What these drugs cost, and who each price is for

What does a month cost?

Three prices exist for each drug, and which one you meet is decided by your insurer rather than by the drug. The cash column is what the manufacturer charges through its own pharmacy.

Read from Eli Lilly and Company — manufacturer program terms · retrieved 2026-08-12 · one row per product, each read from that product’s own terms

The cash column is a range because these drugs are priced by dose. You do not stay on the bottom of that range. Every label here starts low and climbs, so the price you were quoted in month one is rarely the price in month six.

Who is shut out of the savings cards?

Anyone whose drug coverage comes from a government program. This is the rule that costs people money, so here it is in full.

Lilly names the programs one by one: Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare Part D, Medicare Advantage, Medigap, DoD, VA, TRICARE, and any state drug assistance program. Novo Nordisk uses shorter wording that covers the same people.

There is one surprise in the other direction, and it is worth money. Novo Nordisk states that three plan types do not count as government programs for its offer, so people on them keep it.

• The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
• Health exchange plans bought under the Affordable Care Act
• Insurance provided through state employee plans

Read from Novo Nordisk — manufacturer program terms · retrieved 2026-08-12

Two more conditions apply everywhere. You have to be 18 or older, and the prescription has to be for something the label covers. A Mounjaro card used for weight loss fails that second test, because the Mounjaro label is written for type 2 diabetes.

What if you are on Medicare?

The card is closed to you. Since 2026-07-01 a separate federal route has been open instead, and it is $50 a month.

The Medicare GLP-1 Bridge is a short-term program run by Medicare itself. It runs from 2026-07-01 to 2027-12-31. It covers three drugs, and Medicare lists them like this:

• Foundayo (tablet)
• Wegovy (injection or tablet)
• Zepbound (KwikPen only. The program doesn’t cover single-dose Zepbound vials or pens)

Three catches sit inside it, and two of them are about money rather than paperwork.

• The Part D deductible does not apply, and no part of the $50 counts toward your out-of-pocket limit.
• There is no low-income subsidy on it, so people who get help with drug costs may pay more here than under their plan.
• Your provider has to send the prescription and complete a prior authorization, and certify you are also on a diet and exercise program.

Read from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — federal program page · retrieved 2026-08-12

What if you have no insurance at all?

Both makers now sell direct at a fixed monthly price. It is the clearest number on this page, and the one people are least often told about.

Lilly sells Zepbound through its own pharmacy from $299 a month. Novo Nordisk sells the Wegovy pen at $349 and the tablet from $149. Ozempic runs $349, or $499 at the top dose. Mounjaro has no published cash price at all.

Read the small print on the month. Lilly counts a month as 28 days, so a year is 13 fills rather than 12. Novo Nordisk counts the pen the same way and the tablet as 30 days.

• What Zepbound costs, in full — Zepbound is the only one of the four where the cash price depends on how fast you refill.
• What Wegovy costs, in full — Wegovy is the only one of the four sold as a tablet as well as a shot, and the two are priced apart.
• What Ozempic costs, in full — Ozempic is a diabetes drug, and that changes the Medicare answer completely.
• What Mounjaro costs, in full — LillyDirect offers Mounjaro for self-pay but does not publish a price.
• What Trulicity costs, in full — Trulicity’s card is the joint most generous here and the easiest to switch off.
• What Victoza costs, in full — Victoza is the only product on this site with no manufacturer money at all.
• What Saxenda costs, in full — Saxenda is the one product here whose manufacturer publishes a number and no way to pay less than it.
• What Rybelsus costs, in full — The list price is the same $997.
• What the Wegovy pill costs — the tablet is priced apart from the shot at the counter and costs a pharmacy the same to buy.
• Which of these has a generic — one molecule here has approved copies a pharmacy can order, and it pays a fraction of the brand to buy them.
• Which patient-assistance programs still list a GLP-1 — the current no-charge lists include Ozempic and Trulicity, not every product made by either company.
• Why Costco, CVS and Walmart prices do not match — what six chains show online, and how to compare the same prescription and payer.

What you still need to check

We are a reference, not a middleman. That has three consequences worth stating outright.

• No code is printed here, and none will be. A card is issued by the manufacturer, to you, after you attest that you meet its terms. We cannot do that for you.
• We do not supply, arrange or guarantee any discount, and nothing here is an offer. If a price on this page and a price in the manufacturer’s terms disagree, theirs is the one that counts.
• No pharmacy product page, discount card or telehealth seller is linked. Retailer-owned help pages may be cited only to explain how a quote is produced; no price is copied from them.

What would make this page wrong

Prices rot faster than anything else we publish. So here is exactly what has to happen for a number above to stop being true.

• A manufacturer edits its terms. All four reserve the right to do that without telling anyone, and all four have.
• The cards reach 2026-12-31. Every one of them names that date as its own end.
• The Medicare program ends. Medicare has already set 2027-12-31 as the last day.

Each of those dates is printed beside the figure it governs rather than buried here, and a build check fails when a figure on this page has gone unread for too long. Prices are the one thing on this site that we would rather show as expired than show as current.

Where the dose questions live

These pages own the money. The brand pages own the drug, and they never mention a price.

• The Wegovy dose schedule stops at 7.2 mg, which is where the cash price stops climbing too.
• The Ozempic dose schedule stops at 2 mg, which is where the cash price stops climbing too.
• The Zepbound dose schedule stops at 15 mg, which is where the cash price stops climbing too.
• The Mounjaro dose schedule stops at 15 mg, which is where the cash price stops climbing too.
• The Trulicity dose schedule stops at 4.5 mg, which is where the cash price stops climbing too.
• The Victoza dose schedule stops at 1.8 mg, which is where the cash price stops climbing too.
• The Saxenda dose schedule stops at 3 mg, which is where the cash price stops climbing too.
• The Rybelsus dose schedule stops at 14 mg, which is where the cash price stops climbing too.

Take the acquisition-cost table

• Download the table as CSV
• Download the table as JSON

Questions readers ask

Where these prices lead