What Korean skincare actually costs once it arrives
A sticker price is not a price. Between the shop's checkout and your door sit a shipping fee, a free-shipping threshold and a customs rule, and together they move the number by more than most people expect — in one direction in the United States, and barely at all in Singapore or the Philippines.
nuvy is a K-beauty price comparison that totals shipping and import duty before it ranks a shop. Every figure below is computed from 220 products priced at their shops' own feeds on 2026-08-24, using the same arithmetic nuvy runs on every screen. Nothing here is typed in by hand, which is why it will say something different when the prices move.
A $20.00 order is not a $20.00 order
Buy one thing, on its own, from the cheapest shop that will send it to the United States:
| Goods | $20.00 |
| Shipping (Stylevana) | $5.79 |
| Import charges | $2.50 |
| On your card | $28.29 |
|---|
Across the whole catalogue that is not an outlier. Buying a single item at the cheapest shop, the median order arrives at 41% above its sticker price in the United States, and the worst case is 66% above.
The same basket, three borders
The gap is not a fact about Korean skincare. It is a fact about where the parcel is going.
| Goods | United States | Singapore | Philippines |
|---|---|---|---|
| $20.00 | $28.29 +41% | $20.00 | $20.00 |
| $40.00 | $45.00 +13% | $40.00 | $40.00 |
| $60.00 | $67.50 +13% | $60.00 | $60.00 |
| $80.00 | $80.00 | $80.00 | $80.00 |
| $120.00 | $120.00 | $120.00 | $120.00 |
Singapore and the Philippines sit under a de-minimis threshold at every size on this table, so the border adds nothing and the only cost is the shop's own shipping. The United States has no exemption left to fall under — its $800 allowance was suspended in 2025, so duty starts at the first dollar. What the United States charges, in detail.
Where buying more costs less
Free-shipping thresholds are cliffs, not slopes. One cent below a threshold you pay the fee; one cent above it you do not — and because the fee is larger than the cent, the bigger order is the cheaper order.
| Goods | On your card | |
|---|---|---|
| $34.99 | $43.99 | BuyBeautyKorea |
| $35.00 | $39.38 | YesStyle — $4.62 less |
| $74.99 | $83.99 | BuyBeautyKorea |
| $75.00 | $75.00 | BuyBeautyKorea — $8.99 less |
If your basket is a little under one of these lines, adding to it is not spending more. It is spending less.
The cheapest sticker is often the wrong shop
This is the part a price tag cannot tell you. Two shops list the same bottle; the one with the lower price is not always the one that costs less delivered, because their thresholds and their duty handling differ.
| Destination | Products where the cheapest sticker loses |
|---|---|
| United States | 1 of 212 0% |
| Singapore | 37 of 212 17% |
| Philippines | 33 of 212 16% |
Shipping to Singapore, SOME BY MI Snail Truecica Miracle Repair Serum is a clean example:
| Shop | Sticker | Delivered |
|---|---|---|
| Stylevana | $19.70 cheaper | $23.69 |
| BuyBeautyKorea | $20.10 | $20.10 cheaper |
What to do with this
- Price a full routine — nuvy builds one from your skin type and budget and totals it with shipping and duty included.
- Look up one product — every price at every shop, 220 of them.
- What the United States charges at the border
- What Singapore charges at the border
- What the Philippines charges at the border