Buying and sourcing

What a GLP-1 actually costs through each legal channel

This page is a price index, not a buying guide. It reports figures published by manufacturers and by the federal purchasing site, each with the date it was read, because a drug price is a fact with a shelf life of weeks. It states no amount of any compound, recommends no channel, and links no seller of a compound. Eligibility for every programme described here is decided by the programme, not by an article.

Why one page cannot give you one number

Ask what a GLP-1 costs and the honest answer is a question back: through which channel, with what insurance, in which month. The molecule is constant. Everything that determines the price is administrative — which programme you enrol in, whether a commercial plan covers the product, whether a promotional window is still open, whether you are a government beneficiary.

So this page is organised by channel rather than by product. Under each channel is the figure that channel's own page published on 1 August 2026, and the condition the seller attached to it. Where a figure varies by presentation, only the range appears: the per-strength table is a list of amounts, and this site does not publish those.

Channel one: the federal purchasing site

TrumpRx publishes a cash price for each listed product alongside a higher figure it labels the original price. On 1 August 2026 the site showed Wegovy in pill form at $149 a month and in pen form at $199 a month, both against $1,349; Ozempic at $199 against $1,028; and Zepbound at $299 against $1,087.¹

The comparison figure is the useful part. It is the seller's own statement of what the same product costs without the programme, which makes the spread between the two columns a published fact rather than an estimate. Across those four listings the ratio between the two figures runs from roughly 3.6x to about 9x.¹

Channel two: manufacturer-direct self-pay

Novo Nordisk sells directly through NovoCare Pharmacy. On 1 August 2026 that page listed Wegovy pill from $149 a month and Wegovy pen from $199 a month, with the same two figures shown for Ozempic pill and pen. Each carried a footnote: self-pay pricing varies by presentation, the pen figure applies to patients new to the offer, and it is valid for two monthly fills through 31 December 2026.²

The step-up is published on the same page and is easy to miss. Novo Nordisk's own footnote states that after those two fills the price becomes $349 a month, and that a higher-strength pen presentation is $399 a month. An introductory price is a real price; it is just not the price of the twelfth month.³

Eli Lilly publishes a comparable structure for Zepbound. On 1 August 2026 its coverage-and-savings page showed $299 a month for a one-month prescription of the multi-dose pen, and stated in its own terms that the regular self-pay price for that pen runs from $299 to $699 a month depending on which presentation is dispensed. Which presentation applies to any given person is a clinical matter this page does not address.⁴

Channel three: the commercial-insurance savings card

Both manufacturers publish a savings card that produces the lowest headline figure on any of their pages — as little as $25 a month. Both also publish the condition in the same breath. Novo Nordisk's card is capped at $100 of savings a month and excludes government beneficiaries. Lilly's card requires commercial insurance that covers the product and a prescription consistent with the approved labelling, and is capped per fill and per calendar year.³⁴

Lilly also publishes the other side of that card. Where a commercial plan does not cover Zepbound, its terms state a price of as low as $499 for a one-month fill of the single-dose pen. Same card, same patient, different coverage status, roughly twentyfold difference in what appears at the counter.⁴

Channel four: the Medicare route

Government beneficiaries are excluded from the savings cards and are served by a separate programme. Both manufacturers describe a Medicare GLP-1 Bridge: Novo Nordisk states that eligible Medicare Part D beneficiaries can access Wegovy pen and pill for $50 a month between 1 July 2026 and 31 December 2027, and Lilly states Zepbound coverage through the same bridge for no more than $50 a month. Both pages note that a prior authorisation is required and that neither is a guarantee of coverage.³⁴

The channel this page will not price

There is a fifth route, and it is the one most price comparisons on the internet are actually about. It is not priced here, and the omission is deliberate rather than squeamish.

FDA has described its concerns with unapproved GLP-1 products marketed for weight loss, including complaints that products arrived warm or with inadequate ice packs, fraudulent compounded semaglutide and tirzepatide marketed in the United States, and direct-to-consumer marketing of compounds that cannot lawfully be compounded at all. It has separately clarified compounding policy as the national GLP-1 supply stabilised, and launched a Green List addressing illegally imported GLP-1 ingredients.⁶⁷⁸

Compounded preparations occupy a narrower category than most listings imply: FDA's own explainer states that compounded drugs are not FDA-approved, meaning the agency does not verify their safety, effectiveness or quality before they are marketed. A price attached to a product in that category is not comparable to a price attached to an approved one, because the two are not the same kind of object. Putting them in the same table would make them look like they were.⁵

How to read any price you find

Most of the price confusion in this market is not caused by sellers hiding numbers. It is caused by readers copying a number away from the four things that give it meaning.

• The channel. Federal purchasing site, manufacturer-direct, savings card, Medicare programme and unapproved supply are five different objects with five different prices.
• The eligibility condition. New-patient only, commercial insurance required, government beneficiaries excluded, prior authorisation required — each of these is attached to a number somewhere on the seller's page.
• The expiry. Introductory pricing carries a date and a step-up figure, and both are usually published in a footnote rather than in the headline.
• The date it was read. A price with no reading date is not evidence of anything, including of what it was on the day someone screenshotted it.¹²³⁴