The 2025 Contact Lens Report uncovers how more than 1,400 practicing optometrists across the US and Canada are navigating a rapidly innovating contact lens market.
This year, confidence in fitting remains high—but cost-driven dropout is rising, and new wearer habits reveal key opportunities for practices.
Download the 2025 Contact Lens Report now, or keep reading to preview the findings!
2025 Contact Lens Report
Download the report to see the number one cause of contact lens dropout, innovations in contact lenses, and prescribing and fitting habits from fellow optometrists.
The 2025 Contact Lens Report covers questions regarding:
- Practice owners' interest in expanding their contact lens line of service
- The most frequently fit contact lens modality
- Confidence in fitting contact lenses—from spherical to torics
- Optometrists’ opinions on the future of contact lens research
Download the 2025 Contact Lens Report now, or keep reading for a sneak peek at our findings!
The calculus of contacts: New wearers vs. patient dropout
From weekly to presbyopic to toric fits, this year’s data makes one thing clear: ODs feel extremely confident across all core fitting modalities.
However, patient expectations—and challenges—are shifting:
- Cost is now the #1 cause of dropout, representing 51.83% of reported cases (up 10% from 2024).
- Comfort issues remain the biggest obstacle for new wearers, with 35.89% dropping out for this reason.
The report reveals that most ODs introduce contact lenses during the exam—but significant opportunities exist earlier in the patient flow.
Modality preferences: Dailies dominate, but ODs are looking to the future
When recommending lenses, ODs overwhelmingly choose daily disposables, suggesting them more than 82% of the time. Patients themselves mirror this trend, with 53.75% wearing dailies.
Optometrists consistently called for expanded innovation in:
Weekly options and additional toric multifocal choices ranked highly on practitioners’ “most needed products” list—signaling strong demand for more versatile offerings in 2026 and beyond.
Key Takeaways
- Comfort remains the biggest issue for new wearers, underscoring the need for better first-fit strategies.
- Daily disposables remain the gold standard, both for recommendations and patient adherence.
- Innovation demand is strong, particularly in multifocals, weekly lenses, and toric categories.
- ODs are highly confident fitters, but many want more tools to grow lens capture and improve complex fits.
