Where this sits.
Two other kinds of product compete for the same money. One is the consultation report, of which Qoves is the best-known. The other is the selfie-rating app, of which Umax and LooksMax AI are the best-known. This page sets out what each kind does well, what it structurally cannot do, and where we differ.
It is written by category rather than by company. The differences are architectural, so they survive any one firm's next update. The names are here so you can find this page when you search for them.
| Canthion | Qoves | Umax | LooksMax AI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | measurement report, computed in your browser | consultation report, sold as a membership | selfie-rating app | selfie-rating app |
| Your photo | measured in your browser | uploaded | uploaded | uploaded |
| Who reads it | no human writes it | a human team, against a fixed template | not stated | not stated |
| Time to result | seconds | days | fast | fast |
| Price | one payment, price on the page | membership, around $150 a year by third-party listings | $3.99 a week, about $200 a year | not stated |
| When the price appears | after you have seen your own measurements | only at checkout | after you have uploaded your photo | the same shape as Umax |
| What comes back | measurements with error bars, a score, face shape, feature cut-outs and a plan | a report written to a template, plus ethnicity-stratified norms, a clinical register and educational material | a score out of 100 and some tips | a score out of 100 and some tips |
| Error bar on every value | yes | not stated | not stated | not stated |
| Same photo, same numbers | yes, checkable against the hash on the report | not stated | not stated | not stated |
| Recommendations | graded against the evidence, and marked where there is none | not stated | some tips | some tips |
| Norms | published anthropometric tables, each named with its sample size | ethnicity-stratified norms | not stated | not stated |
Read from each service's own pages and third-party listings as at September 2026. Tell us if something has changed.
The subscription consultation report
What it is: Qoves, and products like it. As of mid-2026 Qoves sells a membership rather than a one-off report, and shows its price only at checkout; third-party listings put it at around $150 a year. You upload photographs, and then you wait. The wait is days, because a human team reviews each one. What comes back is a report written against a fixed template.
What you are paying for: one person's reading of your photographs, written to a template, on their schedule. You also get ethnicity-stratified norms and a clinical register, both of which are real, and a back catalogue of educational material.
Where we differ: ours runs on your device in seconds instead of days, and every value carries its error bar. Bone-level quantities are given as what a photograph can actually support: jaw taper and definition rather than a gonial angle, chin-to-lip direction rather than an E-line, with the method printed beside each one. The price is on the page. You see your own measurements before you are asked for it.
Worth knowing whoever you buy from: a photograph cannot measure bone. A report that gives you a gonial angle, an E-line or a profile angle derived from a photo is quoting a soft-tissue estimate under a bony name. Ours gives the measurement a photograph genuinely supports, and prints the method beside it. How every value is taken →
The selfie-rating app
What it is: Umax, LooksMax AI, Mogged and the rest. Upload a selfie, get a score out of 100 and some tips. Umax is listed at $3.99 a week, about $200 a year, with the paywall placed after you have uploaded your photo. The others follow the same shape.
What you are paying for: a number, weekly, forever. It arrives fast and the interface is pleasant.
Where we differ: the same photograph gives us the same measurements every time, because nothing is sampled. You can check that against the hash printed on the report. Every value carries an uncertainty. The recommendations are graded against the evidence rather than assembled from generic advice, and the report says which of them have no evidence at all. You pay once.
If a score changes when you upload the same picture twice, it is not measuring the picture.
What we do not sell
No human writes your report. If a practitioner's personal judgement is what you are after, that is a different purchase.
Our norms are published anthropometric tables. They are broad and citable, but not infinitely granular. Every one is named on the methodology page with its sample size.
The mock-ups show grooming. They render a haircut, a beard, brows, frames and skin on your own photograph. They will never render surgery: a picture of a face you cannot obtain is not a recommendation.
Bone structure accounts for roughly 4–5% of the variance in how faces are rated (Sano & Kawabata 2023). Skin, grooming, framing and definition account for the rest. That remainder is the part this report measures in detail, and the part it hands you a graded plan for.
Most of this category sells you the 5%. We measure it, then spend the report on the 95% you can actually move.
Straight answers to the questions people arrive with
Is Canthion a Qoves alternative?
For the measurement layer, yes. You get the same landmarks, ratios, comparison to published norms, a score, face shape, feature cut-outs and a plan. It is computed in your browser in seconds rather than by a human team over days, with an error bar on every value and the method printed beside each one. It is not an alternative if what you want is a practitioner's personal judgement. Nobody writes your report by hand here.
Is Umax worth $3.99 a week?
That is your call. Check one thing first: upload the same photograph twice. If the score changes, it is not measuring the picture. Canthion gives the same photograph the same numbers every time, and the hash printed on the report lets you check it. You pay once.
Does Canthion upload my photo?
Not to measure you. Landmark detection, the measurements, the skin analysis and the report all run in your browser, and the free scan uploads nothing. On the paid report, a crop of your photo is sent to an image model to draw the AI mock-ups; the privacy page sets out exactly what goes where.
Can any of these measure my gonial angle or E-line from a photo?
No. A photograph cannot measure bone. A report that hands you a gonial angle or an E-line from a photo is quoting a soft-tissue estimate under a bony name. Canthion gives the quantity a photograph genuinely supports, such as jaw taper and chin-to-lip direction, and names the method.
The measurement layer, in one place
Norms from Farkas et al., 1,470 subjects across 25 groups. Landmarks from MediaPipe, 478 per face, run in your browser. Every value carries ±1σ; every recommendation a grade from A to D with its citation. The construction of the score is printed on the report itself, and the methodology page has the arithmetic.
Prices and product details for other companies are taken from their own pages and from third-party listings as at September 2026 and will drift; check before you buy. Qoves, Umax, LooksMax AI and Mogged are the names of other companies' products and are used here only to identify them. Any third-party product names or marks referred to anywhere on this site remain the property of their owners.