Transcription
A few weeks ago, I got an email from a subscriber, and I get a lot of emails, but this one I kept coming back to. The guy told me he'd been watching the channel for a while, and he said he had something he wanted me to look into.
He told me he spent over a decade working inside the eyewear industry on the retail and wholesale side, and that there was something he'd been uncomfortable about for a long time and never really felt like he could say publicly while he was still working in it. He's out now, and he wanted me to know. He spent the next several paragraphs explaining something I genuinely had no idea about.
Given everything going on right now, the economy, the cost of groceries, the cost of just existing, I decided this was exactly the kind of video I needed to make. Because what he described is one of the highest markups of any consumer product in the world. Most people have been quietly absorbing that cost their entire lives without knowing there was another option. Here's what he told me.
There's a number on a piece of paper sitting inside your optometrist's filing cabinet. A number that belongs to you, that you paid for, that took less than 10 seconds to measure. And there are people in the eyewear industry who spent 20 years and millions of dollars lobbying state by state, province by province, to make sure you never saw it. That number is called your pupillary distance. It's the gap in millimeters between your pupils, and the reason they didn't want you to have it is simple. Without it, you cannot order glasses online. You're stuck walking into a store and paying $300, $400, sometimes $600 for a pair of prescription lenses that cost about $8 to manufacture. Let me put that in plain language. The markup on prescription glasses at a retail optical store is between 1,000 and 2,500%.
My subscriber confirmed this from the inside. It's also been documented by consumer advocacy groups for years. The lenses themselves are essentially engineered glass. The cost to produce them is almost nothing. What you're actually paying for is the building, the white coat, the branded case, and a system that was deliberately designed to make you feel like you had no other option. And for a long time you didn't because they controlled the one number you needed to get out of it.
Now, before I give you the websites, let me back up for 1 second because to order glasses online, you need two things: your prescription and your pupillary distance. Let's start with the prescription. If you've had an eye exam in the last couple of years, your prescription already exists. Call your optometrist's office and ask for a copy. That's it. Just ask for it. They are legally required to provide it to you free of charge. It belongs to you the moment the exam is done. Some offices will email it, some will fax it, some will read it to you over the phone. However they give it to you, write it down. It'll have a few numbers on it: SPH, CYL, axis, and ADD if you use reading glasses or progressives. Don't worry about understanding what those mean. You're just going to type them in exactly as they appear.
Now for the second number, the pupillary distance. The law has changed in most US states and rules vary here in Canada depending on the province. But the principle is the same. Your optometrist is now generally required to give you your pupillary distance if you ask for it. The problem is most people still don't know to ask. The number doesn't automatically appear on your prescription form. You have to specifically request it and some offices will stall, tell you they don't measure it, or try to charge you for it separately. You ask, they provide it. That's how it's supposed to work.
And if they drag their feet, you can measure it yourself in under a minute. All you need is a millimeter ruler. Stand about 8 inches from a mirror. Close your right eye. Line the zero mark of the ruler up with the center of your left pupil. Then open your right eye and close your left without moving the ruler. The number sitting at the center of your right pupil is your PD. Most adults fall somewhere between 58 and 68 mm. Do it twice to confirm and you're done. That's the only two things standing between you and an $8 pair of prescription glasses. Your prescription, which is legally yours and free, and that one measurement.
So here's what you actually do with them. My subscriber gave me three websites that have existed for years that nobody at the optical counter will ever mention to you. The first is Zenni Optical. Glasses on Zenni start at $6.95, not $69, not $169, $6.95. You type in your prescription exactly as written on your form. You enter your pupillary distance. You pick a frame. You pay. A standard pair with anti-reflective coating runs between $15 and $25. They ship to Canada. Delivery takes about 10 to 14 days. Completely normal glasses. They just didn't cost $400.
The second is EyeBuyDirect, a step up in frame variety, usually $15 to $40. They run promotions constantly. If you care about what they look like on your face, this is the one to use. They ship to Canada as well. The third is GlassesUSA, closer to $50 to $80, but they have a home try-on program and a return policy, which matters if this is your first time ordering online and you want some reassurance.
Now, I want to be straight with you about one thing because I always want to give you the full picture. Stronger prescriptions, anything above plus or minus 4.00 diopters, bifocals, or progressive lenses are more complex and I'd suggest spending a bit more online, maybe $40 to $60, and taking extra care with the measurements. For the majority of people with a standard prescription, the difference between a $400 retail lens and a $15 online lens is the storefront you're standing in. That's it.
And on the fitting question, because it comes up, when someone at an optical store adjusts the nose pads and bends the temples, that takes about 90 seconds. Any eyeglass repair shop will do that for free or for a few dollars on a pair you bought anywhere. The idea that glasses require professional in-store fitting is a marketing position, not a medical one.
The math on what this costs over a lifetime is quietly staggering. If you're getting a new pair every 2 years, paying $350 average per pair from the time you're 40 until you're 80, that's $7,000. The same prescription ordered online at $15 a pair over the same period costs $300. In this economy, that is not a small number.
I want to thank the subscriber who sent me that email. He didn't have to do that. He spent years inside an industry and saw things he didn't think were right. And when he finally felt like he could say something, he reached out to this channel. I genuinely appreciate it. And based on the comments I'm going to get on this video, I think a lot of you will, too.
Drop a comment below and tell me what you've been paying for glasses. And if you're in Canada, I'd especially love to know because the pricing here can be even worse than what people in the US are dealing with. And I want to get a sense of how widespread this is. I read through as many comments as I can, and I genuinely like to know which video you want to see next.
Thanks for watching.