Botox vs Dysport: What’s the Difference, and Which Is Better?

Botox and Dysport are two brands of the same drug, botulinum toxin type A, doing the same job: each relaxes the muscle it is injected into so the skin above it stops folding into a line. The differences are small and practical. Dysport spreads a little further from each injection point and often shows a day or two sooner; Botox stays closer to where it is placed. Their units are not interchangeable (about 2.5 to 3 units of Dysport do the work of 1 unit of Botox, as a common conversion), so the only fair way to compare price is per treated area, never per unit. Dr. Cat Begovic offers both and chooses by your muscles, your history with each product and your calendar, not by brand.

Dr. Cat Begovic, MD, FACS, board-certified plastic surgeon, injects both products herself for the forehead and around the eyes at the office on Rodeo Drive, after a facial muscle analysis that decides where every unit goes. The masseter, the chin, the platysmal bands of the neck and every other area are treated by our board-certified facial plastic surgeon. When a nurse injector or physician assistant is engaged, they treat the forehead and around the eyes only, under the practice's supervision, and never inject filler. The prices are the same whichever provider injects.

Botox vs Dysport at a Glance

What Botox and Dysport Do, and Do Not Do

Botox in Beverly Hills and Dysport in Beverly Hills are both purified botulinum toxin type A. Injected into a muscle in a tiny dose, the protein blocks the signal that tells that muscle to contract. The muscle relaxes, the skin over it stops creasing, and a line carved by ten thousand frowns softens because the frown that carves it has been switched off. Over three to four months the nerve endings grow new connections, the muscle wakes up and the effect fades on its own. The mechanism is identical for both brands; the manufacturers build the protein complex differently, which is where the differences in spread, onset and unit size come from.

What neither product does is add anything. A line that is visible when your face is completely still is a fold in skin that has lost collagen or a hollow where fat has thinned, and relaxing a muscle does not fill it. Those lines belong to dermal fillers, or, when the skin has actually fallen, to surgery; Botox vs fillers draws that line. Dr. Cat treats the forehead, the frown lines between the brows (the 11s) and crow's feet with either product; bunny lines on the nose, lines around the mouth, the chin, the jaw muscles for a slimmer jawline (masseter Botox) and the vertical platysmal bands of the neck are treated by our facial plastic surgeon.

How to Decide Between Botox and Dysport

Spread, precision and the area being treated

The forehead is one wide, flat muscle, and the aim there is even softening across its whole width without a hard edge where treated muscle meets untreated. Crow's feet are the opposite problem: a thin ring of muscle a few millimeters from the eye, where product drifting into the wrong fibers gives a droopy lid or a flat smile. Neither difference makes one product right for one area. A product that spreads is placed with more margin and fewer injection points; a product that stays put is placed with more of them; and the frown lines between the brows, the one area both label doses were written for, take either. The injector's placement and dose do the work; the brand is chosen at your appointment, from your muscles and your history.

How you responded last time

If one product gave you a clean result that lasted the full three to four months, there is no reason to change it, and Dr. Cat will not talk you into a switch for its own sake. If it wore off at eight weeks or the result was patchy, the other product is worth one trial at a converted dose. Bring your records (product, units per area, date), because a treatment that failed at a half dose says nothing about the product.

Cost per area, not per unit

Per-unit prices are the most misleading numbers in aesthetics, because the units are different sizes. Ask what a specific area costs with each product and how many units that is; a practice that quotes a low per-unit price and then needs 90 units for one area has not saved you anything. At our office Botox is $25 per unit and Dysport $8.50, the same whichever provider injects, and the units for your areas are set at the appointment, so you can compare the two products for the same area before anything is injected.

Resistance and switching products, in rare cases

A small number of patients stop responding to a botulinum toxin after years of treatment, most often with high or frequent dosing, because the immune system has made antibodies to the protein complex. It is uncommon at cosmetic doses, but when a product that used to work does nothing at a full dose, switching brands is the first thing to try, and one reason the practice keeps both in the office. If neither works, a product with no accessory proteins is the next step.

How Dr. Cat Chooses Between Botox and Dysport

She starts with the muscle map, not the vial. At the first visit Dr. Cat watches your face frown, raise, squint and smile, marks where each muscle actually pulls (it is rarely symmetrical), and only then chooses a product and a dose for each area, with you. A patient who has done well on one product for years stays on it. Men usually need more units because the muscles are thicker, and first-time patients are dosed conservatively and adjusted at the two-week check rather than overtreated on day one. Dr. Cat calls injectables a technical art; the result she wants is a smoother forehead over a brow that can still lift. The same analysis decides the dose when our facial plastic surgeon treats the masseter, the chin or the neck bands, and when a nurse injector or physician assistant treats the forehead and the eyes under the practice's supervision.

Xeomin, Daxxify and the Other Neuromodulators

Botox and Dysport are the two products we offer, but the category is larger. Xeomin (incobotulinumtoxinA) is the same active protein with the accessory proteins stripped away, which is why it is the usual answer for a patient who has developed resistance to the others. Daxxify (daxibotulinumtoxinA) uses a peptide stabilizer and was approved on trial data showing a longer median duration for frown lines. All of them relax muscle by the same mechanism. If you were treated with one of them elsewhere, tell us the product and the units so the dose can be converted.

What We Offer and How We Price It

Both products are stocked and priced per unit, with the figures published on our non-surgical pricing page: Botox is $25 per unit and Dysport is $8.50 per unit, the same whether Dr. Cat, our facial plastic surgeon or a supervised nurse injector or physician assistant gives the injection. You are quoted the units per area after your injector has examined how your muscles move, and the total is confirmed before anything is injected. The same page lists two packages that pair 40 units of Botox with a syringe of filler, three ThermiSmooth treatments and a skincare treatment ($11,000 for the full face, $7,900 for the eyes and forehead). The Botox pricing guide explains what drives the unit count and why a per-unit price far below the market usually means diluted product or an injector who is learning on you. Financing through Cherry, CareCredit or Alphaeon is described on the financing page.

What to Expect at Your Appointment

The first visit is the longest, because the facial analysis is the part that matters. Dr. Cat (or, for the masseter, the chin and the neck bands, our facial plastic surgeon) reviews your history (pregnancy, breastfeeding, neuromuscular conditions and blood thinners all change the plan), watches your expressions, and agrees the areas and the units with you. The skin is cleansed, a topical numbing cream is offered, and the product goes in through a very fine needle in a series of small injections that feel like a brief pinch. The injections take about 15 minutes; a first appointment runs closer to an hour. You leave with a few small bumps that settle within the hour.

Preparation is the same for both: no alcohol for 24 hours before, and, with your prescriber's approval, a week off aspirin, ibuprofen and other anti-inflammatories, fish oil and vitamin E to limit bruising. Afterwards stay upright for four hours, skip strenuous exercise for 24 hours, do not rub the treated areas, and avoid saunas and hot yoga for a few days; the practice's aftercare guide covers the rest. A touch-up, if needed, is done at the two-week check, when the full effect can be judged.

Results, Photos and How Long They Last

Dysport usually shows its first softening at two to four days, Botox at three to five, and both reach full effect at about two weeks; the practice's guide to how long Botox takes to work walks through it day by day. For an event, book three weeks out with either product; if the event is five days away and you are already a regular, Dysport's earlier onset is a real advantage. Results hold for about three to four months, a first treatment often a little less. Regular patients tend to need fewer units over time, because a muscle that has been relaxed for a year is a smaller, weaker muscle than it was. The practice uses the same logic for preventative dosing in patients in their late 20s and 30s, something Dr. Cat began herself in her 20s: skin, she says, is like a piece of paper, and a sheet that is never folded never gets the crease. The unit counts behind all of this are in the guide to how many units of Botox you need.

The Botox and Dysport before and after photos answer the search for "dysport vs botox pictures" more plainly than any table: at matched doses the two products are indistinguishable in a photograph. Look for a pair taken at rest and a pair taken in expression, because a forehead that looks smooth at rest says nothing about whether the brow still lifts.

Side Effects, Stated Plainly

The common ones are minor and short: small bumps at the injection sites for an hour, redness, a bruise if a needle nicks a vessel, and a mild headache in the first day or two. The one that matters is product reaching a muscle it was not meant for. Too low on the forehead and the brow feels heavy; into the muscle that lifts the eyelid and the lid droops. Both are temporary, both are more likely with a product that spreads and an injector who does not respect the margins, and both are why placement, not brand, is the risk. Asymmetry is corrected at the two-week check. Rarer still are flu-like symptoms, dry eyes and allergic reactions; every botulinum toxin label warns that the effect can spread beyond the injection site, reported with therapeutic doses many times larger than cosmetic ones.

Neither product is given during pregnancy or breastfeeding, to anyone with a neuromuscular disease such as myasthenia gravis, over an active skin infection, or to anyone allergic to a botulinum toxin product; Dysport is also withheld from anyone with a cow's milk protein allergy because of its lactose. Tell us about every medication, because some antibiotics increase the effect.

Frequently Asked Questions About Botox vs Dysport

Is Botox or Dysport better?

Neither. They are two brands of the same drug, and at equivalent doses they give the same result for the same length of time. Dysport spreads a little further from each injection point and may show a day or two sooner; Botox stays closer to where it is placed. How a treatment looks is decided by where each unit goes and how many: the injector's work, not the label on the vial.

Do Botox and Dysport use the same number of units?

No. A Dysport unit is a smaller measure of the drug, so it takes about 2.5 to 3 units of Dysport to do the work of 1 unit of Botox. The label doses show it: frown lines are treated with 20 units of Botox or 50 units of Dysport. A per-unit price therefore tells you nothing on its own; compare the price of the treated area.

Why is Dysport cheaper than Botox?

Per unit it is; per treatment it usually is not. A Dysport unit is a smaller measure of the drug than a Botox unit, so it costs less per unit and you need about 2.5 to 3 times as many. At our office Botox is $25 per unit and Dysport $8.50 per unit, whichever provider injects (both on our non-surgical pricing page), so a 20-unit frown-line treatment with Botox is $500 and the same area with 50 to 60 units of Dysport is $425 to $510. Compare the price of the treated area, not the unit. A per-unit price far below the market is a warning sign, not a bargain.

What are the cons of Dysport?

Its spread. The diffusion that covers a forehead with fewer needle sticks makes it less precise next to the brow and eyelid, so it needs more margin there. Its formulation contains lactose, so it is not given to anyone with a cow's milk protein allergy. Its FDA approval covers frown lines only, its different unit confuses price comparisons, and some patients report it fading a little sooner. None of this rules it out; it is why the product and the dose are chosen at the appointment, not from a price list.

How much is 50 units of Dysport compared to Botox?

Fifty units of Dysport is the standard frown-line dose and does about the same work as 17 to 20 units of Botox. At our office 50 units of Dysport is $425 at $8.50 per unit, and 17 to 20 units of Botox is $425 to $500 at $25 per unit: about the same money for the same area, which is the comparison that matters, not the price of a unit.

How much do 100 units of Dysport cost?

At our office 100 units of Dysport is $850, at $8.50 per unit (the figure is on our non-surgical pricing page). One hundred units is typically a two-area treatment such as the forehead with the frown lines, and does about the work of 33 to 40 units of Botox, which is $833 to $1,000 at $25 per unit. Every quote is per unit, set after Dr. Cat has examined how your muscles move, and confirmed before anything is injected.

Can I switch from Botox to Dysport, or back?

Yes, at any treatment, as long as the injector converts the dose rather than copying the unit count. Patients switch because one product faded early or settled unevenly, or in the rare case that the body has stopped responding to one product. The new product is given when the last treatment has worn off.

Talk to Dr. Cat About Botox or Dysport

The right choice between these products depends on your muscles, your goals and how you have responded before, which is why it is made at an in-person evaluation, never from an article. Book a free discovery call or call (310) 858-8808 to arrange your appointment with Dr. Cat for the forehead and the eyes, or with our facial plastic surgeon for the other areas; injectable visits are booked directly. Your appointment is reserved with a $500 deposit credited to your treatment; new patients are evaluated and treated at the same visit, and the $500 stays as a credit if treatment is not right for you. The $500 surgical consultation fee and its credit toward surgery are a separate arrangement that does not apply to injectable visits. Before you call, look through the Botox and Dysport gallery and read the Botox and Dysport pages; if your lines are there when your face is still, start with Botox vs fillers instead.

Medically reviewed by Dr. Cat Begovic, MD, FACS, board-certified plastic surgeon. Last reviewed September 2026.