A PET scan is the most expensive routine imaging study a self-paying patient will price, and the reason is not the scanner. It is the radiotracer, which is manufactured against the appointment and decays. The two centers in this record that publish a PET figure at all put it at $1,489 and $1,875, which is roughly four times what the same lists charge for an MRI.
Ask providers for a written price
How much does a PET scan cost without insurance? The published figures
Excel Medical Imaging publishes a standard FDG PET-CT at $1,489 and a whole-body NaF PET-CT at $1,689. San Diego Imaging publishes PET/CT at $1,875 with the explicit note that cost varies per pharmaceuticals. Those are the only two PET prices on any of the eight US imaging price lists read for this record. The rest publish MRI, CT, ultrasound, X-ray and mammography figures and nothing for PET. That is recorded here as it stands rather than filled in from an estimate, because a number nobody published is not a price.
Why PET costs several times an MRI
A PET study needs a positron-emitting radiotracer, produced and delivered against the appointment because it decays with a half-life measured in minutes to hours. The dose cannot be stockpiled, a missed slot wastes it, and the cost sits inside the price before the scanner is switched on. San Diego Imaging says as much on its own schedule when it notes that cost varies per pharmaceuticals. Set against the same lists, where a general MRI is $349 and a general CT $239 at Excel Medical Imaging, a $1,489 PET-CT is priced like a different category of purchase, because it is one.
How much is a PET scan without insurance against the rest of a workup
PET is rarely the first study ordered, so a patient pricing one has usually already paid for something else. Against these lists, San Diego Imaging's CT of the abdomen and pelvis with contrast is $460 and its MRI without contrast $480, while its PET/CT is $1,875, about four times either. Budgeting for the sequence rather than for the single scan is the thing most self-payers do not do, and it is the difference between a surprise and a plan when a second study is ordered after the first.
The tracer is why a PET quote can move after you ask
San Diego Imaging's schedule prices PET/CT at $1,875 and states that the cost varies per pharmaceuticals, which is unusually candid and worth taking literally. Different studies use different tracers, and a center quoting a single PET figure may be quoting the commonest one. If your referral names a tracer, quote it back when you ask for a price, in the same way that quoting a CPT code removes ambiguity on a CT or an MRI. It is the one imaging study where the consumable is a large part of what you are buying.
What this page is not
A price record. Whether a PET scan is warranted, which tracer is appropriate and what any study shows belong to the clinician who ordered it; this site states no clinical claim on any page. Both figures here are quoted from the center's own published list, read on 10 September 2026.
Questions people ask about pet scan price
Why do so few centres publish a PET price?
PET-CT is not offered at every outpatient imaging center, and where the tracer is arranged per patient a list price is harder to commit to. Six of the eight lists read for this record publish no PET figure at all, which this page records rather than estimates around.
Is a PET scan the same as a PET-CT?
In practice most modern PET studies are PET-CT, which is what both published figures here describe: $1,489 for a standard FDG study at Excel Medical Imaging and $1,875 at San Diego Imaging. If a referral names something else, quote that when asking for a price.
Why is a whole-body NaF study dearer than a standard FDG one?
Different tracer, different production. Excel Medical Imaging publishes the standard FDG PET-CT at $1,489 and the whole-body NaF PET-CT at $1,689, a $200 difference on the same list.