Eight questions. Instant estimate. Find out how many grafts your donor area can safely provide — adjusted for your hair type, density, and loss stage.
Age affects donor stability — younger patients may continue to lose hair, which changes long-term planning.
Pick the diagram that most closely matches your current situation.
Not sure? Pick the stage that looks slightly more advanced — conservative planning leads to better outcomes.
Think about your father, paternal grandfather, and maternal uncles.
This defines the boundary of your permanent safe donor zone. Strong family history narrows the extractable safe zone.
Optional: AI donor scan
Upload a photo of the back of your head — AI auto-fills steps 4–6 in ~15 seconds.
AI scan complete — steps 4–6 pre-filled
Review and confirm each step below, or override any answer.
Roll a single hair from your donor area between your fingers to feel its thickness.
Coarse hair can cover up to 60% more surface area per graft than fine hair — this significantly affects results.
AI detected this based on your photo — confirm or change above.
Look at the natural curl of your donor hair when dry and untreated.
Curly and coily hair gives dramatically more apparent density — a coily graft can cover 50% more visible area than a straight one.
AI detected this based on your photo — confirm or change above.
Look at the back and sides of your scalp (use a hand mirror or ask someone). How thick does the hair appear overall?
Average donor density is 70–90 follicular units/cm². This is the single biggest driver of your total graft capacity.
AI detected this based on your photo — confirm or change above.
The safe donor zone is a horseshoe-shaped band running from ear to ear across the back of the scalp. The taller and wider this band, the more grafts are available.
How to check
Use a hand mirror facing away from a wall mirror. Look at the back of your head and find where the thick hair ends and thins out toward the crown. The shaded area in the diagrams below represents that band — pick the one that matches yours.
Not sure? Pick Standard — it's the most common and the safest conservative estimate.
Prior FUE or FUT sessions reduce the pool of grafts that can be safely re-harvested from the same zone.
Based on your 8 inputs
Hair quality factors (coverage multipliers)
Coverage multipliers affect visual density, not raw graft count.
What this means for you
Grafts typically needed ()
Your safe 1st-session capacity
AI Photo Analysis
Statistical estimates based on published donor density norms (ISHRS 2022, Norwood scale). Actual capacity can only be confirmed by a surgeon using a densitometer during in-person assessment.
Send your photos and a hair transplant specialist will give you a personalised donor capacity evaluation — including technique recommendation and graft plan. Free and without obligation.
The horseshoe-shaped zone at the back and sides contains DHT-resistant follicles that are genetically permanent. Grafts extracted from here retain that resistance after transplant — they won't fall out due to pattern baldness.
Two patients with identical graft counts can have dramatically different visual results. Coarse, curly hair can cover 60–80% more surface area per graft than fine, straight hair. Your hair characteristics matter as much as raw numbers.
Surgeons typically never harvest more than 50% of available grafts across a patient's lifetime. Over-extraction causes permanent thinning of the back and sides. Preserving donor capacity across sessions is critical for long-term outcomes.
Understanding your donor area is the first step in planning any hair restoration procedure. Its condition and density directly determine how many grafts are available and what results are realistically achievable.
The donor area is the region where healthy follicles are harvested for transplant. In the vast majority of procedures this is the occipital and temporal zone — a horseshoe-shaped band at the back and sides of the scalp. Hair here is DHT-resistant: it does not respond to the hormone responsible for male-pattern hair loss, and this resistance is preserved after the follicles are relocated to thinning areas.
Crucially, every individual's donor supply is finite. Most people have between 5,000 and 8,000 extractable grafts available over their lifetime. Because extracted follicles do not regenerate, surgeons must plan each session with long-term donor preservation in mind.
FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) removes individual follicular units one by one using a micro-punch tool, leaving tiny circular scars distributed across the donor zone. This is the standard technique in Istanbul clinics and leaves no linear scar.
FUT (Follicular Unit Transplantation) removes a strip of scalp, from which grafts are dissected under a microscope. It can yield more grafts in a single session but leaves a linear scar. Most modern clinics outside of certain markets have moved to FUE.
When scalp density is insufficient — typically in advanced Norwood 6–7 cases or revision surgeries — surgeons may turn to beard or chest hair (Body Hair Transplant, BHT). Beard hair is the strongest alternative: it is DHT-resistant, coarse, and adds good coverage. Chest hair is finer and used mainly for bulk. Both differ in texture and growth cycle from scalp hair, so results are best when mixed with scalp grafts rather than used alone.
Online donor estimators (including this one) provide a solid starting point by evaluating your hair characteristics and loss stage — but a definitive capacity figure requires an in-person or digital trichoscopy assessment by a surgeon.
Average extractable grafts in the permanent donor zone. Varies significantly by genetics, ethnicity, and scalp size.
Maximum safely harvestable across all sessions combined. Exceeding this risks visible thinning of the donor zone.
A single follicular unit typically contains multiple hairs. This multiplier is what converts graft count to actual hair count.
Hair Calibre
Coarse, thick hair covers 60–80% more surface area per graft than fine hair. Two patients with 3,000 grafts can look dramatically different depending on calibre.
Curvature (Kink)
Curly or coily hair creates more visual bulk per graft. Wavy hair adds ~15% coverage advantage over straight hair at the same graft density.
Donor Density
Natural scalp density ranges from 60–100 follicular units per cm². Higher native density allows more conservative extraction spacing, protecting the donor zone's appearance.
Donor Area Size
A wider safe zone (measured in cm²) means more total follicles to draw from. Scalp laxity (looseness) affects how safely the strip method can be used in FUT.
This is one of the most searched questions before a hair transplant — and the honest answer is nuanced.
The short answer:
Extracted follicles do not grow back in the donor area. Once a follicular unit is removed by FUE or FUT, it is gone from that location permanently. The follicle is simply relocated — it continues to grow in the recipient area instead.
Despite the permanent removal of follicles, the donor area typically looks unchanged because of how modern FUE distributes extraction points. Rather than concentrating harvesting in one spot, surgeons space micro-punch sites evenly across the safe zone so surrounding hair conceals the empty follicle sites.
The critical rule is that extraction density should not exceed 35–40% of follicles per cm² in any given area — above this threshold, thinning becomes visible even with short haircuts. Reputable clinics map extraction patterns digitally before surgery to stay within safe limits.
Ready to estimate how many grafts your donor zone can safely provide?
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