Neko Health alternatives: what to do about a 100,000-person waitlist

Neko Health has a problem most companies would want: it built something people queue for. The queue is now above 100,000 people, wait times run six to twelve months, and its New York clinic opened in September 2026 with 25,000 already registered. Which means a lot of people who have decided to buy a health check cannot buy this one.

Before looking at substitutes, it is worth being precise about what Neko is, because most of the alternatives being marketed replace the wrong part.

What you are actually queueing for

£299 in the UK, 2,750 SEK in Sweden. Roughly 70 datapoints in about 60 minutes: a proprietary optical scanner covering the whole skin surface, a cardiovascular sensor array, and a blood panel.3 No imaging. Over 100,000 examinations completed and around $1.03bn raised.4

Two things make it distinctive, and neither is the technology.

The first is that the measurements have evidence behind them. Blood pressure, lipids, glucose and skin surveillance are the preventive tests with decades of outcome trials, and Neko declines everything past them. It is the least scientifically adventurous product in the category, and that is its strength.

The second is that it is priced to be a habit. Around three-quarters of members prepay their next annual visit. Screening only works if you keep doing it, and almost nothing else in this market is priced for annual repetition by a normal person.

An alternative that gives you more resolution but which you will do once, and never again, has not replaced Neko. It has replaced something else.

The direct substitutes, by what you want from it

If you want the annual measurement habit. A statutory check plus a private lipid and metabolic panel. In Germany, Check-up 35 is free every three years from 35 and covers blood pressure, fasting glucose, a full lipid panel and urinalysis. Fill the gaps privately with ApoB, HbA1c with fasting insulin, and a one-off Lp(a). That runs well under £150 in most European systems and covers the majority of Neko’s medical content.

What you lose is the skin scan and the experience. The experience matters more than it sounds, because it is the reason people come back.

If you want the skin imaging. See a dermatologist. A full-body mole check by a specialist is the direct clinical equivalent, is frequently covered by insurance or a statutory dermatological screening programme, and comes with somebody who can biopsy on the spot. Neko’s optical scanner is impressive engineering aimed at doing this at scale and low cost; one-to-one it is not better than a dermatologist looking at you.

If you want blood depth rather than breadth of modality. Function Health at $499 a year and Superpower at the same price sell 100-plus marker panels with app-based tracking. Both are US-only, neither includes imaging, and both are roughly the same trade Neko makes with more analytes and less hardware.

If the waitlist has pushed you into wanting more. This is the common outcome, and it is worth being careful about it. Waiting six months tends to convert a £299 intention into a several-thousand-euro one, and that is a different purchase rather than a substitute.

A physician-led day programme is the honest version of “more”. YEARS Core in Berlin is €1,900 for 87 biomarkers with spiroergometry, echocardiography, vascular ultrasound, a cognition test, lung function and body composition, with no imaging, no liquid biopsy and no genetics in that tier.6 Compared with Neko it adds a cardiopulmonary exercise test, which is the single best-evidenced measurement in this field, plus cardiac and vascular imaging by ultrasound and a physician who reads it all in one sitting. Preventicum in Essen occupies similar ground at a reported €1,400 to €2,000.

It costs six times more than Neko, it is a six-hour day rather than an hour, and it is not designed to be repeated annually. Say that to yourself before booking it as a waitlist workaround, because those are three real differences and only one of them is in your favour.

The substitution that is usually a mistake

Whole-body MRI. Prenuvo has European availability now, with a London clinic since 2025 and memberships from $1,199, and it appears in every “Neko alternative” list. It is not one.

No randomised trial has shown that whole-body MRI screening reduces mortality in asymptomatic adults.5 Roughly a third of scanned people leave with a critical or unresolved incidental finding. Trading a panel of well-evidenced measurements for a scan with no outcome evidence is moving in the wrong direction on the thing that matters, even though it feels like an upgrade because it is more expensive and produces pictures.

If your specific concern is anatomical, and particularly if you have a family history of a cancer that imaging can find, then imaging is the right purchase. It is just not a Neko replacement, and nobody should end up buying it because a different company had a queue.

What to do

Book the free statutory check now, since it costs nothing and you are waiting anyway. Add the three or four blood markers Neko would have given you plus the ones it would not. See a dermatologist if moles were the reason you booked.

Then decide whether you still want Neko in eight months, or whether you have talked yourself into a different product. Both are legitimate. Only one of them is what you originally wanted.