Function Health vs Empirical Health
Function Health vs Empirical Health: Function Health is $365 (twice per year (annual: 100+ tests, follow-up: 60+ tests)), and Empirical Health is $190 (on-demand (pay per test)). Empirical Health costs less, and Function Health covers more biomarkers (114 vs 100).
I've tested Function Health myself and tested Empirical Health myself. To build this comparison I pulled each provider's current biomarker list and pricing, then normalized the marker names so the counts line up like for like.
Below I compare the two side by side: pricing and cost per biomarker, the exact tests each panel includes and where they diverge, who founded each company and whether a doctor is on the team, and the apps and any AI each has built.
Function Health vs Empirical Health: pricing
| Function Health | Empirical Health | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $365 | $190 |
| Cadence | Twice per year (Annual: 100+ tests, Follow-up: 60+ tests) | On-demand (pay per test) |
| Biomarkers | 114 | 100 |
| Cost per biomarker | $3.20 | $1.90 |
Cost per biomarker is the sticker price divided by the number of markers, a rough apples-to-apples figure. It ignores cadence, the app, and any doctor review, which the sections below cover.
Function Health vs Empirical Health: biomarkers compared
Function Health's Annual Membership covers 114 biomarkers and Empirical Health's Comprehensive Health Panel covers 100. They share 66. 48 are unique to Function Health and 34 are unique to Empirical Health.
Only in Function Health (48)
- ABO Blood Group
- Amylase
- Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH)
- Anti-Nuclear Antibodies Pattern
- Anti-Nuclear Antibodies Titer
- Antinuclear Antibodies (ANA)
- Arachidonic Acid/EPA Ratio
- Biological Age
- DHEA-Sulfate
- Estradiol (E2)
- Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH)
- Free T3 (Triiodothyronine)
- Free T4 (Thyroxine)
- Free Testosterone
- Gamma-Glutamyl Transferase
- Homocysteine
- Large HDL Particles
- LDL Particle Number
- LDL Pattern
- LDL Peak Size
- Lead
- Leptin
- Lipase
- Luteinizing Hormone (LH)
- Magnesium
- Medium LDL Particles
- Mercury
- Methylmalonic Acid
- Omega-3 DHA
- Omega-3 DPA
- Omega-3 EPA
- Omega-3 Total
- Omega-6 Arachidonic Acid
- Omega-6 Linoleic Acid
- Omega-6 Total
- Omega-6/Omega-3 Ratio
- Prolactin
- PSA Free
- PSA Percent Free
- PSA Total
- Rheumatoid Factor
- Selenium
- Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG)
- Small LDL Particles
- Thyroglobulin Antibodies
- Total Testosterone
- Uric Acid
- Zinc
Only in Empirical Health (34)
- Anion Gap
- ApoB/LDL Ratio
- Apolipoprotein A1
- Apolipoprotein B/A1 Ratio
- Atherogenic Index of Plasma
- Basophils %
- De Ritis Ratio (AST/ALT)
- Eosinophils %
- Estimated Average Glucose
- Estimated VLDL/HDL Ratio
- Estimated VLDL/LDL Ratio
- FIB-4 Score
- Folate
- HDL/Total Cholesterol Ratio
- LDL/Cholesterol Ratio
- LDL/HDL Ratio
- LDL/Non-HDL Ratio
- Lymphocytes %
- Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin (MCH)
- Mean Corpuscular Hemoglobin Concentration (MCHC)
- Monocytes %
- Neutrophils %
- Non-HDL/Cholesterol Ratio
- Non-HDL/HDL Ratio
- Remnant Cholesterol
- Total Protein
- Triglycerides/HDL Ratio
- Urine Granular Casts
- Urine Renal Epithelial Cells
- Urine Transitional Epithelial Cells
- Urine Triple Phosphate Crystals
- Urine Uric Acid Crystals
- Vitamin B12
- VLDL Cholesterol
Show the 66 biomarkers both include
- Alanine Aminotransferase
- Albumin
- Albumin/Globulin Ratio
- Alkaline Phosphatase
- Apolipoprotein B
- Aspartate Aminotransferase
- Basophils
- BUN (Blood Urea Nitrogen)
- BUN/Creatinine Ratio
- Calcium
- Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
- Chloride
- Cholesterol/HDL Ratio
- Cortisol
- Creatinine
- eGFR (Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate)
- Eosinophils
- Ferritin
- Globulin
- Glucose
- HDL Cholesterol
- Hematocrit
- Hemoglobin
- Hemoglobin A1c
- High-Sensitivity C-Reactive Protein
- Iron
- Iron Saturation
- LDL Cholesterol
- Lipoprotein (a)
- Lymphocytes
- Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV)
- Mean Platelet Volume (MPV)
- Monocytes
- Neutrophils
- Non-HDL Cholesterol
- Platelet Count
- Potassium
- Red Blood Cell Count
- Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW)
- Sodium
- Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone
- Total Bilirubin
- Total Cholesterol
- Total Iron Binding Capacity
- Triglycerides
- Urine Amorphous Sediment
- Urine Appearance
- Urine Bacteria
- Urine Bilirubin
- Urine Blood
- Urine Calcium Oxalate Crystals
- Urine Color
- Urine Glucose
- Urine Hyaline Casts
- Urine Ketones
- Urine Leukocyte Esterase
- Urine Nitrite
- Urine pH
- Urine Protein
- Urine Red Blood Cells
- Urine Specific Gravity
- Urine Squamous Epithelial Cells
- Urine White Blood Cells
- Urine Yeast
- Vitamin D (25-Hydroxy)
- White Blood Cell Count
Function Health vs Empirical Health: founders and team
Function Health
Doctor on founding team? Yes
- Founded: 2021
- Funding: $800M+ raised; $450M growth financing (Jul 2026, General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund) on top of a $298M Series B (Nov 2025, led by Redpoint) at a $2.5B valuation
- Founders:
- Jonathan Swerdlin — Co-founder & CEO
- Mark Hyman, MD — Co-founder & Chief Medical Officerphysician
- Pranitha Patil — Co-founder & COO
- Mike Nemke — Co-founder & CTO
Physician co-founder Mark Hyman, MD is a functional-medicine doctor and serves as Chief Medical Officer.
Empirical Health
Doctor on founding team? Yes
- Founded: 2023
- Funding: ~$500K seed (2023), Y Combinator-backed
- Founders:
- Raquel Rodriguez Martinez, MD, MPP — Co-founderphysician
- Brandon Ballinger — Co-founder & CEO
Physician co-founder Raquel Rodriguez Martinez, MD is a former UCSF medical director. Incorporated as a public benefit corporation.
Function Health vs Empirical Health: apps and technology
| Function Health | Empirical Health | |
|---|---|---|
| iOS app | ✓ | ✓ |
| Android app | ✓ | ✓ |
| Web app | ✓ | ✓ |
| Trained its own AI model | Announced a "Medical Intelligence" AI product (Nov 2025), but disclosed no model, paper, or architecture | Trained JETS, a JEPA-based wearable foundation model, on ~3M person-days of multi-device wearable data (presented at NeurIPS 2025) |
- Function Health: Function markets Medical Intelligence as proprietary AI, but has published no model card, paper, or named provider. It reads as an orchestration/RAG layer over existing LLMs plus its biomarker data; a genuine trained foundation model can't be verified from public sources.
- Empirical Health: JETS is a genuine from-scratch model (not Apple's on-device framework), so far a NeurIPS 2025 workshop research model rather than a confirmed shipped feature. Native iOS, Android (Wear OS), and web apps.
Function Health vs Empirical Health: which is better?
It comes down to what you weight: Empirical Health is cheaper, while Function Health covers more biomarkers. Check the biomarker breakdown above before deciding: Function Health has 48 markers Empirical Health doesn't, and Empirical Health has 34 that Function Health skips, so the right choice depends on which of those you actually care about.