Head to head
Pulsetto vs Truvaga Plus: two neck devices, $240 apart
Same nerve, same place on the body, same regulatory category, and neither one appears in a published trial. That strips the decision down to how you want to spend the time.
The short answer
Truvaga Plus asks for two minutes and costs $499. Pulsetto asks for four to twenty minutes and costs $259. The $240 between them does not buy evidence, because neither device has any of its own.
Pick Pulsetto if you would rather put something on and get on with your evening than hold a device against your neck.
Pick Truvaga if two minutes is the only session length you will realistically commit to, and the price is not the deciding factor.
Disclosure: Vagus Lab may earn a commission if you buy through links on this page. It does not change how we score devices. Our method is published and applied the same way to devices we have no commercial relationship with.
Side by side
| Pulsetto | Truvaga Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $259, free shipping | $499 |
| How you use it | Worn around the neck, hands free | Held against one side of the neck |
| Coverage | Both sides at once | One side at a time |
| Session | 4 to 20 minutes depending on program | 2 minutes |
| App | Required for everything | Free app, not required to run a session |
| Consumable | Conductive gel | Electrode spray, around 2 months a bottle |
| Subscription | Optional premium content at $9.99 a month | None |
| Regulatory status | General wellness product | General wellness product |
| Named in indexed publications | No | No |
| Warranty | 2 years | See vendor |
| Returns | 30 days, you pay return shipping | See vendor |
The real difference is what your hands are doing
Both devices deliver current to the vagus nerve where it runs through the neck. That much is identical. What differs is the format, and the format is what decides whether a device gets used or ends up in a drawer.
Pulsetto is worn. It sits around the neck and stimulates both sides at once, controlled entirely from the phone app, with programs from four to twenty minutes. You can read, watch something or lie down while it runs.
Truvaga Plus is held. You spray on the conductive solution, press it to one side of the neck, and hold it there for two minutes, then repeat on the other side if you want both. It is the shortest session in the category and the most hands on.
Neither format is better in the abstract. A two minute session you have to stand still for is easy to fit into a morning and easy to forget in the evening. A twenty minute session you can do while doing something else costs more clock time and less attention.
The clearance question, because it comes up every time
Truvaga is made by electroCore, which also makes gammaCore. gammaCore is genuinely FDA cleared, with five clearances in the openFDA database going back to a 2017 De Novo, and it is genuinely studied, with more than a hundred records on PubMed.
Truvaga is not that device. It is sold without a prescription as a general wellness product, which is electroCore’s own wording, and a search for Truvaga on PubMed returns nothing. A clearance belongs to the specific device it was granted for.
Pulsetto is in the same position with none of the adjacent credibility. It is a general wellness product with no indexed publication naming it either.
So on evidence this is a tie at zero, and anyone telling you otherwise is reading a parent company’s regulatory history as though it were a product claim. What the research does support is worth five minutes before you spend anything.
What you actually pay
Pulsetto is $259 with free shipping on the offer our link reaches, and the stimulation programs run on the free app tier. The premium content library is a separate optional subscription, and it is worth knowing that before you buy rather than after. The other recurring cost is conductive gel.
Truvaga Plus is $499 with a free app and no subscription. Its recurring cost is the electrode spray, which the company says lasts around two months a bottle.
Both work fully without paying anything monthly. Neither one is a device where the ongoing cost is the story.
Who should pick which
Pick Pulsetto if you want both sides stimulated at once, you want your hands free, or the price gap matters. It is also the easier one to build an evening habit around, because it works while you are doing something else.
Pick Truvaga if the thing that has stopped you before is time, you like that it runs without the phone, or you specifically want a device from a manufacturer with a real regulatory track record in this technology.
Consider neither if what you actually want is the device the published trials used. That is the ear clip, it costs $900, and it asks for 30 to 60 minutes a day.
Frequently asked questions
Both stimulate the vagus nerve at the neck. Pulsetto is $259 and worn like a collar, treating both sides at once for 4 to 20 minutes while your hands are free. Truvaga Plus is $499 and handheld, pressed against one side of the neck for two minutes. Neither is named in an indexed study.