FUSE vs Beluga Health comes down to scope. Beluga is a physician-led clinical network with 70+ visit types and insurance credentialing, and it shares rates on a scoping call. FUSE bundles your storefront, providers, pharmacy and payments into one subscription with every price published and a live storefront in 3 to 5 business days.
If you're looking up Beluga Health, you're probably a few steps into launching a telehealth brand and trying to work out who should sit behind it. That choice quietly decides your margin, your launch date and how many vendors you'll be juggling a year from now.
Here's the detail most comparisons skip. Beluga's CEO, Dr. Jonah Mink, says on the company's About page that "building the e-commerce front end is easy." Beluga is designed around that belief, so it owns the physicians and pharmacy routing and leaves the storefront to you or a partner. FUSE makes the opposite bet: most operators would rather get the storefront, providers, pharmacy and pricing in one place and start selling this week.
So which bet fits your business? We pulled every number below from both companies' live websites on October 27, 2026, so you can check each one yourself.
Executive Summary
Beluga Health is a physician-led clinical network behind hundreds of digital health brands, with 70+ visit types, national payer credentialing and per-visit rates you get on a scoping call. FUSE is a white-label platform that bundles your storefront, licensed providers, 503A/503B pharmacies and payments into one subscription, with every price published and a live storefront in 3 to 5 business days. Choose Beluga if you need insurance billing, broad clinical categories or already run your own commerce stack. Choose FUSE if you want to launch a cash-pay peptide or GLP-1 brand fast, know your costs before the first call and manage one partner instead of two or three.
What Is Beluga Health and How Does Beluga Telehealth Work?
Beluga Health calls itself the physician-led clinical engine behind hundreds of digital health brands across all 50 states and DC. It's a family business run by two brothers: Dr. Jonah Mink, a board-certified family physician who serves as CEO, and Jake Mink, the CTO who built its workflow engine and pharmacy routing in house.
What does Beluga Health handle for your brand?
Beluga owns the clinical side of your business. Here's what its own pages list:
- A physicians-only network in all 50 states plus DC, averaging 35+ state licenses per physician (switching page)
- 70+ visit types across 11 clinical categories, from weight loss and dermatology to urgent care, behavioral health and chronic care
- Prescribing and smart pharmacy routing, with the option to bring your own pharmacy and pay Beluga nothing extra on fulfillment
- Lab orders across four collection methods, including at-home kits and mobile phlebotomy (pharmacy and labs)
- National commercial payer credentialing for brands that bill insurance
- LegitScript certification, HIPAA compliance and DEA-registered prescribers, per its platform page
What does Beluga leave for you to build?
Beluga splits telehealth into four layers and takes one by default. This is how its own stack diagram assigns them:
| Layer | Who owns it on Beluga |
|---|---|
| Marketing and acquisition | Your team |
| Storefront, checkout and payments | Your team, or Beluga-hosted intake on your subdomain |
| Physicians, prescribing and pharmacy | Beluga |
| Support and retention | Your team, using Beluga's dashboard and Slack support |
If you don't have developers, Beluga's Start Here guide points you to a platform partner for the patient portal, e-commerce, subscription billing and CRM. Those partners get introduced on the scoping call, so plan on pricing a second vendor and signing a second contract.
What Is FUSE and How Is It Different From Beluga Health?
FUSE Health runs all four layers behind your brand in one subscription: the storefront, the intake, the licensed providers and the pharmacy. You bring the audience and set the retail price, and FUSE handles everything that involves a clinician, a prescription or a payment processor.
What comes included when you launch on FUSE?
Every plan ships with the full platform. Here's what you get on day one:
- Your own storefront, domain, patient portal and checkout, all carrying your brand (white-label storefront)
- Independent licensed clinicians (MDs, DOs and NPs) in all 50 states, routed to each patient's state automatically
- A 503A and 503B pharmacy network that ships direct to patients and runs refills on provider re-review
- Stripe billing built for telehealth, so your processor knows what it's looking at
- A REST API with a free sandbox and webhooks, plus an SDK to embed intake and checkout in your own site or app
- LegitScript certification for fusehealth.com that you can verify yourself
Here's a detail most people don't expect. The FUSE AI connector lets you build programs, set prices and manage coupons by chatting with Claude or ChatGPT, and it only sees business totals, never patient records.
Who is FUSE built for?
FUSE is built for operators without a medical license who already have an audience: med spas, coaches, fitness brands, creators, e-commerce brands and health apps. The homepage puts the scale at 1,200+ programs launched, 94% refill retention and under 24 hours average provider review. You can see how each operator type uses it on the use case page.
How Do FUSE and Beluga Health Compare Side by Side?
The biggest split is scope: FUSE sells you the whole storefront plus the clinical layer, and Beluga sells you the clinical layer with deeper medical breadth. Every row below comes from each company's own pages as of October 27, 2026.
| Factor | FUSE | Beluga Health |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | Storefront, providers, pharmacy and payments | Physicians, prescribing and pharmacy routing |
| Storefront and checkout | Included on your domain | You build it, use hosted intake or add a platform partner |
| Published prices | Yes, all three plans | Fee structure only; rates on a scoping call |
| Fee model | Monthly plan plus 2% to 3% merchant fee; no per-visit fees | Monthly access fee, per-visit fees, pharmacy and lab pass-through, onboarding fee |
| Time to launch | 3 to 5 business days | 14 to 60 days for most partners |
| Clinicians | Independent MDs, DOs and NPs, 50 states | Physicians only, 50 states plus DC |
| Catalog focus | Peptides, GLP-1, hormones, longevity, hair and skin | 70+ visit types in 11 categories |
| Peptide programs | Five dedicated program categories | No peptide category listed |
| Insurance billing | Not offered | Credentialed with commercial payers |
| Bring your own pharmacy | Partner plan | Any setup, no extra fulfillment fee |
| Merchant account | Stripe billing through FUSE | Bring your own merchant or Stripe |
| Developer access | REST API, free sandbox, AI connector | API docs by request |
| LegitScript | Certified, public verify link | Certified, per its site |
Where do FUSE and Beluga Health overlap?
Both cover all 50 states, both run async intake, both are LegitScript certified and HIPAA compliant, and neither requires you to hold a medical license. On both, independent clinicians make every prescribing decision and your brand sits in front of the patient.
Where do FUSE and Beluga Health split?
- Scope: FUSE ships a finished storefront, while Beluga expects you or a partner to build one.
- Pricing: FUSE prints every plan, and Beluga shares rates once it knows your protocol mix and volume.
- Catalog: FUSE goes deep on peptides and cash-pay programs, while Beluga goes wide across 11 clinical categories and insurance.
Comparing more than two vendors? Our FUSE vs OpenLoop and FUSE vs MyOrbitHealth pages use the same row-by-row format.
How Much Does Beluga Health Cost Compared to FUSE?
You can price a FUSE launch tonight from its public pricing page, while Beluga Health shares its rates on a 20 to 30 minute scoping call. Both models are clear about their structure, so the real question is which one costs you less at your volume.
How does Beluga Health pricing work?
Beluga's pricing page lays out four parts and keeps the numbers for the call:
- A per-visit fee, tiered by monthly volume, with async visits (hair loss, ED, dermatology) and sync visits (TRT, HRT) priced separately
- Pharmacy and labs passed through at cost, plus a separately disclosed coordination fee when Beluga's partner pharmacies fill the order
- One flat monthly platform fee for the API, partner dashboard and Slack support
- A one-time integration fee that's applied to your future visit volume
Two points in Beluga's favor: it takes no cut of your customer revenue, and you don't pay for clinical visits until you're live.
What does FUSE charge?
FUSE publishes all three plans, and none of them carries a per-visit or per-prescription fee.
| Plan | Upfront | Monthly | Merchant fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY | $0 to build | $699 once live | 3% |
| Growth | $5,600 | $699 from month 2 | 2% |
| Partner | $30,000 | $3,000 from month 13 | 2% |
Growth's upfront fee covers expedited LegitScript coordination (a $5,000 value) and your first month. Partner's covers a done-for-you build and the first 12 months of platform access. Clinical, pharmacy and payment-processing costs are shown before you commit, per the FUSE pricing page.
What does a FUSE bill look like at 100 subscribers?
Say you sell a program at $299 a month (your retail price, picked here as an example) and you have 100 active subscribers on the Growth plan:
- Monthly revenue: 100 × $299 = $29,900
- Platform fee: $699
- Merchant service fee at 2%: $598
- Total FUSE platform cost: $1,297, or about $12.97 per subscriber
Product and pharmacy costs sit on top of that on either platform. To compare fairly, ask Beluga for its per-visit fee, how many visits a subscriber needs each month, the coordination fee and the monthly access fee, then add whatever your platform partner charges for the storefront and billing. Because FUSE's merchant fee is a percentage, run the math at your real retail price, since the gap shifts as your price climbs.
What should you ask before signing either contract?
- What's my all-in cost per active subscriber at 100, 500 and 1,000 patients?
- How many vendors do I need to sign to take a first order?
- Who holds my payment tokens and patient data if I leave?
- Which of my programs can launch on day one in all 50 states?
How Fast Can You Launch on Beluga Health vs FUSE?
FUSE gets a storefront live in 3 to 5 business days, and Beluga says most partners go live in 14 to 60 days. The gap comes from what each one has to build before your first order.
| Milestone | FUSE | Beluga Health |
|---|---|---|
| When you see pricing | Before signup | On the scoping call |
| Typical go-live | 3 to 5 business days | 14 to 60 days |
| Fastest stated path | Partner plan, as little as 3 days once prerequisites are met | Platform partner path |
How long does a Beluga telehealth launch take?
Beluga runs three stages: discovery and contracting, a build that your team validates in staging, then launch with your support team live in Slack. Platform-partner launches land at the fast end, and direct API builds take longer. Beluga is upfront about its view here, too. Its Start Here guide says a one-week launch usually means someone is underselling the work. If you're switching from another provider, its switching page lays out a 4 to 6 week migration that keeps your old provider live until cutover.
How long does a FUSE launch take?
FUSE moves faster because the storefront, provider routing, pharmacy connections and payments already exist, so setup is configuration instead of a build. The peptide telehealth page puts it at 3 to 5 business days from signup to a live storefront on your own domain. One step does take longer, and FUSE says so: LegitScript reviews every application on its own schedule, and FUSE-coordinated applications have averaged an estimated 11 days, without a guarantee.
What does that speed look like in practice? A two-location Phoenix med spa enrolled 112 patients in its first 30 days on FUSE, bringing in about $42,000 a month after cutting intake time from 40 minutes to 6. A franchise network went further and rolled out programs across 45 locations in 10 weeks.
What Do Beluga Health Reviews Say?
There are very few direct Beluga Health reviews, because Beluga sells to brands and patients only ever meet the brand on top. Most of what you'll find online is either a consumer site scoring it as a GLP-1 provider or news coverage of the wider industry.
What do review sites show for Beluga Health?
| Source | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Trustpilot | Unclaimed profile with 0 reviews (checked October 27, 2026) |
| Weight Loss Rankings | 6.5 out of 10, scored as a consumer GLP-1 provider; credits its 50-state network and LegitScript status, marks it down for no public pricing |
Here's a fun one: Beluga powers hundreds of brands, yet its own Trustpilot page has zero reviews. So when someone shares a "Beluga review," it's almost always a review of a partner brand's checkout, shipping or support.
What does industry coverage say about networks like Beluga?
In March 2026, STAT analyzed more than 70 telehealth companies the FDA had warned in the prior six months over how they marketed compounded GLP-1s. At least 30% of them publicly listed an affiliation with one of four nationwide medical groups: Beluga Health, OpenLoop, MD Integrations or Telegra. To be fair to Beluga, those warnings went to the consumer brands, and Weight Loss Rankings found no FDA warning letter issued to Beluga itself.
The lesson for you as an operator applies on any platform: your site copy is your risk. Beluga offers site-copy monitoring for FDA and FTC claims, and FUSE maintains claims guardrails inside its compliance layer, as described on how FUSE works.
How should you read Beluga Health reviews as an operator?
- Read reviews of the brands Beluga powers, since that's the experience your customers will judge you on
- Ask for two or three partner references at a similar volume to yours
- Ask for doctor response times and pharmacy on-time rates over the last 90 days
- Ask the same questions of FUSE, and compare the answers side by side
Is FUSE or Beluga Health Better for Peptide and GLP-1 Programs?
For GLP-1 programs, both platforms are built for it. For peptides, FUSE has dedicated program categories and Beluga's catalog doesn't list one, so peptide brands will find a clearer path on FUSE.
How does Beluga Health handle GLP-1 and longevity programs?
Beluga's weight loss category is one of its deepest. Its productized GLP-1 program, AutoRx, lets a physician authorize treatment for up to six months after the first evaluation, with a required check-in at month three. Beluga can also route branded GLP-1s direct from the manufacturer and offers non-GLP weight management options. Its longevity and performance category lists one item, physician-evaluated wellness injections, and the protocols page doesn't name a peptide category.
How does FUSE handle peptide programs?
FUSE is built around peptides, so they get their own structure:
- Five program categories: weight loss and metabolic, recovery and repair, hormone and longevity, sexual health, and skin, hair and immune
- Every order filled by a licensed 503A or 503B pharmacy, with reconstitution done at the pharmacy
- A legality guide that tracks which compounds are eligible as FDA guidance changes, so your catalog stays current
- GLP-1 as the anchor program, with longevity and skin programs as natural cross-sells
If you're still mapping the model, the peptide business guide walks through costs and structure, and the peptide telehealth page shows the full order flow. Specific availability always depends on the state, the pharmacy and the independent clinician reviewing each intake.
When Is Beluga Health the Better Choice?
Beluga Health is the better pick when your business needs insurance, clinical breadth or full control of a stack you've already built. We'd rather tell you that here than have you find out three months into an integration.
Do you need to bill insurance?
If yes, Beluga wins this one outright. It's credentialed nationally with commercial payers and supports HEDIS gap closure, chronic care management pipelines and employer benefit programs. FUSE runs a cash-pay model only. If payers are part of your plan, our FUSE vs OpenLoop page covers another option built for them.
Do you need visit types beyond cash-pay programs?
Beluga's catalog reaches into urgent care (UTI, sinus, pink eye), behavioral health, chronic conditions like hypothyroidism and asthma, preventive care like PrEP and birth control, and remote devices like CGMs. Its clinical team also builds custom protocols, usually within a few weeks. FUSE focuses on peptides, GLP-1, hormones, longevity and similar programs, so a general virtual care brand will get more range from Beluga.
Do you already own your commerce stack and pharmacy?
Then Beluga's modular setup is a real strength. You can keep your own merchant account and Stripe, plug in your own pharmacy on any setup at no extra fulfillment fee, and route each medication by state. On FUSE, bringing your own qualified pharmacy is part of the Partner plan. Beluga also staffs physicians only, while FUSE's network includes MDs, DOs and NPs.
Why Do Operators Choose FUSE Over Beluga Health?
Operators pick FUSE over Beluga Health when speed, a single partner and peptide depth matter more than insurance and clinical breadth. These are the four questions that usually tip the decision.
Do you want one partner instead of two or three?
Beluga says the most common path for first-time founders is Beluga for the clinical layer plus a platform partner for the portal, e-commerce, billing and CRM. That's two contracts, two invoices and two support lines before your first order. On FUSE, the storefront, intake, providers, pharmacy and payments sit under one subscription and one support team, and the Growth plan adds email replies within one business day.
Do you want your numbers before the first call?
FUSE lets you see full pricing and sample intake questions without creating an account. That means you can build a margin model, share it with a partner or investor, and walk into a demo already knowing whether the math works.
Do you want peptides on prescription rails from day one?
FUSE gives you five peptide program categories, a 503A/503B pharmacy network and a maintained legality guide from the first day. If peptides are your core product, that's a ready path instead of a custom protocol request.
Do you want to run your brand from a chat window?
This one surprises people. With the FUSE AI connector, you can ask Claude or ChatGPT to add a program, change a price or create a coupon, and it asks you to confirm before anything goes public or costs money. For a lean team, that's routine dashboard work handed off to a chat.
How Does a FUSE Launch Work From Signup to First Order?
A FUSE launch takes three steps on your side, and then every order runs on rails you never have to touch.
What do you do to launch on FUSE?
- Design your brand: pick colors and fonts, connect your domain and set up Stripe payments.
- Select programs: toggle treatments on and set your own retail prices, so the margin is yours.
- Go live: FUSE generates your compliant storefront and connects providers, pharmacy and payments behind it.
What happens when a customer orders?
| Step | What happens | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| Intake | Customer completes a branded async intake on your site | Customer |
| Review | A licensed clinician in the customer's state approves, adjusts or declines | Independent clinician |
| Fill | A 503A or 503B pharmacy fills and ships the order with tracking | Pharmacy |
| Refill | Refills run on provider re-review, logged in your dashboard | FUSE platform |
Your team never touches the medicine, and every step shows up in your operator dashboard. The full walkthrough lives on how FUSE works.
What will you see in a FUSE demo?
- A live storefront running under a sample brand
- The intake flow your customers would complete
- The provider review queue and pharmacy routing
- Pricing for the exact programs and states you want to launch
- A launch plan that matches your timeline, whether that's 30 days, 60 days or later
FUSE vs Beluga Health: Which Should You Choose?
Choose FUSE if you're launching a cash-pay peptide or GLP-1 brand and want to be selling within a week on one contract with prices you can see today. Choose Beluga Health if insurance billing, a wide clinical catalog or a stack you already own is the center of your plan.
Which one fits your situation?
| If this sounds like you | Go with |
|---|---|
| You sell cash-pay peptide or GLP-1 programs under your own brand | FUSE |
| You want every price before a sales call | FUSE |
| You have no dev team and want one partner | FUSE |
| You need payer contracts or insurance billing | Beluga Health |
| You need urgent care, behavioral or chronic care visit types | Beluga Health |
| You already run your own commerce stack and pharmacy | Beluga Health |
What's the fastest way to decide?
Open both pricing pages side by side, then run your own retail price and subscriber count through the math in the cost section above. If FUSE comes out ahead, a demo will confirm it against your catalog and states. Still weighing other peptide platforms too? Our FUSE vs Karpa comparison covers one more.
Disclaimer: Facts about Beluga Health come from its public website and the third-party sources above, checked October 27, 2026; offerings and pricing may change. Beluga Health is a trademark of its owner, which is not affiliated with FUSE Health and does not endorse this page. Independent licensed clinicians make all prescribing decisions on programs powered by FUSE. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved. Availability varies by state.
References
- FUSE pricing
- FUSE homepage
- How FUSE works
- FUSE white-label telehealth
- FUSE peptide telehealth
- FUSE AI connector
- FUSE API
- FUSE case study: Phoenix med spa
- FUSE case study: 45-location franchise
- LegitScript verification for fusehealth.com
- Beluga Health homepage
- Beluga Health pricing
- Beluga Health Start Here
- Beluga Health platform
- Beluga Health protocols
- Beluga Health pharmacy and labs
- Beluga Health switching
- Beluga Health about
- Beluga Health on Trustpilot
- Weight Loss Rankings: Beluga Health review
- STAT: FDA telehealth crackdown and national doctor networks
Daniel is a two-time founder who has scaled service businesses across major U.S. markets. A Y Combinator competition winner, he focuses on removing operational and regulatory barriers so operators can build and scale modern healthcare businesses.
- Background
- Startup Operations & Service Systems
- Experience
- 2x Founder, Multi-Market U.S. Scaling
- Qualifications
- Healthtech Market Expertise & Operational Scaling
- Key Achievement
- Scaled Premier Staff & Eventstaff across major U.S. markets