The GLP-1 Cost Cheat Sheet

The number that matters is the 12-month number

Most GLP-1 marketing sells you a first-month teaser rate. The number that actually matters is what you will pay over a year, because this is a long-haul treatment, not a one-month fix. Anchor every decision to the annual figure and you will make faster, better choices. This guide is educational only and not medical advice — always confirm current pricing directly with each provider, since programs change what they charge.

Why budget for the long haul at all? Because the results depend on staying on it. In the maintenance trials, people who stopped semaglutide regained much of the weight they had lost, while those who continued held their loss¹. The medication works — roughly 15% mean body-weight loss over 68 weeks for semaglutide, up to about 20% for tirzepatide in their pivotal trials^2,3 — but those numbers assume you keep going. Plan your budget for twelve months, not one.

The seven price shapes, decoded

Every quote you will be shown is one of seven shapes. Find yours in the left column and read across — that is the cheat sheet. Dollar figures are the prices disclosed by the providers we track, as last verified; confirm the current number on the provider's own site.

Compounded semaglutide vs tirzepatide: the rough monthly picture

Compounded semaglutide is generally the lower-cost entry point, and compounded tirzepatide typically runs higher, reflecting the same pattern seen with the brand products. Both are usually far cheaper than brand-name pens, which is why compounding exists as an option at all. But two big caveats belong on the same line as the price: compounded GLP-1s are not FDA-approved brand products — the FDA does not review compounded drugs for safety and efficacy before they reach you — and the "monthly" price you are quoted often applies only to a starting dose.

There is a third caveat, and it is the one that costs the most: check which molecule the advertised price is for. Amble sells both under one heading — "Compounded GLP-1 injections" — and publishes one ladder, starting at $179. That is the semaglutide ladder. Its own intake catalog prices tirzepatide at $329 a month, 84% higher, and no page carries that number. If tirzepatide is what you want, an advertised price with no molecule attached to it is not a price for you, and the only way to learn the real one is to start an intake you cannot cost first.

BetterMe Rx is the purest version of the quiz-gated row in the table above, and worth knowing about because it is otherwise one of the more open brands here. It publishes no price at all — no pricing page, and product pages still carrying Shopify's stock "$19.99" placeholder — so the only figure on the public site is a banner offering $300 off an order whose cost it will not name. The real ladder starts at $205 a month for compounded semaglutide and only appears once you have begun a medical intake.

A related trap: a membership fee and a drug price that are both real, both disclosed, and never added together on the provider's own site. Primary Clinic (Direct GLP) requires an $89/mo Direct Primary Care membership before its wholesale GLP-1 dosing tiers even apply — the true starting cost is $174/mo for semaglutide, not the $85 wholesale figure alone. Regenics stacks the same way: a mandatory $79/mo membership plus a $249/mo semaglutide protocol, for $328/mo all-in. Both numbers are genuinely published — one in a compiled JS bundle, one in the provider's own public pricing API — but you have to find and add them yourself. Liv Body adds a different wrinkle: its per-drug pricing cards say $179/mo semaglutide, while its own FAQ separately claims the program "starts at just $249/month" — two real, disclosed prices on the same funnel that never reconcile with each other. Maves has the same shape in miniature: a $99-first-month hero banner next to an $89/month treatment card for what reads like the same product. Mint Medical Clinic takes the opposite approach — one flat $299/mo banner price covers either molecule — but the site never breaks out what that price actually includes.

Freya Meds is the annual-prepay row in the table above, made concrete. Its homepage leads with "Plans from as little as $150/month" — real, but only if you prepay a full year up front. Sign up month to month with no commitment instead and semaglutide is $297 and tirzepatide is $390, close to double the number on the homepage. JustAnswer Weight Loss takes the same shape further: its four commitment tiers run from a $149.97 first month down to $112.49/month on a 12-month prepay, and the site's own Google and Meta ad pixels report that 12-month figure as "the" price to advertising platforms — its own analytics anchor on the deepest tier, not the $249.97/month you would actually pay with no prepay. Whichever provider you're pricing, ask one question before you compare numbers: is this the rate for signing up today, or the rate for a commitment you haven't made yet?

Flat pricing vs dose-scaling: where the real money hides

Here is the trap. Many programs price by dose, so your cost climbs every time you titrate up. The teaser rate you signed up for covers a low starting dose; by the time you reach a therapeutic maintenance dose, your monthly bill can be materially higher than the headline number. A flat, all-in price does the opposite — one number covers the consult, the medication, and shipping, and it does not change as your dose increases.

For a busy budget, flat pricing wins on two fronts: it is usually cheaper over a full year, and it removes the recurring decision of whether the new, higher price is still worth it. You price it once. We break down exactly which programs use each model in flat-price vs dose-scaling providers compared, sort the field by real monthly price in our cheapest-GLP-1 ranking, and it is the main reason CoreAge Rx leads our shortlist — a single flat rate that does not punish you for reaching an effective dose.

The add-ons that inflate the real cost

The sticker price is rarely the whole bill. Watch for these:

• Membership or platform fees charged on top of the medication, sometimes billed separately so they are easy to miss.
• Consult or provider fees for the initial visit or for ongoing check-ins, which some programs fold in and others charge à la carte.
• Lab fees, if the program requires bloodwork you have to pay for out of pocket.
• A 28-day billing cycle rather than a calendar month — two of the programs we track bill that way, which is thirteen charges a year, not twelve.

Add these to the medication cost, multiply by twelve, and you have the real annual number. Two programs with identical medication prices can differ by hundreds of dollars a year once the add-ons are counted.

The decisive takeaway

Pick a flat, all-in price and confirm it covers the consult, the medication, and shipping with no dose-scaling and no separate membership fee. Then verify the total against a twelve-month horizon, not a first-month teaser. That single rule — flat, all-in, priced by the year — cuts through almost every pricing gimmick in this category and gives you a number you can actually plan around. Cheaper to reason about, cheaper over time, and one less recurring decision on an already full plate.

A few more label patterns worth reading: Factor Health MD headlines $99/month for two drugs, but a separate "Tirzepatide Plus" line runs $149/month, unreconciled. Joey Med headlines a first-fill promo over a higher standing rate; Invyncible shows every price as a permanent "sale" that never expires; TeleHealth Med gets it right with one flat, verified number. Eve and Open Water Rx run the same promo trap — $195 cut to $99 via code semfirst99, $249 cut to $159 via SEMASUMMER. Neo Soma Healthcare runs $99 for six weeks then $199 after — a longer runway, not a fake discount. Mevo Health skips the ladder: "as low as $199/mo," no dose price published.