GLP-1 cash price index: $348 a month in August 2026

The three numbers

The gap between the two routes was $121 a month in August 2026. Branded cost 1.68x the compounded route. Compounded medications are not FDA-approved products, and they are not the same product as the branded drug.

The panel median held at $348 in every August 2026 check. It reads unchanged on July 2026 because July 2026's own figure straddles a mid-month move: Hone Health went from $185 to $315 on July 20, 2026.

What moved in August 2026

1 tracked price moved. Each was read off the program's own published page on the date shown.

What a pharmacy pays for the same month

The CMS National Average Drug Acquisition Cost survey records what US retail pharmacies pay their wholesaler. It is an acquisition-cost benchmark. It is not pharmacy margin: the distance to a cash price also covers dispensing, the clinician visit, shipping and the seller's own costs, and a manufacturer selling direct does not buy through a wholesaler at all. NADAC dashboards have been published free by 46brooklyn Research since 2019. What is added here is the join to verified consumer cash prices.

A month of branded Wegovy cost a US pharmacy $1,302 to acquire in August 2026, against $299 for the cheapest verified cash route in this index, according to GLP Chart's reading of the CMS NADAC file effective August 19, 2026.

Packaging, same drug, same dose

Lilly sells Zepbound as single-dose pens and as a multi-dose KwikPen. At the same dose a pharmacy pays different money for each.

The series

One row per month since the weekly record opened. The monthly value is the median of that month's weekly checks.

Method, version 1.0

• Universe. Every program in the GLP Chart index that is active, prices in cash rather than an insurance copay, and publishes an all-in monthly price.
• Compounded semaglutide route. Programs publishing one flat all-in monthly price covering compounded semaglutide at every dose. Entry and starting-dose prices are excluded.
• Branded route. Programs whose primary supply is branded medication and whose maintenance pricing is verified rather than estimated.
• The monthly value. The median of the weekly floors inside the data month.
• Prepaid rates. An observation equal to a program's published 12-month prepaid monthly rate is dropped. A prepaid plan is a year of money charged today.
• Excluded. Insurance copays, introductory and starter-dose rates, prepaid plan rates, and programs that publish no ongoing price.
• Classification. Programs are classified by the pricing model they publish today; the weekly prices are the historical record.

Prices are checked every Monday. Full method on the methodology page.

Revisions

• Revision 1, superseded September 4, 2026. We computed the median over a fixed panel: the programs carrying a valid non-prepaid price in every weekly check. Four of the twelve were on prepaid rates: Ivim Health on a 6-month supply, Lemonaid Health on a 3-month drug plan, Ro on an annual-prepay membership, and Sesame Care on a 12-month plan in the August 31 check. GLP Chart has since moved each of them onto the rate a reader can start on today. Corrected, the August median is $348 and not $307, and it did not move against July: the release reported a 1.32% rise that did not happen. Ivim Health leaves the panel outright, because it publishes no month-to-month route at all, so the panel is 11 programs. Three rows also leave the moves list, Ivim Health 200 to 175, Costco / Success by Sesame 408 to 358, Sesame Care 398 to 358, and one leaves the prior-month movers, Sesame Care 358 to 398. Each was GLP Chart restating a basis rather than a program changing a price, and each is itemized in the price history. Costco/Sesame is restated flat to $398 across August rather than carrying a move: it buys the same Success by Sesame plan and the same $299 Wegovy pill as Sesame Care, whose corrected series is $398 in every week of the month, so its earlier $408 was our own stale basis and not a rate Sesame withdrew. It is not in the median panel, so restating it does not touch the figures above. GoodRx for Weight Loss 388 to 338 is a real move and stands. The method did not change and stays at version 1.0. The other three metrics are unaffected: the compounded floor $178, the branded floor $299 and the $121 gap.

Download and cite this release

Published under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0. Reuse any number with attribution. Nothing here asks for an account or an email address.

Any cut of this data by state, drug or program, within 24 hours: press@glpchart.com.

Every release

• September 2026 (this page), August 2026 data
• October 2026, September 2026 data
• The live price index, checked every Monday
• Every price change, week by week