Longevity

PhenoAge blood test in 2026 - What it is, and where you can get it tested

The blood tests needed to calculate PhenoAge are available through Mito Health for under $40, including a Quest lab draw. No membership required.

By Kenneth Lou , Co-Founder and CEO

Medically Reviewed By: Rhonda Collins, FNP-C | September 15, 2026 | 6 min read

Share

Copy link

A recent customer conversation reminded me why we built Mito Health: understanding your health should be affordable enough to keep doing. Clinical PhenoAge uses nine routine blood measurements and chronological age to estimate how a person’s measured profile compares with mortality-risk patterns in a research population.

I checked what the necessary tests cost on Mito. At Quest prices verified September 15, 2026, a complete blood count with differential, comprehensive metabolic panel, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein test come to $32.09 without membership, including one $15 blood draw fee. The three tests are available without a membership.

That makes PhenoAge an accessible routine-lab option. But understanding what the number means is as important as getting the tests. It is an estimate derived from a population model, not a direct measurement of how old every organ is or a prediction of how long one person will live.

What is PhenoAge, and where did it come from?

PhenoAge translates a combination of routine blood measurements and chronological age into an age-equivalent estimate of mortality risk. The approach was introduced by Morgan Levine and colleagues in the 2018 paper An epigenetic biomarker of aging for lifespan and healthspan.

The researchers started with 42 clinical measures and used an elastic-net model to select nine blood biomarkers, alongside chronological age. That is a data-driven selection process, but it does not make the model free of assumptions or bias. The resulting score was designed to capture differences in mortality risk among people of the same chronological age.

In a later clinical validation across large US cohorts, a higher Phenotypic Age was associated with higher risks of death and several age-related outcomes after accounting for chronological age. The study reported that each additional year of Phenotypic Age was associated with about a 9% higher all-cause mortality hazard. This was a population-level association, not proof that lowering one person’s score by a year would reduce that person’s risk by 9%. Read the clinical validation study.

My interest in PhenoAge is practical: it makes use of familiar, inexpensive blood tests. I would not call it the definitive or universally best biological-age clock. Different clocks were built for different data and outcomes, and there is no single measure that answers every aging question. For a broader view of those approaches, see our biological age testing guide.

Clinical PhenoAge is not the same as DNAm PhenoAge

Clinical PhenoAge and DNAm PhenoAge are related, but they are not the same test. Clinical PhenoAge uses routine blood results and chronological age. DNAm PhenoAge uses DNA methylation measurements at 513 sites to estimate the clinical score from epigenetic data.

The CBC, CMP, and hs-CRP combination described here supplies the inputs for the clinical calculation. It does not measure DNA methylation. The publisher’s readable full text explains how the researchers developed the clinical score first and then trained the DNA methylation measure to predict it.

Which blood measurements does clinical PhenoAge use?

The clinical calculation uses nine blood measurements plus chronological age. Three commonly available tests provide all nine blood inputs:

• Complete blood count with differential and platelet count: white blood cell count, lymphocyte percentage, mean corpuscular volume, and red cell distribution width.
• Comprehensive metabolic panel: albumin, creatinine, glucose, and alkaline phosphatase.
• High-sensitivity C-reactive protein: C-reactive protein, the inflammation-related input.

These inputs span blood-cell, metabolic, kidney, liver, immune, and inflammatory measures. The word differential matters when ordering the CBC because the formula needs lymphocyte percentage. The units matter too. For example, lymphocyte percentage is not interchangeable with an absolute lymphocyte count. The original paper’s methods and equations specify the inputs used by the model.

High-sensitivity CRP measures the same protein as a standard CRP assay but can quantify lower concentrations. The PhenoAge formula expects CRP in the specified units, so values should not be entered without checking the source units.

How much do the PhenoAge blood tests cost in 2026?

At Mito Health’s Quest prices, verified September 15, 2026:

One $15 Quest draw fee applies when the three tests are collected in the same order. That brings the total to $27.20 for an existing member or $32.09 without membership.

Membership is separate and costs $9 per month. If you join when buying these tests, the first month of membership, member-priced tests, and Quest draw total $36.20. You do not need to join to buy the tests.

These figures are a dated snapshot, not a promise that prices will never change. The product pages show current state-aware prices and availability. Quest is not available through Mito in New York, New Jersey, or Rhode Island. Other providers serve those states at different prices. Choose your state before ordering, and the cart will show the available provider and total for your order.

The primary action on this page adds only the CBC with differential. CBC is one of three required tests, not the complete PhenoAge combination. Add the CMP and hs-CRP shown in the recommendations to complete the blood-test inputs.

What a customer conversation taught me about tracking over time

The customer who prompted this article had assembled more than 20 years of blood results and used them to calculate a PhenoAge trend. I am keeping the person’s identity and individual health results private, but the lesson from our conversation is worth sharing.

A single score can be interesting. A consistent series can be more useful because it lets you see whether a change persists rather than overreacting to one draw. That does not turn a personal trend into a clinical trial. Many things can shift the inputs, including illness, hydration, recent food, exercise, medications, laboratory methods, and ordinary biological variation.

If someone changes a habit and the score later moves, the timing alone does not prove that the habit caused the change. The underlying biomarkers should still be interpreted individually and in their clinical context. An abnormal result deserves attention on its own rather than being reduced to one age-equivalent number.

There is also no universal schedule for repeating these tests. The useful interval depends on why you are testing, prior results, recent health events, and what decision another measurement would inform. For comparable trends, use the same assay types and units where possible and record the conditions around each draw.

That is the lasting idea I took from the conversation: PhenoAge can be a compact way to organize routine laboratory data over time, but it should be treated as one model alongside the actual results, not as a verdict on how fast someone is aging.

References

1. Levine ME, Lu AT, Quach A, et al. An epigenetic biomarker of aging for lifespan and healthspan. Aging. 2018.
2. Levine ME, Lu AT, Quach A, et al. Publisher’s full-text version. Aging. 2018.
3. Liu Z, Kuo PL, Horvath S, et al. A new aging measure captures morbidity and mortality risk across diverse subpopulations from NHANES IV. PLOS Medicine. 2018.