GLP-1 cost calculator: what a program costs over 3, 6 and 12 months

How the three totals are built

Five inputs, one rule, and no hidden step. Recurring charges are added together and multiplied by the number of months; one-time fees are added once at the end. The average is the total divided by the months in that horizon, so a one-time fee is spread across the horizon it was paid in rather than quietly ignored.

Recurring charges

Medication, membership, shipping and any other charge the program takes every month. Each is its own field so a separate membership is visible instead of disappearing into a bundled price.

One-time fees

An intake, consultation or setup charge taken once. It is added to every horizon exactly once and never multiplied by the months, which is why it shows up proportionally larger over three months than over twelve.

Average per month

The horizon total divided by its months. It is a derived figure, printed beside the total rather than instead of it, because an average that hides a one-time charge describes a bill nobody receives.

Blank fields

Counted as $0, because the field you left empty is a charge you are not paying. A medication price is required, since without it there is no total to show.

Membership and consultation fees

The membership field is the one most often left empty by mistake. In this site’s records, 8 of 66 standard monthly programs bill a mandatory membership or program fee as its own recurring line, with recorded amounts $25, $74, $75, $99 and $149 a month. Entering only the medication charge on one of those programs understates the total by the membership, every month, for as long as the plan runs.

27 recorded programs state no separate membership or consultation fee at all, so provider review, prescribing and shipping sit inside the single recorded charge — for those, the medication field is the whole recurring price. A further 30 leave the membership amount unestablished. That is a blank rather than a zero, so the honest entry is the medication charge alone with the amount treated as open, not as free.

The recorded amounts, the programs that bill them and the date each page was read are in the membership fee ledger. Where a program brings insurance into the bill, the lines change shape entirely, and insurance-assisted versus cash pay sets out which line belongs in which field.

A consultation charge is a third shape, and it belongs in a different field from a membership. A membership recurs every month; a consultation is usually taken once, so it belongs in the one-time field. Lavender Sky Health records a $65 new-patient consultation charged once at the start. Entered as a monthly membership it would be counted twelve times over a year and inflate the total by hundreds of dollars; entered as a one-time fee it is counted once, in every horizon, and its share of the total shrinks as the horizon lengthens.

Some programs include the consultation in the plan charge instead of billing it separately. Surfbound Health records a $0 consultation with shipping included, and OrderlyMeds records virtual consults as included, so for both the medication field is the whole recurring price and a consultation entry would double-count care already paid for.

The harder case is a required care charge that is billed separately without a published amount. Amazon One Medical publishes a medication-only figure and bills care separately from $39 with the medication and labs excluded, so the recurring care charge — and therefore the program’s all-in monthly cost — is not established. That is a blank, not a zero, and no total can be completed from it until the amount is published.

Introductory prices versus the ongoing rate

A first-period discount is the most common way a monthly headline ends up lower than what a patient actually pays. The calculator holds one ongoing rate per field, so the honest method is to type the rate that applies after the introductory period, then count the discounted period separately and add it. Nothing on this page is prefilled with a competitor’s price, so the rate you type is the one you were quoted.

A discount that expires

NovoCare Pharmacy records the Wegovy pen at $349 a month across the standard doses, with new patients starting at 0.25 mg or 0.5 mg offered $199 a month for two fills through December 31, 2026. A three-month total for that new patient is $199 × 2 + $349 = $747, against $1,047 at the ongoing rate — a $300 difference inside three months. The introductory figure is recorded, not published as the pen price, because it describes two fills rather than the rate.

A starter that covers two months

OrderlyMeds records its ongoing monthly rate at $299 for continuing patients, while new patients enter through a two-month starter priced at $299 in total — an entry price covering two months, not a monthly rate. That distinction changes the arithmetic completely: the starter is not a discount on each month, it replaces the first two months’ charges with one payment. A three-month total is $598, six months $1,495 and twelve months $3,289. Dividing the $299 starter by two to produce a “monthly” figure would invent an installment the provider does not bill.

Both entry prices carry a check date on the program’s record, and the ongoing rates they sit beside are compared in the lowest verified monthly prices and on the standard monthly comparison.

When the charge rises with the dose

A dose ladder is not a subscription price. On a program priced by dose, the monthly charge you enter today is the charge for the dose you are on now, and it changes when the dose changes. The calculator will not escalate a figure on its own, and it should not: the month a dose steps up is a clinical decision, not an arithmetic one.

Recorded ladders differ in shape. LillyDirect steps from $299 at 2.5 mg to $399 at 5 mg and $449 at 7.5 mg and higher, and the $449 also requires a refill within 45 days. Amble records a two-tier compounded ladder — $289 a month at 2.5 mg to 5 mg and $329 at 7.5 mg to 15 mg. Ro records its drug line rising with dose while the membership stays fixed, so only part of the bill moves. NovoCare prices the Wegovy pill at $149, $199 and $299 by dose, while the pen is flat at $349 across the standard doses.

The arithmetic of a stepped ladder is worked through in Example 2 below, and the recorded ladders themselves are compared in the 2026 monthly pricing study. Where a program prices by dose, its provider profile prints the ladder rather than a single figure.

Two worked examples on recorded prices

Both examples below use the same three lines of arithmetic as the calculator: recurring charges multiplied by the months, a one-time fee added once, and the total divided by the months for the average. Neither is a recommendation, and the figures are the publicly published prices in this site’s records on the date each page was read.

Example 1: a separate membership beside the medication

Ro bills a membership and the medication as two monthly lines: $149 membership plus tirzepatide from $299. Typed into the calculator as medication $299 and membership $149, the recurring line is $448 a month and the one-time field stays empty, because neither line is charged once.

Prices published on ro.co (provider pricing page, opens in a new tab), read October 18, 2026. The recorded plan, its terms and its evidence sit on the Ro profile.

The same program prepaid is a different sum. Ro prices a twelve-month prepaid membership at $74 a month instead of $149, so the recurring line becomes $373 and a twelve-month total would read $4,476. Treat that as an equivalent, not a bill: the prepaid membership is taken up front, which is exactly the shape of charge the calculator does not model and the reason it keeps a prepaid term out of its monthly fields.

Example 2: a charge that steps up with the dose

LillyDirect publishes Zepbound at $299 at 2.5 mg, $399 at 5 mg and $449 at 7.5 mg and higher on a refill placed within 45 days, with no membership fee. The calculator holds one recurring rate, so a rising dose has to be counted in steps. Assuming three months at the starting dose and $449 from the fourth month on:

Prices published on lillydirect.lilly.com (provider pricing page, opens in a new tab), read October 18, 2026. The recorded plan, its terms and its evidence sit on the LillyDirect profile.

Read the third row carefully: entering $299 once and multiplying by twelve would print $3,588, while the stepped ladder comes to $4,938 — $1,350 more over a year. That gap is the whole reason a single monthly headline is not a year of charges. The published ladders behind these steps are compared in the 2026 injectable price study.

What you are billed versus the monthly equivalent

A monthly equivalent is a derived number, not a charge. Where a program bills on a fixed-day interval, the figure a comparison prints is the charge normalized to a month — the charge multiplied by 365.25, divided by 12, divided by the billing days. The charge itself never changes, and it is always the amount actually taken.

A four-week cycle is the case that matters. Twelve 28-day cycles is 336 days, not a year, so a four-weekly charge is taken about 13.04 times a year rather than twelve. A $280 charge on a 28-day cycle therefore works out at $304.38 a month, and a year of that charge is $3,652.50 rather than $3,360 — about $292.50 more than twelve charges.

The calculator counts months, so a twelve-month total on a four-weekly charge lands near the lower figure, not the higher one. That is a known limit, stated rather than hidden: enter the charge you are billed, read the total as a comparison, and add the extra billing cycle yourself if you want a year of actual payments. This site never converts one billing interval into another and never publishes an annual figure for a plan billed four-weekly.

The same distinction is kept in the published data: the price dataset carries the actual charge and the derived monthly equivalent in separate fields, each with the cadence it was read on. The interval mix across the sample is broken out in the 2026 monthly pricing study.

How to verify a provider’s published terms

Every figure this calculator asks you to type should be checkable in under two minutes. The method is the same one used to build the records here, and it needs nothing more than the provider’s own pages.

1. 1. Read the pricing page, not a review or an ad.

   Ads and review sites repeat headline figures without the second line. The pricing page carries the plan charge, the dosing tier and often the membership, all in one place.

2. 2. Open the terms for the fees a price page leaves out.

   Search the terms for “membership”, “consultation”, “may apply” and “starting at”. A consultation charge is often disclosed there and nowhere else. If an amount is stated without a billing interval, it is not established, not free.

3. 3. Write down the date you read it.

   A price is only true as of a day. Without a date a quoted figure cannot be checked later, which is why every record here carries the date its source page was read.

4. 4. Compare it with the record, field by field.

   The provider directory prints each program’s recorded charge, membership state, commitment and check date beside a source link. The membership ledger does the same for fees, and the comparison method explains what each state means.

5. 5. If the page and the record disagree, say so.

   Records are corrected when a provider changes a page, and the difference is logged rather than quietly overwritten. The corrections log shows what changed and when.

One rule covers most of it: an unpublished amount is unknown. It is never a zero, and it never belongs in a field that will quietly treat it as one.

Where to get the numbers to type in

The calculator is only as good as its inputs, so each field maps to a page where the figure is recorded with a dated source. Read the program’s own pricing page, then check it against the record here.

• What each program charges a month

  The standard monthly injectable comparisons, with the plan charge and the membership state on the same row.

• The lowest verified monthly injection prices

  A floor for the medication field, with compounded and FDA-approved products kept apart rather than pooled.

• Cancellation and commitment terms

  How many periods you are committed to, which decides whether a twelve-month total is something you can actually stop paying.

• Filter programs by monthly total and terms

  Narrow to the plans whose recorded total and commitment you can accept, then run your chosen plan through the calculator above.

• What it costs to move to another program

  The period already paid for, any stated exit charge and the next program’s first charge — the costs a three-month total does not show.

• What the recorded prices actually look like across programs

  The 2026 injectable price study shows how far a single monthly headline sits from the recorded sample; the 2026 monthly pricing study breaks the same records down by billing interval and membership state.

What the calculator cannot tell you

It does not model a prepaid multi-month or annual term, taxes, or a price that changes mid-year. A prepaid term has no monthly installment to add up, and dividing its total by its months would invent a bill nobody receives. If a program’s charge steps up with the dose, the total follows only the figure you typed, not the later steps.

It is also not a statement of availability, an eligibility check or a clinical opinion. Whether a program serves your state, accepts you and suits your history are three separate questions, and a lower total does not answer any of them.

GLP1 Buyer Guide is published by Open Water Rx LLC, which also operates Surfbound Health. The recorded terms for that program are handled like every other row; its current pricing page is a sponsored link, and the ownership relationship is stated in full.