylation) with growing clinical use. Grade C for the comparative claim that it’s more reliable than methylation-based competitors — plausible and reported, but not independently confirmed head-to-head.
Tally Health (TallyAge)
Tally Health leans hardest on a single name: David Sinclair, the Harvard Medical School genetics professor and one of the most publicly recognized aging researchers alive, who co-founded the company.
Pricing. The cheapest entry point in this comparison — as low as $129/month on a 12-month subscription, up to $199/month on a 3-month commitment, or $229 for a single test.
What’s included. A cheek-swab DNA methylation test delivering a quarterly “TallyAge” score, personalized lifestyle recommendations, and — notably — a bundled proprietary longevity supplement called Vitality as part of the subscription.
What they don’t disclose clearly. This is the one company in this comparison where the test and the product it’s likely to recommend you buy come from the same business. That’s not evidence of bad faith, and Sinclair’s academic credentials are real — but it’s a structural conflict of interest worth naming plainly: a lower TallyAge score, or one that improves after starting the bundled supplement, is also a data point that sells more subscriptions.
ScanGlean evidence grade: Grade B for the underlying methylation science (same population-level basis as its competitors). Grade C for both individual-level reliability and for the supplement-recommendation loop, which has not been independently validated as improving outcomes rather than sales.
The Test-Retest Problem Nobody Advertises
This is the section every company selling a biological age test would rather you skip, and it’s the reason this comparison exists.
The population-level science behind epigenetic clocks is genuinely strong — we’ve covered this in detail in our broader evidence review of preventive scans and longevity clinics. Clocks like GrimAge and DunedinPACE are real, published, and predict average mortality and disease risk across large study cohorts with real statistical power. That’s not in question.
What’s in question is whether a single test, on a single person, on a single day, tells that person something precise enough to act on. And on that question, some of the field’s own leading researchers have been unusually blunt in public.
Matt Kaeberlein, a prominent longevity researcher whose survey work on off-label rapamycin use we’ve covered elsewhere on this site, has said that even within the same testing company, repeated tests run on blood drawn the same day can produce results 20 years apart. His recommendation for consumers: don’t get one, “unless you just want it for entertainment value.”
Eric Verdin, president of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, went further and made it personal — he ran his own DNA through multiple methylation clocks and reported his biological age came back anywhere from 40 to 67. Same person. Same underlying biology. A 27-year spread depending on which clock and which test run.
This lines up with the published literature, not just anecdote. The 2025 Epigenomics review already cited elsewhere on this site concluded that “fundamental technical and biological properties” of these algorithms — sample handling, lab-to-lab variability, and short-term biological fluctuation from things like diet, illness, and even time of day — “prohibit their current use at the individual level.” A separate 2025 preprint on the biological versus technical reliability of epigenetic clocks reached a similar conclusion: re-testing the same person can produce results that swing by years due to technical noise alone, independent of any real change in how that person is actually aging.
None of this means the underlying science is fake, or that these companies are running a scam. It means a single number on a report — “your biological age is 34” — carries far more apparent precision than the underlying technology can currently deliver to one individual person, even according to the researchers whose work these companies are commercializing.
Why a Number Feels Like Proof
This is worth naming honestly, because it’s the same psychological pull we’ve traced through other categories on this site.
A biological age score does something a vague sense of “I’ve been eating better lately” can’t: it converts an ambiguous, hard-to-track feeling into a single, precise-looking number you can watch move. That specificity feels like evidence, even when — as the researchers above make clear — the number itself is noisy enough that the movement you’re watching may be more measurement error than biology.
It’s also, notably, a number companies have a direct financial incentive to make move in a favorable direction, especially when the same company selling you the test is also selling you the supplement, coaching, or program meant to improve it. That’s not automatically dishonest — but it’s a structural incentive worth remembering every time a “before and after” biological age result shows up in marketing copy.
Who Should Actually Consider One
We’re not telling you whether to buy one of these — that’s your call, and a genuinely low-stakes one compared to most of what this site covers, as long as you’re clear-eyed about what the result means.
- Am I treating this as a diagnosis or as a rough, noisy trend line? The honest use case, per the researchers above, is loose tracking over time for personal curiosity — not a number to make medical decisions around.
- Am I testing with the same company and protocol each time? Comparing your TruDiagnostic score to your GlycanAge score is comparing two different biological signals — it’s not a meaningful trend.
- Does the company selling me this test also sell me the intervention it’s likely to recommend? Worth knowing going in, not discovering after your first “improved” result nudges you toward a subscription upsell.
- Would a single result change any real decision I’d make, or is this purely for interest? If it’s the latter, that’s a fine reason to buy one — just budget for it as entertainment, in Kaeberlein’s own framing, not as medicine.
Cost Reality
- Subscriptions are structurally cheaper per test, but commit you to repeat purchases. Every company in this comparison prices single tests higher than subscription tiers — the “cheap” price you see in ads is usually the multi-test annual rate.
- A single result is close to meaningless by the researchers’ own standard. If Kaeberlein and Verdin’s own retest experience is representative, a real read on your trend requires multiple tests over time, meaning the realistic cost of “using this properly” is several times the advertised single-test price.
- Bundled products change the math. Tally Health’s lowest advertised price includes a supplement subscription — compare the test-only cost, not the bundled headline number, if that’s what you’re actually trying to buy.
The Bottom Line
TruDiagnostic, Elysium, GlycanAge, and Tally Health are all selling a version of the same promise — a precise number for something genuinely hard to measure — built on real, population-validated science that becomes considerably less certain the moment it’s applied to one person’s single test result. The researchers who built the underlying clocks aren’t shy about this limitation when asked directly; a Buck Institute president and a University of Washington longevity researcher have both put their own inconsistent results on the record. That’s a rare and useful thing in this industry: a candid public accounting from the scientists themselves, not a competitor with something else to sell you.
If you buy one of these tests, buy it knowing what it can currently do — offer a loose, imperfect, sometimes-fun signal to track over time — and what it can’t: replace an actual medical evaluation, or tell you your real biological age with anything close to the precision printed on the report.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a biological age test?
A biological age test estimates how fast your body is aging relative to your calendar age, usually by analyzing chemical tags on your DNA (an “epigenetic clock,” the approach used by TruDiagnostic, Elysium, and Tally Health) or by measuring changes in blood sugar molecules linked to inflammation (the approach GlycanAge uses instead). The result is typically delivered as a single number — your “biological age” — often alongside a breakdown by organ system.
Which biological age test is most accurate?
There’s no independently verified answer to this, and that’s worth taking seriously rather than picking whichever brand markets itself as most scientific. Eric Verdin, president of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, has said his own biological age varied from 40 to 67 across different DNA methylation clocks he personally tested. Glycan-based testing (GlycanAge) has been reported to show somewhat better test-retest reproducibility than methylation clocks, but no company’s consumer product has independently published head-to-head accuracy data against the others.
How much does a biological age test cost?
As of 2026: Tally Health runs $129 to $229 depending on subscription length; Elysium’s Index costs $299 to $499; TruDiagnostic’s TruAge Complete costs $249 to $499; and GlycanAge runs roughly $499 to $549 in the US (regional pricing varies). Most companies discount heavily for subscribing to repeat testing rather than a single kit.
Can I trust my biological age test result?
At the population level, the underlying science is real — these clocks reliably predict average mortality and disease risk across large study groups. At the individual level, prominent aging researchers have been notably blunt: longevity scientist Matt Kaeberlein has said repeat tests from the same company, on samples taken the same day, can differ by 20 years, and doesn’t recommend consumer use except “for entertainment value.” Treat a single result as a rough, noisy signal, not a diagnosis.
What’s the difference between TruDiagnostic and Elysium?
Both use DNA methylation (“epigenetic clock”) technology, but they’re built differently. TruDiagnostic’s TruAge Complete tests over 900,000 sites on your DNA from a blood sample and reports multiple clock scores, organ-specific ages, and a pace-of-aging metric. Elysium’s Index uses a saliva sample and was developed in partnership with Yale researcher Morgan Levine, who helped create some of the most widely cited methylation clocks in academic research.
Is GlycanAge more reliable than DNA methylation tests?
GlycanAge measures a fundamentally different biological signal — sugar molecules attached to antibodies, reflecting chronic inflammation — rather than DNA methylation. Some reporting suggests glycan-based testing shows more consistent, reproducible results and responds more predictably to lifestyle changes than methylation clocks. That’s a genuine potential advantage, but it hasn’t been established through independent, head-to-head published comparisons against the methylation-based competitors.
Is Tally Health legit? (David Sinclair connection)
Tally Health is a real company, co-founded with involvement from Harvard genetics professor David Sinclair, one of the most prominent aging researchers in the world. It’s worth knowing that Tally Health also sells a proprietary longevity supplement alongside its biological age test and personalized recommendations — a business model where the test and the product being recommended come from the same company, which is a conflict of interest worth factoring in, not a reason to dismiss the test outright.
Should I get a biological age test?
If you’re doing it out of curiosity or to have a fun number to track loosely alongside lifestyle changes, that’s a reasonable use — as long as you don’t over-interpret a single result. If you’re hoping for a precise, individually reliable diagnostic to guide medical decisions, the current generation of consumer tests isn’t built for that, according to the researchers who study this technology for a living.
This article is for general educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for diagnosis, treatment, or guidance from a licensed physician or other qualified healthcare provider. Pricing and product details referenced in this article reflect our research as of mid-2026 and are subject to change — see our Methodology page for how we research, grade, and update comparisons like this one. This article does not constitute a personal recommendation to use or avoid any specific product.
Disclosure
ScanGlean does not sell scans, panels, or memberships, and we currently have no paid, affiliate, or referral relationship with TruDiagnostic, Elysium Health, GlycanAge, or Tally Health. If that changes for any provider we cover, it will be disclosed here and on our Methodology page, and it will never influence a product’s evidence grade or ranking.
Sources
- Majic J. The Biological Age Testing Market, From Research Promise To Clinical Reality. Forbes, February 2026.
- From population science to the clinic? Limits of epigenetic clocks as personal biomarkers. Epigenomics, 2025. Available via PMC.
- Biological versus Technical Reliability of Epigenetic Clocks and Implications for Disease Prognosis and Intervention Response. bioRxiv preprint, October 2025. Available via bioRxiv.
- When to Trust Epigenetic Clocks: Avoiding False Positives in Aging Interventions. Available via PubMed.
- Biological age tests reveal what slows or hastens aging – but they’re useful only for researchers, not consumers. The Conversation, 2026.
- TruDiagnostic. TruAge Complete pricing, accessed 2026.
- Elysium Health. The Science Behind Index and Index product page, accessed 2026.
- GlycanAge. Price & Plans, accessed 2026.
- GlycanAge. GlycanAge closes $8.7M to take glycan biomarkers into hospitals. Longevity.Technology, 2026.
- Tally Health. Tally Health unveiled: David Sinclair’s consumer longevity company launches. Longevity.Technology.
- Femtech Insider. Consumer Biotech Company Tally Health Launches a New Platform Aimed at Extending Longevity.
- ScanGlean. Preventive Health Scans and Longevity Clinics, Explained.
- ScanGlean. Rapamycin for Longevity, Explained.