Educational information only. At Precursor, hormone testing is requested and reviewed by a clinician and considered alongside your history and other markers, not as a stand-alone diagnosis. Testing is performed in NATA-accredited laboratories to ISO 15189 standards.

What is free testosterone?

Free testosterone is the small fraction of testosterone that is not bound to carrier proteins and is therefore available to act on your tissues. It is often calculated from total testosterone and SHBG rather than measured directly, and it can give a truer sense of your active hormone level.

Why it matters

Free testosterone can be more informative than the total when carrier-protein levels are unusual, because the total can look normal while the active portion is not. It helps a clinician judge how much testosterone is genuinely available to your body.

What your results can mean

Lower than expected

A low free testosterone, particularly alongside symptoms, can reflect the same range of causes as a low total, and is interpreted together with SHBG and your clinical picture.

Higher than expected

A higher free testosterone is read in the context of your sex, symptoms and other hormones rather than in isolation.

Reference ranges in Australia

Free testosterone is reported in picomoles per litre (pmol/L) or as a calculated value, with ranges that differ markedly by sex and age. Read your result against your own report and with a clinician.

Understanding your testosterone with Precursor

Free testosterone only makes sense alongside total testosterone and SHBG. At Precursor, hormone testing is requested and reviewed by a clinician, so your result is read in the context of your history and symptoms. If this is something you would like to understand, you can speak with Precursor's clinical team about whether testing is right for you.