Imaging Core Lab Cost: What Sponsors and CROs Pay

Imaging core lab cost has no single price, because it is built from three layers: scanner time or per-study fees, expert reader labor, and the data management that connects them. Published US academic core rates run from about $130 to $1,001 per hour depending on the modality and who is paying. Clinical trial quotes add reader, platform and logistics charges on top. The surest way to control the total is to buy lab and imaging data as one integrated package, with one visit grid and one data flow, which is what we build at KoHealth Labs.

TL;DR

• Academic imaging core rates are hourly and public. In 2026 they range from $130 per hour for optical imaging to over $1,000 per hour for external academic MRI or PET/CT use.
• Trial imaging core lab quotes are different: they bundle scanner access, central reads, platform fees and project management, and radiologist time is the largest single driver.
• Variable hourly pricing can drift during a study. Fixed-fee structures give clearer budgets.
• Protocol complexity, the number of time points and after-hours collections move cost more than the modality label does.
• Scoping lab and imaging together, with one data standard, removes duplicate setup and reconciliation work.

Two different things are called an “imaging core lab”

Search results for this topic mix two kinds of pages, and the numbers are not comparable.

The first is the university research core facility: a shared scanner or microscope that investigators book by the hour. Its price list is public and tiered by user type (internal, federal, external academic, industry).

The second is the clinical trial imaging core laboratory: an independent group that standardizes image acquisition across sites, reads the images centrally, and delivers analysis-ready data to the sponsor. It is quoted per study, per time point, or as a project fee, and it is rarely published.

If you are a sponsor or CRO, the academic rates are useful as a floor for scanner access. They are not a quote for a trial. The sections below take each layer in turn.

What academic imaging cores charge in 2026

Published fee schedules show how much the same scanner can cost depending on who books it.

Sources for the table: the Martinos Center core services fee schedule, the McLean Imaging Center core page, the Emory CSIC rate page and the UC Davis Multimodal Imaging Core rates.

Three patterns matter for budgeting:

1. The user category changes the price by roughly 40% to 60%. At Martinos, the external academic rate is about 44% above the internal federal rate. At Emory, external PET/CT is about 56% above internal. Industry sponsors usually sit in the highest tier, and each facility sets its own category definitions.
2. Extras are billed separately. UC Davis charges technical labor at $105 per hour and professional consultation at $170 per hour, and bills supplies separately from hourly rates unless a line says otherwise. Emory’s PET/CT block excludes the radiopharmaceutical.
3. Rates reset every year. Each schedule above carries a fiscal-year window. Confirm the current rate with the facility before you budget.

What a trial imaging core lab quote actually contains

A trial quote covers more than scanner time. Typical components are:

• Imaging charter and setup. The document that defines acquisition parameters, read paradigms, blinding and data flow. Our guide on turning FDA guidance into site checks with an imaging charter walks through what it should cover.
• Site qualification and phantom or test scans. Confirming each site can produce comparable images.
• Image transfer and platform fees. Upload, de-identification, quality control and storage.
• Central reads. Radiologists or trained readers measuring endpoints, often with adjudication for discordant reads.
• Data transfer and mapping. Delivering reads in a format the biostatistics team can use. See our walkthrough of mapping DICOM imaging data to SDTM.
• Project management and reporting.

The University of Utah’s institutional fee schedule is a useful reference for how sites think about this. It states that radiology setup and maintenance fees are pass-through charges that may vary with protocol complexity. It also lists the factors that move specimen processing fees: the number of central labs, total kits, kits per time point, specimen schedules, timed collections, timed ECGs, and after-hours or weekend collections.

Those same drivers apply when imaging is added to the visit grid. A study with many time points, tight windows and weekend visits costs more to image than one with a few scheduled scans.

Where the money goes: reader labor, software and logistics

The Grand View Research procurement report on clinical trial imaging services finds that radiologists responsible for data collection and image analysis account for 50% to 60% of labor cost and 46% to 48% of the overall cost of an imaging core laboratory. The same report names staff, software tools and logistics as the largest cost components of the category, and projects pricing growth of 20% to 30% annually.

The practical reading for a sponsor: the number of images to read, the number of readers per image and the adjudication rate are the biggest levers. A protocol that asks for double reads on every scan with a third adjudicator will cost far more than one with a single read and adjudication only on disagreement. If you want a view of how per-report radiology pricing is structured on the clinical side, this breakdown of teleradiology cost per study shows what each study type buys.

Acquisition time also matters at the scanner. A 2022 time-driven activity-based costing study of pediatric brain MRI in three US hospitals, published in PubMed, found basic case costs of $842 for sedated MRI, $262 for non-sedated MRI and $135 for restricted protocols. Labor was the largest source of variation between hospitals, and image acquisition time had the greatest effect on total cost. Shorter, well-specified protocols are cheaper at every site.

Hourly billing or fixed fee: how the quote is structured

The same Grand View report notes that most CROs use variable pricing based on FTE or billable hours. That model has a weakness: when a provider revises hourly charges during the study, the total budget moves with them. This has pushed buyers toward fixed-fee pricing, whose main benefit is a clear study budget.

When you compare quotes, ask for them in the same structure:

• A fixed fee per defined deliverable (per subject, per time point or per read) with the assumptions written down.
• Unit prices for anything outside those assumptions: extra reads, re-transfers, protocol amendments.
• Which charges are pass-through, and what markup applies.

A fixed fee only protects you if the assumptions are realistic. Quotes built on an optimistic scan count look cheap and then grow through change orders.

How to scope the full imaging budget before you ask for quotes

Before you send an RFP, put these items in writing. Each one removes a line of guesswork from the quote.

1. Modalities and endpoints. Which scans, and which measurements are primary or secondary.
2. Visit grid. Number of subjects, sites and time points. Our guide to mapping your visit grid to clinical trial lab costs shows how to tie each visit to the lab and imaging it triggers.
3. Read design. Single or double read, adjudication rules, blinding.
4. Site count and geography. More sites mean more qualification and more transfer troubleshooting.
5. After-hours or timed procedures. These raise cost, as the Utah schedule shows for specimen collections.
6. Data deliverables. Formats, transfer frequency, interim analyses, and the regulatory-aligned structure the biostatistics team expects.
7. Storage and archive period.
8. Amendment handling. How changes to the protocol are priced.

Collect the quote against this list and you can compare vendors line by line instead of total against total.

Can an imaging core lab lower total trial cost?

It can, when it removes rework. Reader variability is the clearest example. Higher measurement variance means more subjects to reach the same statistical power, and standardized acquisition and central reads are designed to reduce that variance. Central reads also keep image quality problems from surfacing after database lock, when they are most expensive to fix.

The savings usually come from the interfaces rather than the reads themselves. Every handoff between a lab vendor, an imaging vendor and the data team is a place for mismatched subject IDs, visit labels and formats. Integrating the sources reduces that reconciliation. We cover the operational side in why radiology and lab integration speeds trials.

Our perspective

Most budget surprises we hear about in trial imaging come from the seams between vendors, not from the price of any one scan. A lab vendor, an imaging vendor and a data team each quote their own piece, and nobody owns the visit grid that connects them.

That is why we built KoHealth Labs around integrated lab and imaging services. Phlebotomy, courier specimen pickup, test panels across more than 100 biomarkers, genomics and imaging, and regulatory-aligned data delivery sit under one partner, with dedicated onboarding and training for your sites.

Our AI-driven analysis-ready data bundles are designed to arrive in a form your biostatistics team can use without a second round of cleaning. When the visit grid, the specimen flow and the imaging flow are scoped together, the quote you receive describes the whole study rather than a single line item.

We would rather help you define the assumptions at the start than negotiate change orders later. Bring your protocol and visit schedule, and we will map what each visit needs.

Kohealth Labs

Scope lab and imaging together

If you are planning a study, we can help you price lab testing and imaging against one visit grid. Our clinical trial services cover specimen collection and transport, biomarker and imaging panels, EMR integration and data delivery aligned to regulatory requirements, with onboarding for the sites that will run the protocol.

See how the pieces fit on our clinical trials page, or read how we structure analysis-ready lab and imaging data for CROs and sponsors.

FAQ

How much does an imaging core lab cost?

It depends on the type. University core facilities publish hourly rates, such as $130 per hour for optical imaging and $280 per hour for CT at UC Davis, or $1,001 per hour for external academic MRI or PET/CT at the Martinos Center. Trial imaging core lab quotes are project-based and depend on the protocol, so they are built from your visit grid and read design.

Why are industry and external rates higher than internal rates?

Facilities set tiered rates by user category, and internal or federally funded users typically pay less. At Emory, for example, a 3T or 7T MRI hour is $653 internal and $1,019 external. Each facility defines its own categories, so check the current schedule.

What is usually billed on top of the hourly rate?

Supplies, technical labor, professional consultation and radiopharmaceuticals are often separate. UC Davis lists technical labor at $105 per hour and consultation at $170 per hour, with supplies billed separately. Ask any provider which of these are included in a quoted fee.

Is fixed-fee or hourly pricing better for a trial?

Fixed-fee pricing gives a clearer budget, because hourly charges can change during a study. A fixed fee works best when the quote lists its assumptions on subject count, time points and reads, and prices out-of-scope work in advance.

What should I ask for in an imaging core lab quote?

Request a line-by-line breakdown covering setup, site qualification, transfer and platform fees, reads and adjudication, data delivery, project management, and amendment pricing. Ask which items are pass-through. Give every vendor the same protocol assumptions so the quotes are comparable.

Sources

• Core Services Fee Schedule, Martinos Center
• Research Core Facilities, McLean Imaging Center
• Current Rates, Emory University CSIC
• UC Davis Multimodal Imaging Core Rates 2026
• University of Utah Clinical Research Institutional Fee Schedule
• Clinical Trial Imaging Services Cost Intelligence Report, Grand View Research
• Pediatric Outpatient Noncontrast Brain MRI: A Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Analysis, PubMed

For more information about our diagnostic testing, clinical research laboratory services, or partnership opportunities, visit https://kohealthlabs.com or contact KoHealth Labs at (469) 792-8439 and ask for Amy Patterson.