A real-world comparison of Superpower, Function Health, CLAVA Health and insurance-based laboratory care

By Dustin Armstrong | Functional medicine coach, endurance athlete and payments professional | Updated August 1, 2026

Disclosure: Superpower provided my baseline panel at no cost. I was also offered the opportunity to participate in its affiliate program. This review reflects my actual experience, including what impressed me and what I believe still needs work. Any future compensation will not determine my conclusions.

Medical note: This article is my personal experience and analysis as a functional medicine coach and longtime endurance athlete. It is not medical advice, diagnosis or a replacement for care from a licensed physician.

Quick Answer

My honest Superpower Health review is simple: Superpower may be one of the best values in direct-to-consumer comprehensive blood testing right now. For $199 per year, the membership includes one annual blood draw covering more than 100 biomarkers, a digital dashboard, health scores, a biological-age estimate, a personalized action plan and access to a care team.

The experience is easy, the pricing is transparent and the amount of data is far beyond what most people receive during a standard physical. But it is still a technology platform, not a replacement for a physician who understands your history, medications, performance level and bio-individual differences.

That distinction matters. Superpower gave me useful recommendations and became much more valuable after I uploaded years of older labs and imaging. It also gave me several incomplete or incorrect interpretations before I challenged the assumptions, supplied more history and pushed the agent to reconsider its answer.

The most important lesson was not that AI is bad. It was that you still need to be your own health advocate, understand enough basic physiology to ask better questions and know when a confident answer does not fit the complete evidence.

Table of Contents

1. Why I Tested Superpower
2. Traditional Medicine Saved My Life, but the System Is Still Broken
3. My Real Cost: CLAVA Health, Quest and Insurance
4. What Superpower Costs
5. Superpower vs Function Health vs CLAVA vs Traditional Care
6. What Superpower Got Right
7. Where Superpower Missed My Bio-Individual Context
8. How the Agent Changed Its Answer After I Added Evidence
9. The Biological-Age Problem
10. Why You Still Need to Be Your Own Health Advocate
11. Superpower Pros and Cons
12. Who Each Option Is Best For
13. Why This Is Also a Fintech and Payments Story
14. My Final Verdict
15. Frequently Asked Questions

I have spent more than 35 years racing bicycles at a high level. I am also certified in functional medicine coaching, passionate about terrain theory and probably a little more obsessive about health data than the average person.

I have also lived on both sides of medicine. Traditional cardiology and heart surgery helped save my life. Functional medicine helped me ask deeper questions about inflammation, metabolism, hormones, recovery, nutrition and the terrain that disease develops in.

So when James Deutsch from Superpower gave me the opportunity to experience the platform, I wanted to look at it from three angles:

• As a patient with a complicated medical history
• As an endurance athlete with decades of performance data
• As a functional medicine coach who looks for patterns, context and root causes

I was not looking for a pretty dashboard that tells me cholesterol is high and sleep is important. I wanted to know whether Superpower could take a real person, with a real medical history, medications, exceptional fitness and some unusual lab patterns, then put the whole story together.

The short version is that it did a lot right. More than I expected.

It also exposed the biggest limitation of AI-driven preventive health today. The platform is only as individualized as the context it understands and actually uses.

Traditional Medicine Saved My Life, but the System Is Still Broken

I want to be very clear before criticizing the American medical system.

Traditional medicine saved my life. When you need heart surgery, an emergency procedure, advanced imaging, rhythm management or a skilled specialist, modern medicine can be incredible. I would never tell someone to replace that level of care with an app, supplement plan or health coach.

Where the system often struggles is prevention, time and real investigation.

Most insurance-based care is built around defined benefits, medical necessity, diagnosis codes, network rules and population-based clinical guidelines. That structure is useful for standardizing care, but it can also produce short appointments and a very cookie-cutter experience.

Most Marketplace plans cover certain preventive services at no cost when they are performed in network, but coverage varies. Broader laboratory work may still be subject to deductibles, copays, coinsurance or medical-necessity rules. That is where “covered by insurance” can become very different from “free.”

The system tends to ask, “Are you inside the reference range, and is there a billable diagnosis?”

Functional medicine tends to ask, “Why is this marker moving, what is connected to it and what happened before the disease showed up?”

Those should not be opposing questions. We need both.

The best future of medicine is not traditional care versus functional care. It is acute-care expertise, real physicians, better preventive data and whole-person context working together.

My Real Cost: CLAVA Health, Quest and Insurance

CLAVA Health is the physician-led functional medicine side of this comparison. Dr. Ryan Arnold is a real physician who understands integrative care, prevention, longevity and root-cause investigation.

That human relationship has value. He can ask follow-up questions, consider my history and decide whether a lab result is meaningful in the context of the whole person.

It is also expensive, and much of this type of care is not fully covered by insurance. CLAVA links to payment plans on its website, but it does not publish a standard price for this type of functional-medicine consultation or laboratory program.

For a broad panel that was similar in scope to what I later received through Superpower, my personal cost looked like this:

Quest submitted more than $4,000 in charges to my insurance for the laboratory work. That submitted charge is not necessarily what the insurer allowed or what Quest was ultimately paid. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services explains that a provider’s charge, the insurer’s allowed charge and the patient balance are three different numbers.

Still, from the patient side, it felt like a racket. I paid for insurance, paid the physician, paid the copay and then received another balance.

This is not a criticism of Dr. Arnold or CLAVA Health. It is a real-world example of how physician-led functional medicine, third-party laboratories and traditional insurance can create a fragmented and expensive experience.

The benefit was access to a doctor who could investigate my individual story.

The downside was the bill and the lack of price clarity before everything was complete. My $778 total is my documented experience, not a universal CLAVA package price.

The following comparison uses prices verified on August 1, 2026 for Superpower and Function Health, my actual out-of-pocket experience with CLAVA and general insurance rules. Your location, plan, provider and add-ons can change the final cost.

Superpower vs Function Health

This is probably the closest comparison.

Superpower is less expensive at $199 per year and provides one annual panel with more than 100 biomarkers. It has a very polished dashboard, biological-age score, health scores, an action plan, clinical support and a large add-on marketplace.

Function Health currently advertises a $365 first-year membership. It includes more than 160 lab tests annually, divided between an initial panel of more than 100 tests and a midyear retest of more than 60 tests that must be used before renewal.

Function also states that clinicians review every result and flag issues. Optional add-on tests, concierge blood draws and imaging cost extra; its current FAQ lists the member Annual MRI at $999.

If price and simplicity are your priorities, Superpower has the edge.

If built-in retesting and trend tracking are more important, Function may justify the higher price.

Neither one provides the same relationship as a physician who knows you over time.

What Superpower Got Right

The User Experience Is Excellent

Superpower has removed most of the friction that makes laboratory testing frustrating.

The intake is digital. Scheduling is straightforward. You can use Quest or choose an at-home draw. Results arrive in a clean dashboard instead of a confusing laboratory PDF filled with abbreviations and reference ranges.

That simplicity matters more than people think. Better health information has little value when patients cannot access or understand it.

The Base Price Is Disruptive

A $199 annual membership for more than 100 biomarkers is a genuine change in the market.

I paid $778 out of pocket in my physician-plus-insurance example. Superpower’s included Quest option was less than one-third of that direct cost.

Again, it is not the same service. One includes a physician relationship, while the other is primarily a technology, testing and support platform.

But it proves that broad preventive testing does not need to arrive through a $4,000 insurance claim.

The Dashboard Makes the Data Usable

Superpower does more than display high and low flags. It organizes markers by health category, tracks scores and gives the user an action plan.

For someone new to advanced laboratory testing, this is a major step forward. It turns a wall of numbers into something you can discuss with a physician or coach.

I also like the ability to bring historical labs and wearable data into one place. Longitudinal data is where these platforms can become much more valuable.

The Agent Was Willing to Reconsider

This may be the most underrated strength of the whole platform.

When I uploaded older laboratory reports, imaging and surgical records, then challenged the first interpretation, the agent did not simply repeat the original recommendation. It reconsidered the evidence, corrected assumptions and gave me a more nuanced answer.

That is better than a static PDF and, honestly, better than some rushed clinical conversations where a patient never gets enough time to explain why the first assumption may be wrong.

The problem was not that the agent made a mistake. Every doctor, coach and AI system can make one. The real test is whether the system can show its reasoning, accept better evidence and change the answer.

The Test Menu Creates Access

Advanced cardiovascular, metabolic, hormonal and aging-related tests can be difficult to request through conventional care without a diagnosis or specific medical reason.

Superpower makes many of them accessible through a transparent marketplace.

The access is a strength. The temptation to order everything is the tradeoff.

Where Superpower Missed My Bio-Individual Context

This is the most important part of my review.

AI is excellent at comparing results with population ranges, finding common associations and explaining general risk. It is much weaker when a person’s history changes the meaning of a marker.

My Elevated T3 Uptake Was a Perfect Example

My thyroid panel included a mildly elevated T3 uptake of 37%, while my TSH, total T4 and calculated Free T4 Index were within their expected ranges.

T3 uptake is not the same thing as having too much active T3 thyroid hormone. Quest explains that it indirectly estimates thyroid-binding globulin and is interpreted together with total T4 to calculate the Free T4 Index.

I also take prescribed testosterone. The FDA labeling for testosterone notes that androgens can reduce thyroxine-binding globulin and increase T3 and T4 resin uptake while free thyroid hormone remains unchanged.

That context can completely change the conversation.

An algorithm that sees one flagged result may generate a generalized thyroid concern. A physician who knows the medication list, full panel and clinical picture may interpret it differently.

This does not mean the platform failed or that the result should be ignored. It means the first automated explanation needed more context before it became a conclusion.

My Lipid Profile Was the Real Stress Test

My first Superpower protocol was called “Take control of your atherogenic lipid profile.” It correctly identified LDL-C at 167 mg/dL and ApoB at 120 mg/dL as above standard prevention targets while also recognizing that my hs-CRP was 0.2 mg/L and triglycerides were 73 mg/dL.

The first explanation called this a lipid-particle burden rather than a metabolic or inflammatory problem. That was a useful distinction, and I agree that LDL and ApoB deserve attention, especially with my cardiac history.

But the initial risk framing still leaned too heavily on those two markers and not enough on more than 20 years of stable results, exceptional cardiorespiratory fitness, low fasting insulin, optimal HOMA-IR, low inflammation and repeated imaging without measurable plaque.

I am not saying favorable metabolic markers or clean imaging erase all future risk. They do not.

I am saying the full pattern matters, and a population model should not treat a lifelong competitive cyclist with decades of records like a sedentary patient who happens to have the same LDL number.

The Platform Assumed I Was Still Keto

The first explanation connected my lipid pattern to a “keto and Weston A. Price dietary pattern.” The problem is I have not been keto for more than five years.

My current diet is a balanced, traditional whole-food approach influenced by Weston A. Price principles. More importantly, I uploaded records showing nearly the same elevated lipid pattern during approximately ten years as a raw vegan and more than two years eating keto/carnivore.

Different dietary extremes. Similar lipid pattern. My HbA1c has also remained around 5.5 or lower across those changes.

That evidence does not prove the lipids are harmless. It does weaken a confident story that the current diet is the main cause.

Historical context is useful. Outdated context should not be treated as current behavior, and long-term records should outweigh an assumption built from one intake answer.

How the Agent Changed Its Answer After I Added Evidence

This is where the experience became truly valuable.

I kept uploading old reports and asking the agent to reconcile its recommendation with evidence that did not fit the first narrative. The answer changed in stages:

1. The metabolic context became clearer. The agent recognized that the pattern was not being driven by high triglycerides, insulin resistance or systemic inflammation.
2. The diet explanation weakened. I corrected the keto assumption and supplied years of similar results from raw vegan, keto/carnivore and balanced whole-food diets.
3. The imaging changed the risk conversation. I added a CAC score of zero, CTA language reporting no coronary arterial calcification and a carotid study showing no plaque, no elevated velocities and no significant narrowing.
4. The statin recommendation became less absolute. The later response described a statin as “not an automatic or obviously mandatory decision” and said the imaging strengthened the case for an individualized, shared decision.
5. The surgical anatomy was corrected. An early interpretation treated a 42 mm aortic-root measurement as native tissue that might be dilating. After I uploaded the detailed postoperative CTA, the agent acknowledged, “First, a correction I owe you.” The report showed a prosthetic valve, aortic-root and ascending-aortic graft, with the remaining native thoracic aorta described as stable and within normal limits.

That is not a story about beating the AI in an argument. It is a story about improving the answer by improving the evidence.

The first answer was not useless. It surfaced a legitimate prevention question and gave me several good recommendations. But the later answer was more honest because it incorporated the timeline, medication context, imaging, surgical anatomy and older laboratory patterns.

The Biological-Age Problem

Superpower estimated my biological age at approximately 49. At the time of this review, my chronological age is 47.

I did not agree with the way that number represented my overall condition.

My Garmin Fitness Age lands in my 20s because of my cardiorespiratory fitness, activity intensity, resting heart rate and body-composition inputs. But I also need to be fair: Garmin Fitness Age is not a telomere test and it is not the same thing as Superpower’s biological-age model.

They are different calculators answering different questions.

Garmin is heavily influenced by fitness and VO2 max. Superpower’s score uses laboratory and health data. A true epigenetic clock examines DNA methylation patterns, and a telomere-length test measures something different again.

So which age is correct?

Probably none of them as a literal age.

Each is a model. Each emphasizes certain inputs. Each can be useful for tracking changes if the method stays consistent.

The problem starts when a precise-looking number is presented with more certainty than the model deserves.

In my case, heart surgery and lipid markers may push the laboratory model older, while exceptional aerobic fitness pushes Garmin younger. Both contain information. Neither tells the complete story of my body.

Superpower should explain that limitation more aggressively and show which markers influenced the score. A biological-age number should start a conversation, not become a verdict.

Superpower’s own website says the more it understands about your biology, the more specific its recommendations become. My experience proved that statement, but it also showed that the missing context usually has to come from you.

Do not blindly accept the first answer from an AI agent just because it is organized, detailed and sounds confident. The same rule applies to a rushed doctor, a health coach, a social-media expert and even me.

You do not need a medical degree. You should understand enough about your own history and basic biological systems to ask questions such as:

• What evidence is this recommendation based on?
• Which part of my history changes the interpretation?
• Are you looking at one flagged marker or the complete pattern?
• Did you account for my medications, supplements, training load and current diet?
• How do my older labs compare, and is this actually a new trend?
• Does the recommendation still hold when you include my imaging and surgical records?
• What evidence would cause you to change your answer?

That last question is important. If a doctor, coach or AI cannot explain what evidence would change the conclusion, you may be dealing with a script instead of real investigation.

Keep your own records. Learn the difference between correlation, risk and a diagnosis. Upload the old labs. Correct the dates. Ask the agent to reconcile conflicting evidence instead of letting it ignore the conflict.

Being your own advocate does not mean diagnosing yourself or refusing medical advice. It means becoming informed enough to have a real conversation with the people and systems helping you make decisions.

That is where Superpower became most useful for me. Not when it gave me the first answer, but when it gave me a place to test that answer against the rest of my history.

Superpower Pros and Cons

Pros

• Excellent $199 entry price
• More than 100 biomarkers in one annual draw
• Included testing at participating Quest locations
• At-home testing available for an additional fee
• Easy scheduling and one of the best health dashboards I have used
• Clear explanations for people who are not laboratory experts
• Personalized action plan and health scores
• Historical lab and wearable-data connections
• AI and care-team conversations can incorporate newly uploaded evidence and revise earlier interpretations
• Access to additional advanced tests
• Year-round clinical support by text
• Transparent alternative to insurance authorization and billing

Cons

• The AI can rely too heavily on population ranges without enough personal context
• The first answer can sound more certain than the available history justifies
• Biological-age scores can look more definitive than they really are
• One annual baseline draw is less useful for trend analysis than built-in retesting
• Add-ons can increase the total cost quickly
• More available testing can encourage unnecessary testing
• Automated recommendations may carry forward outdated intake information
• Users must actively upload records, correct assumptions and ask follow-up questions to get the most individualized answer
• It does not replace a physician who knows your history
• The dashboard is only as useful as the quality and completeness of the data entered
• Health and wearable data are highly sensitive, so users should review privacy terms before connecting everything

Who Each Option Is Best For

Choose Traditional Medical Care When

You need diagnosis, surgery, emergency care, medication management, imaging, specialist treatment or care for a complex condition.

This is not optional. A direct-to-consumer lab membership should supplement that care, not replace it.

Choose CLAVA Health When

You want a physician who can spend time on your complete history, investigate root causes and build an individualized plan.

It is the strongest option in this comparison for human clinical context. It may also be the most expensive and least predictable when outside laboratory and insurance charges are involved.

Choose Superpower When

You want a broad annual baseline, a simple dashboard and the lowest entry price.

It is especially attractive for people whose insurance will not cover advanced preventive labs or who want clear upfront pricing. Use the platform as an access and organization layer, then take complicated findings to a qualified clinician.

Choose Function Health When

You want comprehensive testing plus a built-in retest later in the year.

The current $365 first-year price is higher than Superpower, but the included midyear retest and clinician review may be worth the difference for people who want to measure changes after adjusting diet, exercise, sleep or treatment.

At first glance, this looks like a healthcare article. Underneath it is also a payments and software story.

Superpower and Function Health are not simply selling laboratory tests. They are selling a digital membership experience:

• Annual recurring billing
• Card-on-file payments
• Optional test and service upgrades
• At-home draw fees
• Digital scheduling
• Health-data dashboards
• Ongoing customer communication

The payment cannot feel separate from the product. If joining, upgrading or paying for an add-on creates friction, the health platform loses trust and conversion.

This is where modern payment infrastructure matters.

Signature Payments works with software platforms and membership-based businesses that need secure recurring billing, tokenization, account-updater tools, digital payment links and API-driven integrations. A health or wellness company building a Superpower-style experience can connect payments to its website or patient portal without making checkout feel like a different system.

Our guide to embedded payments for ISVs explains how checkout, authorization, settlement and reporting can live inside the software workflow. In healthcare and wellness, that means the patient can choose a membership, add a test, schedule a service and pay without bouncing between disconnected systems.

The best payment experience is the one the customer barely notices.

Superpower understands that. Its clean membership and add-on flow is part of why the service feels modern.

The same lesson applies to any merchant. Great technology with a bad payment experience is still a bad customer experience.

Superpower is one of the most important changes I have seen in consumer preventive health.

It makes broad laboratory testing affordable, accessible and understandable. It gives people data that insurance-based annual care may not provide, and it delivers the experience without preauthorizations, surprise laboratory claims or weeks of phone calls.

For $199, I believe the baseline membership offers excellent value.

I would recommend it as a data and access platform. I would not recommend treating it as the final medical authority.

I also want to be fair: the agent did not stay wrong once better evidence was supplied. It reconsidered the statin discussion, corrected the keto assumption, revised the surgical-anatomy interpretation and became more nuanced as my historical records filled in the missing story.

That ability to have an ongoing conversation with your own data is a real strength. It is one of the reasons I still consider Superpower a great tool and would recommend it to the right person.

The biggest opportunity for Superpower is not adding more biomarkers. It is becoming better at understanding the person behind them.

My medication use, decades of endurance training, historical diets, imaging, inflammation, insulin sensitivity and heart history all change how my results should be discussed. That is bio-individual medicine, and AI still has work to do there.

The user has work to do too. We need to keep our records, learn how our own bodies work and be willing to question an answer that does not account for the evidence. Being your own health advocate is not a rejection of doctors or AI. It is how you help both give you a better answer.

CLAVA Health gave me the deeper physician relationship but at a much higher personal cost. Function Health offers a strong middle ground with broader annual testing and a built-in retest. Traditional medicine remains essential when actual treatment, surgery or specialist expertise is required.

I do not want one of these systems to win and the others to disappear.

I want them connected.

Give me the access and UX of Superpower, the trend testing of Function, the investigative thinking of CLAVA and the surgical expertise of traditional medicine.

That would be a health system built around the person instead of the billing code.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Superpower Health Worth $199?

Yes, for someone who wants broad annual laboratory testing and an easy dashboard, the baseline membership offers strong value. The answer changes if you add many optional panels, so review what is already included before purchasing extras.

Does Superpower Replace a Primary-Care Doctor?

No. Superpower’s own terms describe it as a technology company that facilitates services through third-party providers. Use it to access, organize and understand health information, then discuss important or confusing results with a licensed clinician.

Can Superpower’s AI Get a Health Interpretation Wrong?

Yes. An AI response can be incomplete or wrong when records are missing, an intake answer is outdated or a medication changes the meaning of a laboratory marker. In my experience, the agent improved its answer after I uploaded older labs and imaging, corrected its assumptions and asked it to reconcile conflicting evidence.

How Do I Get Better Answers From a Health AI?

Upload chronological laboratory records, imaging, surgical reports and a current medication list. Correct outdated diet or lifestyle information, ask which evidence supports the recommendation and ask what new evidence would cause the agent to change its conclusion.

How Much Does Superpower Cost With an At-Home Blood Draw?

The listed annual membership is $199, and the optional at-home draw is $119. That produces a starting total of $318 before any add-on testing.

Is Function Health Better Than Superpower?

Function Health may be better for people who want a built-in follow-up test and more annual testing. Its current advertised $365 price applies to the first-year membership and includes 100+ initial tests plus a 60+ test midyear follow-up. Superpower may be better for people who prioritize the lowest base price, a single broad annual panel and a polished health dashboard.

Why Can Insurance-Based Lab Testing Cost More?

Insurance claims can include a provider’s submitted charge, a negotiated allowed charge, an insurer payment and a patient balance. Deductibles, copays, coinsurance, network status and medical-necessity rules can all affect what the patient ultimately owes.

Is a Biological-Age Score the Same as Telomere Age?

No. Biological-age tools can use blood biomarkers, DNA methylation, fitness data or other inputs. Garmin Fitness Age is primarily a fitness estimate, while epigenetic and telomere tests measure different biological features. These numbers should be treated as models, not literal expiration dates.

Can Health and Wellness Memberships Use Recurring Payments?

Yes. A payment gateway can support annual or monthly memberships, stored payment credentials, automated retries, upgrades and add-on purchases. The right implementation should also use tokenization and appropriate security controls to protect payment data.

Sources and Further Reading

• Superpower Baseline Membership
• Superpower Blood Panel Marketplace
• Superpower Terms of Service
• Superpower Membership Agreement
• Superpower Biological Age
• Function Health Pricing
• Function Health: How It Works
• Function Health FAQs
• Function Health Terms of Service
• CLAVA Health
• CLAVA Health: About Dr. Ryan Arnold
• CLAVA Health Payment Plans
• HealthCare.gov: Preventive Health Services
• HealthCare.gov: Marketplace Plan Coverage
• CMS: How to Read an Explanation of Benefits
• NCCIH: Complementary, Alternative or Integrative Health
• Quest Diagnostics: Thyroid Dysfunction Testing
• FDA: Depo-Testosterone Prescribing Information
• Garmin: What Is Fitness Age?
• Signature Payments: Embedded Payments for ISVs