UK · Built on NICE guideline NG198
A free consultation, about five minutes. At the end we name the prescription to ask your GP for — free, before you decide anything. The £79 is for the harder half: how to ask for it, what it should cost, and the twelve weeks that decide whether it works.
The answer is free. £79 for the founding cohort if you want the rest — £129 once it closes.
I had acne for fourteen years. I quit at week three more times than I can count, and nobody ever told me the treatments that actually work were prescription-only. CLĀR is the thing I needed at nineteen. — Andrew, founder
Why nothing has worked
Not because you didn't try hard enough. Because nobody tells you the two things that actually decide whether acne improves.
What actually works
NICE is the body that sets clinical standards for the NHS. For acne, guideline NG198 names four. Every one of them is prescription-only — which is precisely why you've never been offered them by a shop.
Worth knowing what you’re actually being sold elsewhere: Dermatica’s subscription is tretinoin with clindamycin. That combination is Treclin — third on this list, licensed, and available on the NHS.
Which one suits you comes down to a few facts about you — two of them safety questions. CLĀR narrows it to one and tells you what to ask for. Your prescriber still decides.
What it costs
Acne isn’t a fortnight, it’s your late teens and twenties. Skin + Me bill you £359 a year and Dermatica £299 a year for every one of those years — their model is built so that you never finish. CLĀR is £79 once, and the treatment itself is an NHS prescription. Where you live changes what that costs, so pick your nation.
| Running total | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skin + Me | £360 | £720 | £1,080 | £1,800 |
| Dermatica | £300 | £600 | £900 | £1,500 |
| CLĀR | £79 | £79 | £79 | £79 |
There are no NHS prescription charges in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, so your treatment is free and the only thing you ever pay us is the one-off £79.
So a twelve-week course in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland costs you £79 in total. Cumulative figures above are treatment cost plus the one-off £79. Published UK prices, August 2026.
What you get
What it looks like
First-line in NICE NG198. Nothing in your answers rules it out.
It will cost you £0You're 17 and in full-time education in England.
Three steps · about three minutes
This is expected. It settles.
Most people stop this week. Change shows at six to eight.
Your photosNo surprises
Weeks two to four are when it often looks worse and most people stop. Knowing that is coming, and that it is the expected part, is most of what gets people to week twelve. You get the whole timeline written out before you begin.
Burning, swelling or spreading redness is not on that list. If that happens, stop and speak to a pharmacist or your GP — that advice is free and it is on every screen.
The guarantee
If your skin isn't clearer by week twelve, you get your £79 back — and we still work out the next treatment and run it with you free. Your own photos settle it.
You leave knowing what to ask for whether you pay or not. £79 once if you want the twelve weeks with it.
Be honest with us
Every other service like this recommends a treatment and then sells you that treatment, every month, for as long as you keep paying. That is the business model, and it is worth knowing when you read their recommendation.
Yours is a normal NHS prescription, from your own GP, dispensed by your own pharmacy. We never touch it and we take no cut of it. We are paid the same £79 whichever of the four your answers point at — which is exactly why we can afford to tell you which one for nothing.
The guideline is explicit about who shouldn't be working through an app, and we'd rather lose you than take your money.
CLĀR will route you out on any of these rather than sell you a plan. It's the reason a dermatologist would put their name near this and not near most acne apps.
Reasonable objections
Four things. Your treatment, worked out — which of the four first-line prescriptions fits you, and the words to ask your GP for it. The skincare routine to support it — cleanser, moisturiser and SPF, named exactly, morning and night. These sit around the prescription; they are not a replacement for it. A tracker that answers “is this actually working” with photographs instead of the mirror. And a twelve-week process that keeps you on the treatment long enough for it to work, instead of switching every fortnight.
You pay for that once. The treatment itself is an NHS prescription — free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and in England capped at £32.05 a course by a prepayment certificate. Against £299 to £359 every year with the subscriptions, forever.
You absolutely can, and some people should. But the appointment is ten minutes for a condition your GP sees alongside thousands of others, and what you walk out with depends a lot on what you walk in asking for. Topical antibiotics on their own still get prescribed despite the guideline ruling them out — so you can leave with something that was never going to clear you, and lose three months finding that out.
Walking in with a lesion count, a photo series and a specific first-line treatment to ask about changes the odds sharply. Same GP, same ten minutes, far better chance you come out with something that works.
You can, and it's a legitimate option — it's in the guideline for people who can't use or don't want the first four. It just isn't first-line. If it genuinely fits you, CLĀR will say so rather than push you toward a prescription you don't need.
But the tube on its own is where most people fail. Wrong strength, applied too often or not often enough, no moisturiser to handle the dryness that follows, no SPF, and no warning that week three is supposed to look worse. Even the right treatment doesn't work unguided — the routine around it, and knowing what each week should feel like, is the part that decides it.
First, we give you one polite follow-up question to ask. Often that settles it. If the answer is still no, you're entitled to ask for a different GP at the same practice, or to register with another practice entirely — you don't need to give a reason, and we show you how.
And if you'd rather not do either, we show you the private route with the real cost: about £45 a course, so roughly £180 a year, against about £40 on the NHS. We never tell you your doctor is wrong.
Once. The twelve-week programme, and a routine you keep. No recurring card charge, nothing to remember to cancel. And if that twelve weeks doesn't work, the second course is free — so the most you will ever pay us is £79.
They stay on your phone. CLĀR compares them on the device — we don't need them on a server to do that, so we don't put them on one. They're yours to keep, delete, or hand to a doctor.
Don't trust us, check the source. Everything CLĀR recommends traces back to NICE guideline NG198 and NHS medicines guidance, both of which are public and free to read — we cite the specific recommendation for every decision the app makes. We're not asking you to believe a formula we invented. We're pointing you at the treatments the NHS already recommends and getting you to finish them.
Founding cohort
CLĀR is being built now. The founding cohort gets the full twelve-week programme for £79. After the cohort closes it goes to £129. You also get a say in what gets built. Start the consultation and you will see your result before you decide anything.
UK only for now. One email when it opens — nothing else.
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