3 providers are running promotional pricing right now. Two of them don't say when it ends. · Verified September 15, 2026
Verified September 15, 2026 · Reading time: four minutes
You stopped because of what it costs. 58% of people on these medications have quit or seriously considered quitting over price, and among those who already stopped it is nearly 3 in 4. If that is you, there is a good chance you were only ever shown two of the three ways to pay for this — and the one nobody mentions is often the cheapest.
Here is what this page does. In four minutes it shows you the three lanes, what each one really costs in 2026, and how to tell which lane you belong in. Every figure was read off the source’s own page and carries the date we read it.
We are not going to ask you for an email address to see it, because you should not have to trade anything for a number that is public.
Three promises, and you can hold us to all of them
1. Find a price here that’s wrong and we fix it the same day — then we publish that we did, with the date. Mail editor@thestraightanswer.com and watch it happen.
2. No email, ever, to see a number. Every price, every annual total and every warning on this site is visible without giving us anything.
3. The order is set by cost and nothing else. The cheapest provider on our table pays us nothing, and neither do 6 of the ten cheapest — they rank above companies that do pay us, because they are cheaper. If that were ever untrue, promise 1 applies.
The part nobody explains
Whatever your plan says
The lane almost everyone tries first
It is also the lane that fails most often. Fewer than nine per cent of ACA marketplace plans cover these medications for weight loss at all, and where coverage exists it usually runs through prior authorisation — a process that is denied far more often than it is approved. If you have coverage, stop reading and use it. Most people do not.
$149–$349 a month
The lane hardly anyone knows exists
You can buy the real, FDA-approved medication directly from the company that makes it, for cash, without insurance and without a middleman. This did not used to be true. It became true in 2025 and most people have never been told. It is the same drug that costs over a thousand dollars a month at a pharmacy counter.
$99–$399 a month advertised
Where two-thirds of switchers went, because of cost
A compounding pharmacy mixes the medication to a prescription. It is a different legal category, and the FDA has never reviewed it for safety, effectiveness or quality. It is also where the advertised price and the real price separate most sharply — which is the next section, and the reason this site exists.
Manufacturer prices verified September 15, 2026 on each maker’s own savings page. Compounded range is the advertised starting price across the 16 providers we track.
Lane three, where the money actually goes missing
Every provider in lane three leads with a number. That number is almost never what you pay across a year, and the gap is not small. Some of them raise the price in month two and say so quietly. Some raise it and never say so at all. A few bill you every twenty-eight days rather than monthly, which is thirteen charges in a year rather than twelve — an extra month you were never told about and did not agree to.
Here is the same medication, from two providers we track. One costs $1,188 over twelve months. The other costs at least $4,788. Not a different drug, not a different dose — the same compounded medication, a different company. The advertised monthly prices are far closer together than those totals, which is exactly the point.
Four of the providers we track will not publish what month two costs at all. They show you a first month and go quiet. We cannot calculate an annual cost for any of them, and we say so on their row rather than guessing — because a twelve-month total you cannot work out before you buy is a decision you are not being allowed to make.
This is the question the spread should make you ask, and almost nobody answers it, so here it is. The expensive row is not buying you a safer category. Nothing in lane three is FDA-approved — not the cheapest one, and not the one charging more than $3,600 on top of it across a year. Price does not move you out of that category, and no provider on our table can move you out of it either. So whatever the extra money is buying, it is not review, approval or oversight.
What differs is how the company gets paid, and how it gets you. There are only three real levers, and every one of them is visible on our table if you know to look:
None of that is a claim about anyone’s medicine, and we are not in a position to make one. It is a claim about where the extra money goes: not into the category you are buying in, but into month two, month three and month thirteen — the months nobody was looking at when they chose.
Which is the entire reason this page ends in a table. Rank by the twelve-month total and the scaffolding becomes visible.
Rank all 21 by what a year actually costsA compounding pharmacy mixes a medication to a prescription rather than supplying it in the manufacturer’s finished form. It is legal and it is common. It is also a different regulatory category: the FDA has never reviewed these products for safety, effectiveness or quality, which is not an accusation about any one pharmacy, it is a description of the category. Every provider row on this site says it.
Two-thirds of people who moved from a brand-name product to a compounded one did it because of cost. That is a completely reasonable decision to make. It is a much better decision when you know that lane two exists, what it costs, and how the annual number in lane three compares once month two is included.
You are not unusual and you are not late. About a third of everyone who has ever taken one of these is off it right now, and roughly four in ten restart within a year. The thing worth knowing before you restart is that the pricing landscape changed underneath you: the manufacturer-direct lane did not exist in its current form when most people first started, and several compounded providers have moved their prices twice this year.
Whatever you paid last time is probably not what it costs now — in either direction.
One click, and you can see the whole thing
We keep a table of every provider we track, ranked by what twelve months actually costs rather than by the price they advertise. It shows the starting price, the month-two price, the annual total, and which providers refuse to publish one. It is free, there is no signup, and it was re-checked on September 15, 2026.
See what all 21 providers actually cost
This site earns a commission if you eventually sign up with some of the providers listed, which is how it stays free. It never changes a price, a rank or a warning — the table is ordered by cost and nothing else, and several of the cheapest providers on it pay us nothing at all.
That spread moves. 3 of these providers are running promotional pricing right now, and two of them will not say when it ends. We check every week. Want us to tell you when yours changes?
Your email and nothing else. Not your weight, your dose, or which page you were reading. We deliberately do not store that. No trackers, never sold.