If you've been searching for tinnitus treatments recently, you've probably come across Lenire. It's a device made by Neuromod Devices in Dublin that plays sound through headphones while a mouthpiece sends mild electrical pulses to your tongue, an approach called bimodal neuromodulation. It is also expensive: about $4,000 to $5,000 in the US, fitted through a clinic, and generally not covered by health insurance.
We get asked about Lenire a lot, so this page sets out what it costs, what its trials actually found, and how it compares with AudioNotch, which delivers notched sound therapy for $99 a year. Prices and sources were checked on November 6, 2026.
How much does Lenire cost?
Neuromod doesn't publish a list price. Each clinic sets its own fee, so these figures come from news reports and clinic statements:
- About $4,000, not covered by insurance (NPR via Michigan Public, April 2024).
- $4,000 to $5,000, not covered by health insurance (WVXU, April 2025).
- $3,500 at Augustana College's university clinic in Illinois (WVIK, January 2025).
- Around 3,600 pounds in the UK (Tinnitus UK, January 2024), where it isn't routinely available on the NHS (Tinnitus UK).
The price buys the device, which you keep, plus the clinic's fitting and follow-up visits (Lenire). HSA and FSA funds can pay for it (Lenire FAQ), and US veterans can get it through the VA under a federal supply contract awarded in June 2024 (Hearing Health Matters).
For comparison, AudioNotch costs $99 a year or $29 a month (pricing, November 6, 2026). At $4,000, Lenire costs about the same as 40 years of AudioNotch.
What Lenire treatment involves
In the trials, patients used the device for 60 minutes a day for 12 weeks (Conlon et al., 2020), often split into two 30-minute sessions. A clinic fits and programs it, and more than 100 US clinics offered it as of March 2025 (Neuromod). The FDA granted Lenire a De Novo authorization on March 6, 2023 (DEN210033) to "temporarily relieve the symptoms of tinnitus" in adults with at least moderate tinnitus (FDA decision letter).
What did the Lenire trials actually find?
Lenire's marketing leans on three large trials, and they are worth reading closely, because the headline numbers and the full results aren't the same thing.
- TENT-A1 (2020, 326 participants). Every arm received tongue stimulation, at different settings. There was no sham group and no sound-only group, so the trial can't tell you how much of the improvement came from the stimulation itself (Conlon et al., Science Translational Medicine).
- TENT-A2 (2022, 191 participants). One arm got sound alone for the first six weeks. Its handicap scores fell 8.0 points, against 12.9 and 11.5 in two stimulation arms, and the two stimulation settings didn't differ significantly from each other (Conlon et al., Scientific Reports).
- TENT-A3 (2024, 112 participants). This is the trial behind the FDA authorization. Everyone had six weeks of sound alone, then six weeks of sound plus tongue stimulation, and the trial counted how many people improved by at least 7 points within each stage. Across all participants, more people responded during the sound-alone stage (63.3%) than during the stimulation stage (43.3%), so adding stimulation showed no advantage in the full group. The often-quoted 58.6% against 43.2% comes from a subgroup of 44 people with moderate or worse tinnitus, defined at the FDA's request (Boedts et al., Nature Communications).
- Clinic records (2025 and 2026). A review of 212 patients at one Alaska clinic reported a 91.5% response rate; one author provides Lenire commercially and the other consults for Neuromod (McMahan and Lim, Communications Medicine). Chart reviews like these have no comparison group.
Why we read these results with caution
A useful habit when you read tinnitus research is to ask two questions: who ran the study, and what was the treatment compared against? Small samples and commercial influence are common problems in tinnitus research, and the second one matters most here:
- The manufacturer paid for the trials. Neuromod sponsored all three.
- There was no sham control. The TENT-A3 authors write that a sham-controlled study "was not possible" and that the treatment "cannot be sufficiently blinded."
- The order was fixed. In TENT-A3, everyone had sound alone first and stimulation second, so the effects of time and order can't be separated from the effect of the stimulation.
- Durability and side effects are open questions. Tinnitus UK notes that about a third of trial participants reported a temporary worsening of their tinnitus, and that durability beyond 12 months after treatment isn't yet well established (Tinnitus UK).
Lenire vs AudioNotch
| Feature | Lenire | AudioNotch |
|---|---|---|
| Price | About $4,000 to $5,000 | $99 a year or $29 a month |
| How it works | Sound plus electrical stimulation of the tongue | Music or noise with a notch at your tinnitus frequency |
| Where | Fitted by a clinic | Web, iOS and Android, at home |
| Key trial compared against | Sound alone, in the same patients | Standard care, in a randomized controlled trial |
| Trials run by | Researchers sponsored by Neuromod, the manufacturer | Northwell Health researchers, independently |
AudioNotch's evidence comes from a different kind of study. In a randomized controlled trial at Northwell Health, patients given AudioNotch improved significantly more over 12 months than patients given standard care. After a year the AudioNotch group's tinnitus handicap had fallen 9.6 points while the standard-care group's had risen 5.0. The trial was randomized, controlled, ran for 12 months with 65 patients, and was run and published independently by Northwell Health researchers (Sturm et al., 2026; our summary). Separately, experiments on notched sound found tinnitus volume reductions of 75% (Lugli et al., 2009), 26% (Okamoto et al., 2010) and 20% (Teismann et al., 2011).
In summary
- Lenire costs about $4,000 to $5,000, usually out of pocket. AudioNotch costs $99 a year, and website purchases come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
- Lenire's trials were sponsored by its manufacturer and had no sham control, and in its pivotal trial adding tongue stimulation showed an advantage only in a subgroup defined at the FDA's request.
- AudioNotch was tested by independent researchers against standard care in a randomized controlled trial, and patients given AudioNotch improved significantly more over 12 months.
- Whatever you choose, be skeptical of headline numbers and ask who ran the study. That includes ours, which is why we link every source.
Notched sound therapy starts with your tinnitus frequency. You can find yours in a few minutes with the free tinnitus frequency matcher, and see where it falls among 60,835 other people's tinnitus frequencies. For other options and their costs, see what tinnitus retraining therapy costs, what Treble Health costs, our comparison of tinnitus apps and Ranked: Sound Therapies for Tinnitus.