Beauty Pie charges $10 a month so a $25 lipstick costs members $2.39

Marcia Kilgore, the founder of Bliss and Soap & Glory, had spent decades inside beauty's supply chain and knew that the same trusted labs made the prestige brands' formulas. When she launched Beauty Pie in the UK on 6 December 2016, ahead of a US debut, she built the company around that secret: the price of a lipstick had almost nothing to do with what it cost to make.

Sell the membership, not the markup: members pay $10 a month for $100 of monthly credit at factory prices, and the fee itself replaces advertising and middlemen.

Beauty Pie went live as an online-only 'buyers' club'. Membership cost $10 a month with a three-month minimum, and each $10 bought $100 of monthly credit in full retail dollars, rolling over when unused. Members then paid factory prices: a lipstick that guests bought for $25 cost members $2.39, and a member's $5 foundation cost non-members $44. The fee covered inventory and overhead, so the company could skip marketing, retail display and branded packaging; the products came from the same European and Asian labs that make prestige formulas.

The framing worked as its own advertisement: press covered Beauty Pie as 'the Everlane and Costco of makeup', and the model later earned the 'Netflix of high-end beauty' label as the company doubled its members in fiscal 2021 and raised a $100 million Series B co-led by Index Ventures and Insight Partners. Its own site still promises members up to four times more for their money, with middlemen and retailer markups removed.

Marcia Kilgore built Bliss into a spa brand bought by LVMH and sold Soap & Glory to Boots, so when she started Beauty Pie in 2016 she already knew how beauty pricing worked: the same handful of elite labs makes formulas for prestige brands, and the label multiplies the factory cost 10 to 12 times before a lipstick reaches a counter.

Beauty Pie, launched in the UK on 6 December 2016 ahead of a US debut, made that markup the pitch. A $10-a-month membership, with a three-month minimum, carried $100 of monthly credit at full retail dollars that rolled over when unused. Members then bought at factory prices — a lipstick guests paid $25 for cost members $2.39 — because the fee, not the product price, covered inventory and overhead.

The company sold the mechanism rather than a brand name: products came from the same trusted labs, carried no advertising budget and little packaging, and non-members could still buy them at full retail. That guest price made the club's value legible on every page — a shopper could see the exact margin the membership removed.

Press coverage framed Beauty Pie as 'the Everlane and Costco of makeup', and the model later earned the 'Netflix of high-end beauty' label as the company doubled its members in fiscal 2021 and raised a $100 million Series B co-led by Index Ventures and Insight Partners.

The membership fee, not the markup, became the revenue engine, so product prices could be honest for the first time.

$100 of rolling monthly credit turned a discount into an allowance — buying felt like a member perk, not a sale.

Publishing guest prices beside member prices made the value legible: every product page advertised the club.

Skipping branded packaging and retail distribution let the same factory formulas compete on price instead of label.

If the brand name carries most of a product's price, sell access to the factory instead: make the membership the product, and every honest price becomes the pitch.

The bet outlived its launch moment. When pandemic lockdowns accelerated direct-to-consumer shopping, Beauty Pie doubled its members in fiscal 2021 and raised a $100 million Series B in September 2021, led by Index Ventures and Insight Partners, to fund warehouses, pop-up shops and a Beauty Pie Plus tier. Kilgore's buyers' club still sells memberships on the same terms — stripping out what the company calls its 'no-middlemen, no-ridiculous-retailer-markup' pricing — as the wider beauty industry moved toward subscription and D2C formats.