What Is Sightbox? | brokeGIRLrich
Facebook’s got my number. It’s probably got yours too. Every once in a while, it pops up a completely intriguing ad for something I’ve never heard of that looks exactly like something I can’t live without.
This is how Sightbox wound up on my radar.
I’m not sure if Facebook creepily scans my pictures and knows I wear glasses sometimes or if I posted some status update 6 years ago about my contacts itching that the almighty Facebook algorithm duly logged away – however it happened, Facebook knows I’m often in the market for cost-efficient ways to keep seeing clearly.
Sightbox was created by Travis Rush, a lifelong contact wearer.
As ya’ll know here at brokeGIRLrich, we love to talk about ways to simplify life and not spend an arm and a leg, but we also love to find solutions for folks who work in the arts. One of the reasons I personally think Travis Rush is pretty awesome is that he was actually a country musician who has lived the tour bus life and is well aware of that “mother of pearl” moment when you’re out on tour in a weird city and suddenly realize you’ve only got one set of contacts left.
According to their website, the point of Sightbox is “to simplify vision care for people on the go.”
I’m all for paying a few more dollars to make life simpler, especially if it can work well with my nomadic stage manager lifestyle.
So what exactly do you get when you sign up with Sightbox?
First you decide ourhealthissues.com/ what kind of contacts you want to wear. Their price points are based off of how disposable your contacts are. If you wear monthlies or bimonthlies, you qualify for the cheapest plan ($39/month). If you’re a dailies wearer, plans vary from $56-89 a month.
After signing up, the company takes care of everything to set you up with a local optometrist appointment based on your availability. If you’ve been going to the same optometrist for years, you can ask to stick with them.
You’ll receive an email confirming the appointment with the optometrist and then head on over. You won’t pay for anything at the appointment. The optometrist’s office will take care of sending in your prescription and Sightbox will ship out your contacts to you as soon as your prescription is sent over to them.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Seriously though. It takes what can be an overwhelming and complicated situation and makes it so incredibly streamlined and simple.
By breaking down the cost monthly, it makes it much, much easier to budget too. The upfront costs of eye care can be pretty daunting. If you don’t have any kind of vision insurance, an eye exam can cost around $200 and ordering your contacts for the entire year in one go can cost between $400-1200. As a matter of fact, the Center for Disease Control reports that almost 40% of Americans don’t get regular eye exams because of the cost!
With Sightbox, it doesn’t matter whether or not you have vision insurance since it cannot be applied to your Sightbox premiums but you can use a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) or Health Savings Account (HSA) to pay for your Sightbox membership!
There seriously isn’t an easier way to make sure your budget stays as healthy as your eyes!
Is this terribly different from 1-800-Contacts? Is the service better?
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Yes! Sightbox includes setting up your optometrist visit and handles all of the logistics. You sign up once with their site and then you get an email saying – “go here at this time for an eye doctor appointment” and you confirm you can or ask them to reschedule and a few days later, contacts magically show up at your door. The payments are also spread out as a monthly fee, rather than trying to fund the entire thing up front.
As an optometrist, I’m not real convinced that a “no reimbursement” eye exam will fly. Yes, I agree it’s more affordable to break payments down monthly and that is what vision insurance plans do. Who decides what kind of contacts are best for your eyes? Apparently, sight box is the one determining the brand of CL you are to be Rx’d. You only get one set of eyes, people!!!! You get what you pay for! Please be careful. Your doctor went to school to learn which lenses will benefit you and prevent long term problems. Sightbox is obviously finding the cheapest bulk lenses and marketing them to you whether they’re good for your eyes or not. My advice….stick with a vision plan.
Yes, but your optometrist visit is not overseen by them in any way, so if they say that a particular brand won’t work for you, then Sightbox might not be for you, but they carry a variety of the most popular lenses, so if you’re using them any way, I don’t see why Sightbox couldn’t be a good fit for the majority of contact lens wearers.
Whoa, this sounds awesome and so convenient! Taking care of your contact prescriptions and scheduling eye doctor appointments can be a hassle sometimes. This service could be a big help for a lot of people! Very cool!
Definitely. I’m all about streamlining the hassles in life! 😉
Sounds like a great service. While I don’t wear contacts myself, I know a few people who do that could really use something like this.
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Yeah, I was honestly shocked to find it and surprised at how quiet the buzz is. It’s a small price increase from what you’d usually pay for dailies, but if you’re a bimonthly or monthly wearer, you’re paying exactly the same and possibly a little less for an amazing service.
Same here! Will have to share.
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Good to know. I was literally just talking to my visually challenged sister about this last night. We both wear contacts and it seems like every time we order them, they are more expensive. I had no idea this was even available. Thanks for sharing!
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I’ve never heard of this, but I’m always looking for ways to save on my contact lenses – other than wearing them longer than I’m supposed to. I really like the idea of using flexible spending dollars to pay for the premiums.
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You can almost always use flexible spending for any of your optometrist, contacts, eye glass premiums!
This sounds much like the service I used to have before eye surgery. Getting contacts delivered and paying monthly is way more convenient than having to collect them and pay in full. The only thing was that I used to run out of contacts before I was due another pack. I was guilty of changing my contacts twice a day sometimes as my eyes used to get so itchy once I started working from my laptop full time (apparently you don’t blink as much when staring at a computer screen)!
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What’s the monthly fee?
It varies depending on how many contacts you use. It starts it at $39/month for people who wear monthly and bimonthly contacts. If you’re a daily wearer, it ranges from $56-89/month depending on if you wear them every day or just a couple days a week.
You can check out the exact pricing info here: https://sightbox.com/simple-affordable-contact-lens-and-eye-exam-pricing
So much more expensive than buying contacts and eye exam outright! I get a year of monthly disposables for 12.99 a box at my optometrists office which has 3 pairs and my eye exam is only $70. This service would charge me $39 per month. I would then be over-paying by nearly $30 every month. $360 a year wasted!!! I get it schedules your eye exam for you, but really how hard is it to schedule a single appointment? They’re getting rich off peoples’ ignorance. Maybe this is good for some people who wear really pricey contacts? I know some of the toric ones get expensive, but I bet most people would be spending much more for this service mostly for the convenience of spacing out payments and having someone schedule the exam for you. Which isn’t very convenient, when you think about it, when you have to make effort to reschedule when the appointment time doesn’t work for you.
You pay $12.99? For 3 pairs?? How long do they last? You pay $12.99 for the year? Or they’re 4 month contacts?
I mean, if those work for your eyes, more power to you for finding a cheaper alternative. I wear a pretty high prescription and, honestly, $39/month does actually work out to savings for me based on all the cheapest ways I could find. When you get up into dailies, the prices are pretty comparable and possibly a little higher than doing everything yourself and you are paying for convenience then, but it’s not a huge jump for most people.
So do you have to pay for your eye visit?
With Sightbox, the cost of the visit is included in the monthly fee – it covers an annual visit and contacts for the year.
Where do you live to have an contact eye exam for $70
Although it sounds like a cheaper alternative, I would call your eye doctor and ask what their pricing is on contacts first. I work at an eye doctors office and for a year of monthly contacts, the cost (without insurance) is $281. On sightbox, paying $39 a month for 12 months will run you $468 for a year supply. A year supply of dailies in our office (without insurance) is $522. Paying up to $89 a month on sightbox for daily contacts is $1008! This shocked me! There may be convenience in not having to make the appointment and it may depend on where you live but you would be wise to ask for pricing at the doctors office before signing up with sightbox. A lot of people are going to end up paying over double the cost to have their contacts shipped to them each month.
Lolli, I’m absolutely all for always checking in with your eye doctor first, because every person’s situation is different. I do think this is a viable option for a lot people though and there are quite a few folks who can’t afford to front the cost of their eye doctor visits all at once.
And, again, while it does help my budget and work out to a small amount of savings compared to what I had previously spent, convenience is a major selling point for Sightbox, which isn’t necessarily enough of a perk for some – for others, it may be exactly what they’re looking for.