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Between about $25 and about $1,349 a month — for the same drug. Which one you pick barely matters. How you buy it decides almost everything.
The price is a channel, not a drug
A month of Wegovy is $1,349 at a retail counter, $499 direct from Novo Nordisk, and about $25with a savings card if you have commercial coverage. Identical vial, fifty-fold spread. The retail number is not a price anyone is meant to pay — it is the opening bid in a rebate negotiation between the manufacturer and your insurer’s pharmacy middleman. Pay cash at the counter and you are paying the number designed for a negotiation you are not part of.
| Drug | Retail cash | Manufacturer-direct | With savings card |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wegovy | $1,349 | $499 | $25 |
| Zepbound | $1,349 | $549 | $25 |
| Ozempic | $997 | $499 | $25 |
| Mounjaro | $1,025 | $549 | $25 |
| Compounded via telehealth Not an FDA-approved product | — | — | from $99 |
Savings-card pricing requires commercial insurance and eligibility — it is not available to Medicare or Medicaid patients, which is exactly who most needs it. Compounded pricing is the advertised starting dose; see what “from $149/mo” actually turns into at a maintenance dose.
Want the ranked answer rather than the table? Every route to a GLP-1, ordered by what you actually pay →
Cash prices move a little by state. Coverage moves a lot: state Medicaid programmes differ enormously on whether they pay for a GLP-1 for weight loss at all, and that is what decides whether you face a copay or the full price. Click your state.
Median cash-pay monthly cost for wegovy per state. Click a state for full provider list, insurance carriers, and telehealth options.
Eli Lilly oral GLP-1 pill for weight loss (Apr 2026 launch)
First FDA-approved oral semaglutide for weight loss (Jan 2026)
Obesity-medicine telehealth that takes insurance
Telehealth GLP-1 with brand-name and compounded options
Compounded semaglutide via telehealth
Oral semaglutide for type 2 diabetes (FDA-approved 2019)
Tirzepatide for type 2 diabetes
Semaglutide approved for type 2 diabetes
FDA-approved tirzepatide for weight loss
FDA-approved semaglutide for chronic weight management
Anywhere from about $25 to about $1,349 a month — for the identical medication. The number depends on the channel you buy through, not on which drug you choose. Retail list price is roughly $1,000-1,350. Buying direct from the manufacturer (NovoCare, LillyDirect) cuts that to roughly $499-549. A manufacturer savings card, if you have commercial insurance and qualify, can take it to about $25. Compounded telehealth runs about $99-249, but you are no longer buying an FDA-approved product. Anyone quoting you a single number for "the cost of a GLP-1" is describing one channel and not telling you which.
Because the list price is not a price anyone is expected to pay — it is the starting point for rebate negotiations between manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers. When Novo and Lilly launched direct-to-consumer channels, they simply skipped that machinery and sold at roughly a third of list. Nothing about the vial changed. If you are paying cash at a retail pharmacy counter, you are paying the number designed for a negotiation you are not part of.
If you have commercial insurance that covers it, a manufacturer savings card is the cheapest legitimate route — roughly $25/month. If you do not, manufacturer-direct (about $499) is the cheapest way to get an FDA-approved product. Compounded telehealth is cheaper still (about $99-249) but is not an FDA-approved drug and is no longer broadly legal now that the shortages are over. We rank every route by actual price on our cheapest-GLP-1 page.
Cash-pay prices vary meaningfully by state, driven by pharmacy competition, regional chain pricing, and warehouse-club presence. What varies far more is coverage: state Medicaid programmes differ enormously in whether they cover GLP-1s for weight loss at all, and that decides whether you pay a copay or the full cash price. The map below is the fastest way to see where your state lands.