Of all the capital-equipment categories in aesthetics, body contouring is the one most likely to sell you a beautiful six-figure platform that sits idle by month nine. Not because the technology doesn't work — modern cryolipolysis, radiofrequency, HIFU, and muscle-stimulation devices all do real things and all demo impressively. They sit idle because the demand was shallower than the launch spike implied, and because the modality never earned a second visit. The buy decision, done right, has almost nothing to do with the physics and almost everything to do with demand depth and repeat rate.

The two questions that actually decide it